The premise is really great! The trans joy of the story is really lovely, as is the ace representation through Irradiance. Cock TF wasn’t something I saw coming, but I loved the implementation of it here - it was enhanced by the eager consent that is present through the entire game. I also love the ending; it always pleases me when games find a way to give a nod to the player and any re-playability. Also want to give credit to how polished the game is - save slots, transitions, pausing, volume controls, great animation work; there’s a lot of care being put into things people don’t always make time for in the jam!
Unfortunately I didn’t vibe with the actual gameplay itself; I felt more like I was fighting the game to advance rather than improving and mastering the mechanics. Specifically, the gameplay is both punishing on an environmental front (no skip buttons for the statues, no prior warning if skip is unavailable for mares, Brisk’s hitbox is a tad too small, timing for the statue platforms being punishingly tight, forcefield hit-boxes aren’t as clear as they could be, too many moments where you’d just miss jumps) and on a controls front (jumps feel a little sluggish to react and floaty at first, too many deaths where I’d try to position for a jump and slip off instead, occasionally wouldn’t register jumps when hitting platforms, could spam-fuck statues but not mares, could skip sex with mares mostly but not statues).
The double jump is probably the worst offender of the above. Thematically? It makes sense, with it jetting you backwards. I also see the vision to make difficulty a larger focus of the game as well (it was really interesting seeing you talk about it’s implementation in the discord and love your philosophy of “sex first” gameplay development). Unfortunately it’s rough to use in gameplay. It turns the cognitive load of “when do I jump again” into “am I facing the right way, have I timed this right, am I at the right angle?” and when combined with the aforementioned tight environmental design would 90% of the time have me jumping the wrong way anyway. It’s an increase in complexity for no gameplay payoff.
I would have DNF’d this if the skip button wasn’t available so I was extremely thankful that you added that! As it stands I had to skip four of the last levels due to the jump controls/statue fucking being both too painful on the hands and too sheer a difficulty spike. Very glad I got to see the end, regardless!