Great game, and amazing theme and genre interpretation!

But I have to be honest, after probably over 3 hours of stumbling around and getting hounded by the (admittedly very cool looking) whale... when I found out I needed a second half of the pearl, I was very close to giving up. I did manage to find it in the end, though, and I recorded a little video guide for others who might be struggling! [SPOILERS] (Forgot to make it public, oops!)

The presentation is absolutely gorgeous. I adore the designs of the main character, the familiar, and the shopkeepers, and even the enemies were pretty cute too! It's really impressive how all the models, animation and sound work together to create the underwater setting, even down to details such as the protagonist's floating hair. The soundtrack is lovely too, especially the music in the dark zone and the big trippy ocean level with the yacht!

All the movement and combat looked and felt great as well, though I wish health pickups were a bit more common. I feel like in a game like this, it'd make sense to regain some health after picking up a certain number of shells. The magical girl transformation at the beginning of the level was adorable, but after a while I did wish I could skip it. I also noticed the cat familiar would often get stuck on obstacles and left behind.

On the other hand, the collectible outfits were a great touch! I managed to find all but 2, and my favorite by far was Potential, which I think might have been based on Madoka Kaname? Might be wrong, though!

It was immediately very unclear what to do in the first level (or should I say the overworld/hub area), and had I not read the description, I'd have assumed that was the entire game. The spiral water currents really looked like something I should've just been able to jump into and get launched by without any upgrades. I wandered around for probably around half an hour, and I did try to interact with the black boat a couple times before discovering by chance that I was meant to jump on it.

In general, it took a lot of trial and error to find out how to get the most out of my vertical and horizontal mobility. And even having a rough idea of what my character was capable of, it was very hard to tell whether I was making progress, going down an optional path, or sequence breaking. That first pearl half location in particular was something I had initially dismissed, since it felt like an optional challenge that'd have given me an outfit or a health upgrade.

The giant enemy chasing you for TAKING TOO LONG is a cool idea on paper, but in practice kinda feels like it's kicking you when you're already down. Since at that point you're probably already very lost and unsure where to go, or failing some platforming section for a very long time, and now you're also dealing with having to figure out how to get back to where you were.

The final boss was not what I had expected, and a wonderful conclusion of the game! The sudden change of camera was very confusing at first, but fortunately it didn't take long to get used to it. I liked the variety of attack patterns, although I think either I was a bit slow to beat the boss or it could do with a few less hit points, as towards the end it kept repeating the same attack (rapid teleports followed by a melee swing).

Overall, one of the most polished and complete-looking games I've played in the gamejam, in terms of look and feel! But with so many cool-looking characters just kinda hanging out there, I think it definitely could have used some more dialogue to tell you what even is going on while subtly pointing the player in the right direction. Regardless, great job!

Amazing visuals and Mario Odyssey-like controls. Incredible amount of content for the time limit! However, I was unable to finish. I think this game needs some more guidance for the player to know where to go. It is too easy to get lost and frustrated. I got the glide and geyser ability, and then I wandered for 40 minutes, unable to progress. Sadly, this is where I stopped

There is a lot of potential here. The core of the game is extremely good and polished. I imagined that the vision was that you would do more in the school part of the game (otherwise the whale that tries to kill you if you take too long does not make much sense), but it would be insane if that was in alongside what you already have here

You should keep developing this game. It can turn into something truly amazing

I wish the text at the start of the game didn’t change automatically because i the first text advanced fast since i wasn’t expecting it and missed the text on it. It was a weird choice to have it autoscroll except when the image changes, so you have the “next” to press and advance.

The movement being pseudo-tank controls was a little strange, it made her take like a second to start moving in the direction i wanted her to move, it’s not as noticeable on the magical girl section but i still was able to notice the rotation on it and it felt a little like the controls were fighting me. The character also kinda walks a little slow for my taste, the camera movement too.

After playing for a while, i was very confused where i was supposed to go, no marker, no objectives, i was roaming around trying to advance for where i managed to go through, but it didn’t feel like i was actually properly advancing and instead i was just managing to cheese through.

The time limit on the zone with the whale that kills you was also something that feels like it was intended for a more finished game, because the cat mascot told me to go back to school otherwise the whale that kills you will kill me, but i advanced through the level and i was completely unable to go back?

I also never found a single unlockable ability, but the game page shows screenshots of zones beyond the two small city-islands i was able to go, so i was really confused. Like those tornados all around the world, i felt like they were for a future ability, but i was never able to find such a thing, i tried going everywhere, i tried talking with that turtle that is just around but is completely unable to be interacted with, i tried cheesing through every place to get to the top of the buildings, but i could never find anything but two color changes.

It was a bummer, because the game looks real nice, but it just feels… like im just platforming on a mario 64 level without stars.

The presentation in this one is really wonderful. The designs feel really well thought out and polished. The player was also very fun to control and move around with, though, combat felt lacking in impact. The game ran quite poorly on my machine so I had to put the settings all the way down (not that I have a particularly strong one, but it’s not every day that this happens with a jam game, so worth noting). I didn’t really mind though, it made it feel sort of like a 3ds game.

It has a very nice and polished aesthetic. The bits of voice acting is cool; the voice clips for jumping in particular I found were rather charming. The music is also pretty chill.

To be honest though, I think I didn't get very far into the game, as there seems to be a lot of stuff your page mentions that I didn't see. I don't really want to push through to see them at the moment though, and that's mainly because of the character's movement. It feels... off to me. The base move speed is slow, and no sprint to speed it up makes it feel extra sluggish. Also the character is really hard to control once in the air, which kinda makes thing tough in regards to platforming challenges.

There was some cool aspects to the character though. I liked the dash attack in the air that lets you gain a nice amount of height when hitting a wall with it. The overall movement also has a nice feel to it (outside of the movement speed); feels a little like a Mario game (kinda).

I was taking a screenshot something when the floating cat warned me that I should go back to school, and I actually got kinda scared by the weird whale thing that showed up. My heart was actually racing a bit. I think the bells I was hearing were foreshadowing it, which honestly is really cool and foreboding. The sound it makes when it does appear is also quite haunting. I really like the vibe of this thing, it's great.

I found a boat that took me to some really dark location. I explored a little bit of it, and seeing those glowing jellyfish fade into view to cut through the darkness was kinda neat. I liked the atmosphere provided by the lack of light, but I didn't manage to get very far into the area since I struggled to get past the jellyfish. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to go back there with a powerup or if I can technically do it with the base moveset but the way the movement just makes it difficult.

I couldn't figure out how to get back to the fountain from other side of the gap near the area you spawn at. Had to let the whale kill me to get back to the school.

This game feels a bit too unpolished gameplay wise for me, but I still found it neat. I might come back to it to see what I missed (since I feel like there's a fair amount).

Reminds me of the souls like game where the camera is your biggest enemy. Not sure if there is a way to only use manual camera rotation and ignore the automatic camera.

Aside from that the animation is nice, and the character controller is bouncy and responsive. The character itself is well setup, I can see a bunch of facial expressions there too. 

 The water world was fun to move around and performs various stunts in. I can't say the same for the hub world. I don't think there is a way to sprint and character movement is quite slow.

Overall, it was a pretty nice experience. Keep it up.

I really enjoyed the game. It totally reminds me of Alice: Madness Returns. I liked it a lot.