This was really fun. I got so much more out of this than I expected.
Some elements that I particularly liked;
1 - His hat being the health indicator. The way that the hat bounces off your head when you land, and needing to pick it up to get your health pip back is brilliant. It feels good, its charming. Great.
2 - The firing mode being linked to whether I am on a wall or not is great - it ties it all together, it was fun to think about my positioning and was an elegant way to avoid using a second stick for aiming, or locking the aim all together. Great. I acknowledge that others might find the gun frustrating to use but I thought it was great. It is not so much a gun as it is a part of the platforming challenge. Its not a power fantasy.
3 - I thought the difficulty was well tuned, no issues with getting through levels and enough deaths to keep it interesting.
4 - Loved the moment at the start of the 'boss level' of the first area where suddenly you are faced with new music and a tight group of 20 or so bats above you - great change of pace, and super fun.
5 - Placing the torches automatically as you go is super charming - adds to the atmosphere and a very well designed touch.
6 - The way the vendors in the cave would spawn in when unlocking them was very satisfying. Good work - though would be nice to see generally more 'movement' in that cave space once they are unlocked. Steam coming out of tubes, rumbling the ground, more ambient sounds super local to which machine you are standing near - etc etc.
Some elements I would focus development toward
1 - The text font feels placeholder, something with some more *feeling* would be nice.
2 - The game has a lot of charm - a bit more feedback whilst in the game space would be good. The hits and grappling/sliding on the wall feel a little lighter than they should.
3 - The UI should change if I am using a controller - additionally, I found 'Button North' (Y) as the universal button to interact a little strange. Really feels like 'Button South' (A) would have been more logical -> though I dno if the choice for Y is to keep elements in the game points 'upward'? I dno - felt odd, and with no UI to tell me this was the case I did miss the interactions in the cave for a moment at the start.
Thanks for this -> super good.
Our team has https://itch.io/jam/feedback-quest-8-indiegames-x-indie-streamers/rate/3773442 if you had time to go and have a look. Its in a similar space to your game, so might be of interest. It is super challenging though - be prepared!
Thanks again,
Rollmop.