My playthrough thoughts:

• The graphics, sound, and overall polish are at a publishable level and far exceed other games in the jam.
• Controls didn't need to be explained and just worked the way I intuited.
• The character feels clumsy and imprecise to control, with inconsistent jump heights, and can sometimes get caught on corners or even briefly "unravel".
• At the start, it wasn't obvious that I was supposed to be unable to use the gun yet.
• I like that the gun is used for movement.
• The gun's large spread makes shooting also feel clumsy and imprecise.
• Sometimes the gun doesn't shoot at where I'm aiming, especially when I'm aiming upwards (not talking about the spread, but the average).
• I couldn't beat the first boss that I encountered (the spider boss). I now see in a comment below that I was warned about it, but during the playthrough, I had interpreted that warning as a kinda "It'll be a difficult challenge, but you can do it, good luck!"
• Overall, I had some fun! If the movement and shooting were much more precise, this would be a game I'd definitely buy.

Great game! I love using the gun to jet pack around.

The art feels very crisp, it’s easy to see what’s going on with the background being the right shades of the same color so it’s not clashing with the foreground, a small detail I appreciate. I also like the parallax effect that background objects have, along with the character, particle effects, and enemy animations. It makes the game feel polished and I can tell you spent a lot of time on it. Also I appreciate that you have a save system in place, which is impressive for a game jam game!

I agree with some of the other posts on the controls and bosses. Some feel too punishing, the attacks need to be a bit more telegraphed to give more time to dodge.

Also I think you run into the same issue that I did when making my metroidvania submission, which is to say that they are really hard to balance. I spent too long on your spider boss not knowing that you can get health upgrades later, which makes the fight much easier.

Overall, I can tell you spent a lot of work in the game. Good job!

Love the over all vibes and art work, you did a great job! As someone who also did a very challenging platformer type game, I thought the movement was great! Seemed intentionally unwieldy in a good way I think :) However, I couldn't figure out how to get up the first spiky wall section! I don't seem to have enough bullets to get the high up, and it only reloads on the ground - am I doing something wrong? I'd love to keep going and play more :) 

Last thing was I didn't see much in terms of the theme Waves, but maybe that's because I didn't get very far...  

Whenever I tried to play this game (now a fourth time so I could write this detailed feedback) I inevitably left with a sour taste in my mouth. Making it difficult to leave an objective review.

Let’s start with the good. The art style is fairly high effort, especially the background assets. Moving clouds / gears / mountains. Give the game a dynamic art feel whilst using clean minimal sprites.

The background music and sound engineering is pretty good. The sound of the gun and the primary music loop are quality enough and decently mixed. The sound effects like jumping, exploding are also not bad, though less well mixed.

The plot setup / story is in the background, getting out of the way and getting us into the world as fast as possible. For this kind of game it’s imperative that storytelling be background / emergent, and this game wisely doesn’t overload with cutscenes or dialog.

Finally, it should be noted that this is an ambitious project of considerable scope. A lot of hard work went into this, it’s not a low effort clone of an arcade game or ai generated slop. This is worth noting and commending.

Now as to answer why - despite those positive traits - I have consistently left this game with a negative sentiment. This can be entirely boiled down to the controls.

The secret to a good souls-like, is in player mastery of the mechanics and world. However in this game, such mastery is actively discouraged by 3 fundamental problems.

First, the movement and control of the character is obnoxiously floaty and unresponsive. Meaning about half my energy at all times is directly put into counteracting overshoot or trying to compensate for abysmally slow velocity changes.

There is also a bug, which I believe is due to the spinning effect that aiming has on your character, where your character can “collapse” and be unable to move to the right, because it’s trying to spin you to the left.

This is less problematic in most of the game, but when it hits whilst dodging a difficult enemy or boss, it is absolutely infuriating, feeling incredibly unfair and causing immense amounts of ill will towards any notion of repeating the boss fight. If I lost because I’m bad, that’s something i can improve. If I lost because the games bad, I have better things to do with my time…

Second, is the firing of the gun. As a concept it is an interesting idea, but there are some fundamental problems with the implementation and how it is used within the level design, that make it a painful mechanic where it could have been an enjoyable one.

The unreliable spread of the rifle means that trying to shoot enemies is already annoying. Unless you are fairly close, the bullets are liable to spread around your target harmlessly. This is immediately a poor choice; it feels clumsy and unwieldy to use the gun. But when you are later put into clutch situations where you need to rapidly take out 3-4 enemies who have your number, the inaccuracy of the weapon makes you loathe the decision. It just is not fun to shoot enemies with this thing.

