itch.io

I have lots of little suggestions that will definitely take some time and flushing out to pull off and I don't know if it falls in line with your vision of what this game could be, so that being said feel free to ignore my specific suggestions for improvement.

THE GOOD FIRST
Love the simplicity art style and lighting/atmosphere. The level/maze design I feel is good but underutilized and could use some more environmental elements to really embellish the game's feel but as is is fine for a simple project. The music is top notch. The evil laugh responses are fun, however I'd recommend getting a better sound recording of them to make them a little less low quality... to put my finger on it... feels like the laugh recording/distortion effects are lower quality than the rest of the game sounds so it kind of sticks out. It's a very low priority item however so nothing game breaking, and just something I noticed.

NOW FOR THE REAL CRITIQUE.
1. The gameplay loop mechanic is simple enough but in my opinion it just wasn't fun due to being way too simple. SO if you want to improve the game's FUN quality, I'd highly recommend revisiting the behavior of the monsters and how the player interacts with the environment. As far as I can tell this game is a maze where you're running from ghosts to find the wand... ONE SUGGESTION, you KIND OF HAVE a stealth mechanic but not really, or rather it is quickly overwritten by your enemy/monster behavior: IF PLAYER CROSSES INVISIBLE BARRIER ON UPDATE HAVE MONSTER MOVE IN DIRECTION OF PLAYER'S POSITION... REPEAT INDEFINITELY UNTIL DEATH OF PLAYER OR MONSTER. I'm thinking "Metal Gear Solid" type of stealth gameplay.. example: Enemy patrols, more enemies, shorter patrol routes, maybe a few that have longer patrol routes and meet up with other enemies patrolling potentially cornering the player before they're even spotted. ADDITIONALLY include in the enemy behavior a LINE OF SIGHT mechanic, and once they lose sight of the player the monster actually doesn't know where they player is anymore and rushes to the players last known location and begins looking around. Add hiding places like vents or boxes, or a pile of dead corpses or something the player can temporarily hide in, and so long as the enemy soldier didn't see them when they went into hiding they won't find them. IF you want to make it even harder, have the enemies begin checking the hiding places and while they're checking their vision is narrowed giving the player who might be close by and opportunity to run around the corner and continue their mission of finding the witches wand.

SUGGESTION TWO:
Games I love to play have a sense of real progression wheras this in it's current state has this feeling of... Player punished for progressing and now has to start over. SO, instead of making the player start over with now having to face more enemies and they once again for some reason... no longer have their wand which you could've swore you just found... again... for the 4th time.... MIGHT I SUGGEST INSTEAD that after the first level the witch keeps their wand... Maybe put some limiters on it for example... the wand can only kill red ghosts, but not blue ones... in order to kill the blue ones you now need to find the next magic item to make your wand shots more powerful, and powerful enough to kill the blue ghosts.

Then by the last level have some insane challenging moment where instead of just 13 or 17 ghosts... maybe it starts with that but as soon as you get the final item 500 ghosts come flooding in screeching and clawing towards you. Have the enemies always move faster than the player.. perhaps implement a dodge mechanic and a cooldown for that or a stamina bar and a magic bar. Hide magic potions to refill depleted magic, or heck items to pick up and craft a quick potion for health or magic, or temporary power or speed boosts... etc. etc.

Don't have to go with any of those suggestions BUT off the top of my head I think they could improve the "fun" aspect of the game and give the player something to invest in and commit to.

KEEP AT IT ULYSSES7! Maybe this game was just a quick one-off side project and you're off to your next game idea in which case no worries, BUT if you intend to keep working on this game hopefully these suggestions sparked some kind of inspiration of something you could do different to make the game loop more fun and exciting, because as it currently is the ghosts can never catch me. YA NEVER KNOW!!! A few tweaks here and there and you might be onto something... "magical" ;)