So a couple of things:
1. I'd like to point to Worldless as my inspiration for the character, as I'm not that great of an artist but Worldless still manages to have simple yet beautiful designs!
2.I don't know if you managed to actually die, as after dying you could select upgrades to improve your damage in various ways. The main concept was that each death would make you stronger and stronger until you essentially insta-kill the boss. Not sure how dashing was faster than a normal attack seeing as they both had the same amount of damage.
However if you're reading this, I recommend you try to get your maximum health down below 0, as each death reduces your maximum hp by about 20%, I added a "game over" animation that you may enjoy