Oh and that’s before you consider the fact that the weapon also physically moves your character. Meaning that while you are trying to compensate for spread, your character is being moved in some direction, further putting off your aim. If my first shot had arrived where i wanted it to go, then i could compensate for the moving, but if i have to fire for a variable amount of time to ensure a hit, I also have an unknown amount of movement i have to compensate for.

This is then compounded when you try to adjust / compensate on the fly for being put out of place when you remember that the movement in general is incredibly unresponsive and floaty as hell.

If this was a puzzle game, and i had to traverse levels with a poorly firing weapon, or solve lazer puzzles by shooting levers… This could all be forgiven. But in a 2d souls experience the net result is that combat feels unfairly punishing, unskillful, and for a decidedly difficult game - just plain infuriating.

This is of course all compounded by the fact that the effect on your character from the inertia of the gun fire is highly unreliable. Sometimes the rifle sends you flying, other times it has barely any effect on you at all. Meaning that not only is the combat experience negatively impacted by this poorly implemented primary mechanic, but additionally the platforming component (i.e the primary mechanic itself) becomes a chore.

Thirdly, as an insult to injury, the aiming reticle is maligned with the trajectory of the bullets. This is compounded the further away you are from the target. i.e up close the difference between intended aim and bullet trajectory is minimal, whereas at half a screen distance, the bullets are arriving 15-20 degrees away from where I was aiming them.

Combine these 3 factors and you have a 2d souls like that is at best just not very fun in moment to moment gameplay, and at worst rage inducing when facing clutch bosses, as it refuses to let you in to it’s mechanics or allow you to build mastery.

This is by far the biggest let down of the game. A much tighter player movement with reliable physics, more precise aiming (or at least greatly reduced spread on the rifle) and a correction to the misaligned targeting reticle, and this game would immediately be more playable.

Each of the four times I played this game (3 attempts at initial review so I could make sure my ratings were fair, once more because the developer was complaining on forums that they prefer feedback over only ratings so I thought it prudent to come back and give them some) I eventually rage quit because the terrible controls caused me to lose a boss fight one too many times. And i would leave thinking “I have better things to do than fight with terrible gameplay”

Finally, let me sum up some of the other things I didn’t like about this game.

I should mention that the ammo reloading seems arbitrary, it has something to do with being on the ground, and a certain amount of ammo missing… but it doesn’t feel reliable. I never actually RAN OUT of ammo, so i think it’s only there to prevent you from permanently flying with the mechanic. But I would have preferred it ALWAYS refill as soon as you touch the ground, or reliably go down to empty and refill itself.

The theme interpretation is lackluster. Perhaps further progression into the game would reveal more interesting meaning behind the sin / cosine labels on the enemies heads… but as best i can see the developer decided they wanted to make a metroidvania about propelling yourself around the map with machine gun bullets, and then contrived ways to make it about waves after the fact.

If the gun had been, say, a sonic blaster, shooting waves that moved the player around, with interesting interactions like refraction or interference patterns… that would be something to behold. If the theme of the game had been oceanic or more overtly math / wavelength inspired, that also would have been more interesting.

Finally finally. I should end this feedback with a disclaimer that whilst I had consistently negative experiences with this game. I could definitely see some inspiration and real talent for game development. If the developer could invest some time into the core mechanics of their game, I believe this could really shine.

I really fucking hate giving negative feedback, and this is probably the most negative review I’ve ever given. Good luck with the jam, continue to grow and challenge yourself.

I played crazy hours of Coup Aloo so I felt obliged to play this game even if it's not in my queue, it's a pleasure to share this jam with you!

I'm super impressed by the level of polish you achieved in one month. The movement animation,  game design, the music it's all there among the best this jam has to offer. My only concern is how the dynamic moves of the camera gets my character too much screen left or screnn right to the level I can't see what to anticipate. It's not a big concern, considering the checkpoint system and once I got to know the map, but it took me some time to adjust to. Such a great job, congrats! 

I found a minor bug as well, maybe a feature, can't really tell. Somehow I jumped I think under this guy, just wanted to let you know. 

other jam participants, please if you can rate this game, give it 5 stars in my name

It looks like a finished game. I only have one question: how to shoot?