Hello Neat Games!

Firstly, hats off to you on pulling this off solo! I quite enjoyed the way this game plays. Onward to the feedback!

Gameplay/Story:

• Pretty straight forward premise at the start which at the same time you planted the seeds for more to come with the demo. I look forward to seeing how the game progresses and if it meets my anticipation.
• The spear mechanic is great in combination with the acorn mechanic so far! It makes me wonder what more you have in store for the games progression as the world expands in complexity as well as secrets to uncover.
• I did notice that the first area left little to no teasers of future mechanics, such as currently unreachable paths and sealed access points, if there are any more mechanics to see later in the game, I would include some hint of this in the demo as it helps players to know that there is more to come and helps build excitement and curiosity.
• I ran into a glitch where I died and the game locked up. here's the VOD. If it doesn't skip to the right spot it's 1:48:20 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2564528724?t=01h48m20s

Audio:

• The existing sfx sounded good for what I heard but I felt that a lot of audio was missing from the environment and traps. As an audio person myself, my rule of thumb is that everything that moves could have sound. It would be nice to hear sounds from the statues, gears, the electrical traps, the spinning saw blade, platforms and even more from the creatures.
• I felt the intro sequence lacked audio to fit the action and urgency of the situation and left it feeling less excited than I could have about getting into the game.
• The biome music was fitting and added to the anticipation but there were some off moments in the music that sounded jarring and broke the mood. I think it is something that comes with AI tools at it's current stage, which is unfortunate. Still amazing coming from a solo dev though. If you'd like to talk more about adjusting the music, feel free to reach out! The game has a lot of potential and opportunity for a wonderful OST that I hope you will eventually seize it. 

Visual:

• As a colorblind player, I generally don't judge visuals like most other do but I approach it from whether or not I as a colorblind player can enjoy your game. From what I saw, there was nothing that affected me negatively or prevented me from enjoying your game. The background did not clash at all with any of the gameplay content. If you ever want someone to test out the visuals for colorblind accessibility I'd be glad to give you some feedback!
• Everything from the artwork and appearance of text, both dialogue and map titles, felt professional and clean.

Other Feedback:

• I'm not sure if there was any purpose to the heal mechanic allowing you to stay charged as opposed to just healing you once it hits maximum. I felt that mechanic could be smoother.
• For an action game, I don't like to usually see solid and straight life bars because then I'd need to observe and pay closer attention to the number of health remaining or make a guess based on how much life I have left. Like Zelda, Hollow Knight, and Ori. Although Metroid itself does use a bar, I prefer how games like Mega Man at least have visible divisions on it. Nothing game breaking but something I figure I could suggest since it doesn't look like you are dealing with large health numbers in the game.

Overall, I really enjoyed the game and hope to get a chance to play the full game!

Thank you for your time and for all your efforts in creating an entertaining game for us to enjoy!

Regards,
- Glim

Solid - there has clearly been a lot of time put into this one. I really enjoyed everything that I got to play but admit that I likely didn't get as far as I should have. 

The spear felt good to use. It was intuitive to both fight and platform with. 

I like having a central element like the spear to tie together all of the mechanics. It was nice how quickly the game got started, and the starting puzzles/platforming was all well sign posted and easy to get in to. 

I found the text effects a little distracting, and whilst I think movement on the core ideas in a string of text, or highlighting certain words is great - I think having all of the characters enter and behave as they do is a little off putting. 

Good work!

Our team has a submission too, if you get a chance we would love to see you over there!

https://itch.io/jam/feedback-quest-8-indiegames-x-indie-streamers/rate/3773442

This was lovely, and I absolutely can't wait to try the full game!  I'm sad I only allotted so much to try this demo, and admittedly don't think I got all that far.  As a fan of Metroidvanias, I love this as an entry into the genre.

I did have trouble reading the dialogs.  I usually remember to mention my disability on stream, but I forgot during this one. Where it comes into play more here compared to other games is how the font is spaced (the space between letters is similar to the space between words), and especially the text effects.  The text effects are really awesome, but if it's not too late in your development, it would be great to have that as a toggle for accessibility reasons.

A few other critiques:

1. The game pauses in background, it would be cool (especially as a streamer) to have a setting to have this behavior not happen so that the audio doesn't stop while on a different window.
2. The options select
3. The Sound Effects slider doesn't have it's own audio feedback.  It would be a great quality of life change to have small sound effect play when the slider is released or periodically as the slider is moved.
4. The interact prompt is a hard to see.  It's very small and still.  If it had a pulsing or bobbing effect it would stand out a bit more.
5. The map features are pretty good, especially being able to see yourself, your spear, and various pathways.  However, there are a couple things left to be desired.  Certain pitfalls look like they are traversable by jumping into them, but the player is hurt and reset instead. It would also be really great if there were different kinds of custom map markers the player could place upon the map to remind them of things to come back to when they unlock additional powers / keys.  Showing unlocked respawn points on the map would also be very helpful as well.
6. The store after a the first boss fight had an interaction icon that didn't respond.  I first bought the item then tried to talk to the NPC, and they simply walked away from me instead.
7. I ran into a weird glitch that allowed me to expand out of ball form while in a narrow area.  I wasn't able to subsequently replicate it, but I thought I'd atleast bring it to your attention:
   https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2562667033?t=0h44m7s
   
8. I'm not sure if it's intended, and it's not necessarily a bad thing, but I was able to hit something while changing directions.  It would be pretty cool to pull off a melee hit on two different enemies from two different directions doing this.

The VOD is linked below, and will be available for 60 days.  If needed for longer, please reach out and a highlight can be made:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2562667033?t=0h8m48s

Thanks so much for the game! 

What a well-designed Metroidvania! The way the areas open up feels so natural. I barely got lost (and I always get lost in games ><). The puzzle platforming with spear and turning into a ball is super fun and clever. 

I really love having save points right before bosses. I could keep trying after dying without much hassle. The only thing I’d love even more is an option to switch the prompts to gamepad icons, since I always prefer using a gamepad.

Hi from Feedback Quest 8!  I really enjoyed playing YesterSol's demo tonight on my stream.  As a fan of metroidvania and platformer games, this game hit a lot of the same happy vibes that games like Ori did.  I loved the mechanics of the spear being able to be both a weapon and a platform.  I wish I had more time to play it during the stream so I could check out the Lifebloom abilities, but I was able to get an idea of what kind of abilities would likely happen down the line.

I loved the graphics and the music and the sounds were good too.  Very much wishlisted for when it's ready for release!  

I didn't notice any kind of bugs or issues running the game.  The only thing I wished it had was a separate control for throwing the spear versus melee, instead of it being automatic based on distance.

VOD link: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2556703658?t=03h40m46s

Play it on Steam Here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3939220/YesterSol_Demo/ :D