What can i say for this review except well done. This game was both charming and funny in its own unique way. This was the first jam game i found that made me laugh and admittedly i laughed quite a lot at some of the unexpected jokes and lines of comedy. I will try to cover it all in as much detail as possible for you. My review goes as follows:
Aesthetics, From the very moment i loaded up the game, i was already in love with the art style and direction, from the really nice colours to the beautiful complimentary font, font colour and bloom effects. The art was very well done and every bit of it made me smile seeing it. I also loved the animations that played to display your current health in a diegetic manner which is always interesting to see. It was also a nice subtle touch too to see the players name at the bottom left corner during the main menu.
Sound wise the music was nice and fit with the games overall theme and the sounds were responsive to the gameplay.
This game stuck to the theme of balance in a fun and interesting way and also promoted a message of moderation when eating, whether intentional or not. The leaderboard was also really well executed too! I did try to break it by inputting a second score however was happy to see that it didnt work and that the game remembered my previous highscore and as such never updated the table.
A small side note before talking about the gameplay is that i loved the game over screen quite a bit. It was a nice touch to add the various death messages, one of which being a nice call back to a Spongebob quote which is nice to see, but i was also very impressed with the quality of life edits such as the highscore button. When i clicked on the button i expected to be back on the main menu, so when i clicked back off of the highscore menu i would be back at the main menu but was pleasantly surprised when i realised i was still on the death screen
Going on to the gameplay, i felt it was fun, interesting and challenging, I did however have once slight issue with the gameplay, which was that the controls felt too slippery and the food often moved too fast. this meant that sometimes i would spend a while trying to eat one food because the player would either move not enough or too much when trying to collect it and would move too slow compared to the food in question. It is also worth noting that the level seemed to be premade rather than procedural, which is fine however when playing the second time i already knew where things like the muffin would be which i could imagine could get a little boring after a few attempts, i only played twice so i cant confirm on that however my suggestion would be to have either random spawns like you have when the game is on going or preset levels that randomly pick between each other so that the layout has the illusion of being random when in reality it isnt.
Overall a very well executed concept and if i didnt know better wouldnt even think this was a game jam game made in three or less days! It is very impressive just how much polish this game has and im glad i got to play it!