First of all: great jam entry! Very polished, runs smoothly, and I had a lot of fun playing it. I played on the highest difficulty up to floor 2 and then died for the first time ;) but I’ll definitely come back to it because I want to reach the end.
My initial conclusion after about 15–20 minutes of playtime:
Pros:
- Secrets are great!
- The weapon selection is cool, and I really like the bombs
- Runs smoothly
- Sound design is present
- Nice touch that the character makes sounds
- The level design is excellent! Not too confusing, but still intricate enough that you have to think a bit to keep your orientation — I really like that :) more of this, please!
…now to my suggestions for improvement (this is purely my subjective opinion):
- A bit more variety in textures would have been nice. Floor 1 is quite long, and I would have liked a different environment in the second section — maybe a bio lab, a dungeon, or something else. That would have added more visual variety and sparked player curiosity :)
- The default weapon is quite hard to read when it comes to aiming. A crosshair might have helped. Since the weapon doesn’t point straight into the center of the screen like in Doom, but is slightly offset, it’s hard to determine the exact center. You do get used to it over time though, and I managed fine in the end.
- Some variation in the sound design for the second level would also have been nice. The music is good, and I like the detective-style track, but I feel it fits more with a stealth-type gameplay. That’s just my personal taste :)
Conclusion after about 20 minutes and one or two deaths on high difficulty:
Great game, smooth and enjoyable gameplay with two or three suggested improvements that only slightly affect the overall fun. For me, it’s a bit of a hidden gem here :)