This is a great start! I love the art, the characters, and the core gameplay. The combat sections were really good and the sound design for the most part is very well done.
The cooking part seems ok. I'd like to see it more fleshed out before I make any real judgements on it, but the basic concepts seem pretty straightforward. With the parts that have already been showed, I can see that you have a pretty in depth system already planned, and I look forward to seeing how it pans out.
Some things I noticed while playing:
- The initial tutorial stage could use text to tell you that you can change colors. Would make it a little easier to onboard new players. Bringing more of the controls knowledge to the forefront during the initial tutorial would be good, allowing you to build more as you introduce new concepts later on. Most of it is fairly intuitive, but any reduction in friction let's a new player get deeper into the fantasy of the game.
- The level design is fine, but it's a little hard to follow where the player should be going next. A subtle use of highlights and lowlights can lead the players eyes to the next section. A little environmental storytelling or landmarking can also lead a player's curiosity to the next area. ie:
- In the initial snowfield area if the pit in the middle was darker, it would attact the eyes to the ramp leading up to the bean bush on the cliff. Similar to how it's done in the next section where there's a fight in the pit, and the ramp up to the next section is brighter.
- After receiving the gun, the player is required to jump off the cliff, but it's not very clear as to where. Looking back, there's an obvious straight edge to do it at, but as a new player, there's alot more noise going on. It doesn't have to be a heavy handed yellow stripe like some games have been doing recently, but something more to let the player know to jump there would be good. Or have an enemy run off it as the player approaches would give them that idea as well.
- The combat section where there's a chasm, it's possible to jump to the upper and lower edges of the map, which is handled by teleporting the player to a reset point on that side of the chasm. Resetting the player is fine (though I would really prefer just an invisible wall to slide against), but it would really help if there was an audio cue, a very small time gap, then a small amount of invulnerability along with something to draw the eye to the new player position (a bit of flashing, a drop in animation, puff of smoke, etc.). As it stands, it's rather jarring and disorienting even when you've realized that's how it behaves.
- I encountered an some odd behavior during cooking, by trying to retrieve the cooked dish while holding prepared ingredients. The prepped ingredients were consumed, I received the cooked dish, but a new dish wasn't being cooked. I'm not sure how it should have behaved otherwise, and I realize that part is still pretty young. Just wanted to make sure it was mentioned.
VOD is available at the link below, and it will be available for 60 days. If needed for longer, please reach out, and a highlight can be created. I apologize for the volume levels, I checked it in the intro then forgot to check it again once the game started.