Thanks for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
I had the general ideas worked out (2D top down, collecting beads, special beads with powers, arcade game, RPG-lite progression with generic beads, beads in a loop), but after I started work in Godot, I realized I didn't have a real base to work off from. I used Bomberman as inspiration for the main mechanics, since it was already very arcadey and fit my goals and limitations. For the main loop/player goal, I used the Paper Mario Pit of 100 Trials (grab key from enemy, go to door) due to recency bias, I think. The grid based staging, blast bead and player controls are heavily inspired by Bomberman, but other things were taken out do to time, balancing, and being unfun or not fitting (the mentioned RPG progression, having more hit points, being able to ignore the enemies, all the other beads being some sort of projectile). The player goal also changed as well - I originally had the key be spawned in an enemy or in the open in part one, but it was way more fun and less hassle to just let the key be in the open. Testing (especially after the entire game loop was implemented) and working with and around limitations greatly helped to find its unique identity.