Very nice game! I loved the design of the player and the enemies, especially the shooting bird guys. I really liked how they hide back in their egg when they don't have line-of-sight to you, I thought that was a neat touch. The dying and respawning animations for the player are cool, but they started feeling a bit slow after a few deaths. I think cutting out the second of delay after your character has already disintegrated would help a lot.
The environments look alright but don't really match the characters in my opinion. The world looks pretty grounded for the most part while the characters look like they belong in a more steampunk setting, though I guess time limitations were a big factor here. Many rooms feel a bit large and repetitive, making it hard to tell where you're supposed to go sometimes. On a few occasions, I felt like I was in a copy-pasted version of a room I was already in before, but with different entrances and exits. On the other hand, the handful of health pieces I was able to find were a fun little extra challenge and a nice motivation to explore.
The black-and-white segments didn't really feel like they contributed much to the game, other than making those parts harder due to not being able to see your character. I'm guessing they were an attempt to incorporate the theme, but in all honesty, the game doesn't come across as very "minimal" with those monochrome sections being so few and far between. They could have been a great stylistic choice if the whole game was done like that (and if you could see your character), or perhaps if there was a mechanic like the Subspace from Super Mario Bros. 2 where you can temporarily make the world "minimal" to solve puzzles or find secrets. However, as it stands, they were kinda just a minor annoyance.
The music is nice, although the main theme seems way too cheerful for the overall style of the game. However, I do like the change of tone with the more somber versions of the theme in the later areas, the song playing on the big bridge being by far my favorite of the ones I heard. I think the contrast between the different remixes could have been an even more effective storytelling device if the early areas were also more friendly-looking to match the happier music.
As someone who has never played many 3D platformers, the controls were decent enough to get used to. Sadly, I wasn't able to take advantage of the gamepad support, since I'm one of the weirdos who likes inverted Y-axis on the right stick, and the option wasn't available here.
It does feel like it takes a while for your character to stop, especially out of a sprint. The ledge grab is definitely a great lifesaver and very appreciated, as often it was easier to jump early and aim for the ledge, rather than try to land on the platform itself and end up overshooting. The limited turning while sprinting feels kinda overly punishing, and the whole steam mechanic (while fitting for the character) seems a bit unnecessary gameplay-wise, only serving to slow down the game by making you wait or run back and forth sometimes.
In general, it kinda felt like the solution to most puzzles was to just sprint and jump, and at times it was hard to tell if I was following the intended path or sequence breaking due to how tight some of the jumps were and how far you could go at full sprint.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get past the big bridge, as the gap seemed too big to make even with a full sprint into hover, and I couldn't figure out how to interact with the floating head guys. I tried left-click, right-click, bouncing off of them, but nothing seemed to work. I'm guessing there's probably something obvious that I'm missing here, and I'm open to hints and advice because the game is a lot of fun and I'm curious to see the rest!