Seems like i can't leave my review through the rating system (i'm guessing character limits so I'll just leave it here:
It would be really helpful if the game included more auto-saves or checkpoints—especially after completing certain tasks.
For example, when unlocking the first door, I had to solve a kind of switch puzzle, which was fine, but later sections where you have to slip on the water to jump through floor gaps became really frustrating.
I died a ridiculous number of times there, partly because it felt like the jumps sometimes didn’t register properly—or maybe I’m just not very good at that part.
Still, having to redo the entire lever sequence every time I failed made it feel pretty punishing, to the point where I ended up quitting the game. I’d strongly recommend adding checkpoints right after completing things like the switch puzzles to reduce that frustration.
Anyways, the character designs are honestly amazing, and the pixel art overall is super impressive. That said, I found the scenes kind of lacking and a bit boring. Mostly because they’re just looping animations with no variation—they don’t really switch things up or evolve as the scene goes on. On top of that, the scenes are just sort of on a boring grey background that isn't even fullscreen, instead of being blended into an actual background (but honestly overall this wouldn't be as big of a nitpick if at least the scenes were fullscreen). It really breaks the immersion and takes me out of it.
It’s also a shame that you’ve designed such amazing pixel art characters but don’t really do much with them. It honestly feels like the game wants to have pixel art scenes—it’s almost screaming for it—but they’re just not there. I really hope you’ll add some in the future, because I seriously love their pixel art designs.
I totally get that stuff like this can be tough to pull off on a limited budget. Still, I really hope you manage to succeed regardless—there’s a lot of potential here.