This game is really good! Really, really hard (or maybe I'm just really bad, ha), but also really good. I was only able to make it to the first green biscuit room, where I was eventually forced to accept defeat, but the game is so tight that it got me to stick around through some much tougher gameplay than I'd normally be used to, so I think that speaks to how satisfying everything feels and how good it feels to succeed. Some notes:
- I love the title screen, and how it's connected to the game itself! Love it when games do that. That being said, it took me a bit to figure out how to actually start the game - perhaps a faint control scheme fading in if the player doesn't get it after a few seconds might be helpful.
- The visuals are excellent, simple but so clean that I could eat off of them, PERFECT for the aesthetic you're going for and very pleasing, albeit maybe a touch harsh to look at for long periods of time due to the high contrast.
- The control scheme is interesting and the main character feels responsive to control, albeit maybe a bit TOO responsive -having to constantly tap in a rhythm just to go in a straight line hurts the wrist after a while, and with how hard this game gets, a difference of milliseconds can screw you over. The obstacles do a really good job of forcing you to keep moving, though, keeping the pace fast and forcing the player to think on their feet and take advantage of momentum.
- Speaking of, the level design - in all honesty, a lot of this is probably just a skill issue, but you mentioned you might have overtuned the difficulty, and I'd personally be inclined to agree. I had to give up on the first green biscuit room after about half an hour of attempts. Which was really frustrating, because your level design skills are, in general, REALLY GOOD! You introduce mechanics well, you build on challenges well, you make things tough but not completely absurd (in theory) - I especially like the screens in the magenta region where you have the option to go through the moving obstacles or put your rhythm skills to the test and try to squeeze through a smaller gap and avoid the obstacle. That said, the rooms get way too tough way too fast, in my opinion - so many rooms have gaps that are nearly impossible to squeeze through, some have multiple in a row, and with how difficult the main character is to control in a consistent manner, this made things very frustrating at times. That being said, I basically never felt like a death wasn't my fault - the controls are all skill-based - it's more that the game was asking so much of me at every turn that a complete mastery of the movement by the start of the green area felt like a necessity, and I just don't have the timing skills to achieve that. I can think of a few ways to alleviate this, if you do want to make the game a bit more accessible without dismantling the great levels you've crafted - the most obvious, I think, would be to shrink the player's hitbox by about a pixel on each side, or moving the walls just a bit further out literally everywhere, just to give a bit more leniency when trying to squeeze though gaps only about as big as the player themselves.
- Alternatively, if you want to preserve the difficulty of the levels, you could instead maybe double the number of checkpoints, or potentially even go for a checkpoint-per-room approach. On the one hand, the feeling of actually having to traverse the area a bit each time you die is kind of nice, really makes things feel connected, and it really makes getting a biscuit feel satisfying, but on the other hand, having to travel ten full seconds just to get back to where I died in the first green biscuit room really made it difficult to actually get good at the room's challenges. Maybe I just wasn't using the warp enough. I've been told in the past that, generally speaking, having a checkpoint immediately BEFORE a major challenge can be best, since you'll be dying a lot there and having to go all the way back can add insult to injury - not sure if that fits your vision for the game, but maybe it'd help.
- On the other hand, everything else about the respawning I enjoy a lot. The sound effects and visual effects are solid, quick and curt and not ear-piercing, respawning itself is really quick even if the travel time can be an issue, and needing to press Z before you start falling is really nice quality of life.
- The music made putting up with the difficulty a whole lot nicer, because MAN is it good! Having a song for each area is REALLY nice, especially with the sort of buildup as you move into the magenta area. That said, having the song constantly reset as I died in the first green biscuit room and got sent back to the white zone got pretty grating.
- Valdor IS so cool! His entire sequence before the magenta section was hilarious, well done to whoever wrote and voiced him,
All in all, this game is very frustrating, but it's also super addictive, and it makes me want to keep playing - I can't right now, but perhaps one day I'll return. It's clearly not made for me, since I have bad reaction time and bad timing, but it's still fun regardless, so take that as you will. If the game does end up a bit rebalanced, I'll definitely be back, but I'll probably play more regardless eventually. Great work, sorry I couldn't experience more of it!