The aesthetics and music were top notch for a jam game. Loved the smooth movement and the direction plus button press to allow for diagonal movement was a good way to handle a tricky problem. I think my biggest issue is the menuing felt clumsy which made engaging in the combat clumsy, especially when you are required to use abilities to get through the opening. Adding a hotbar with the abilities available to the player would have helped a bunch or some other way to quick cast abilities. Alternatively I think the menuing might feel a bit better with 3 changes:
- Allow for selection wrap. If I press down when I'm at the bottom of the menu, move the selector back up to the top.
- Selection memory. Remember the last index of the menu the last time I was in that menu. For things like abilities it really helps when the ability I use 80% of the time is the one already highlighted.
- Cancel button to exit. This is a bug I think as you do have the button to cancel on the right but it doesn't actually close the menu. This would allow missed inputs to be corrected much faster by the user.
These 3 changes should make using the menus feel a lot better to the player.
One other thing, is that I played with a controller on my second pass through and the movement felt really good on the controller. I suspect you played on controller?
Great job and have fun out there!