Creativity ★★★★☆
The idea of rewinding time to complete puzzles is a really fun idea. The staircase surprised me but I knew exactly what to do once it occurred. The puzzle with the cube was great though I wish there was more feedback that the door opened. I wish it was explored more in level 2. If this were to be a full game, I think focusing on the puzzle/rewind would be great!
Enjoyment ★★☆☆☆
With combat being a huge part of the game, it felt very abysmal, the health bars were too big, and damage was too low. I collected all the fireflies and solely upgraded damage because of this. Enemy attacks were very slow that there wasn't a need to use the invulnerability ability until it got to the snail boss. Player inputs felt sluggish, I would forgive the long enemy health bars if the ranged spell attacks didn't require a charge up. The UI was clunky. In the second level the snail followed me back to the shop, I was stuck in the shop with the snail beating me up. When I fled the shop UI did not disappear correctly, I finessed the snail went back to the shop to close it. The lack of feedback for everything didn't really tickle my brain. Even small sound queues like a camera snapshot sound when pressing E on the cameras, or a page flip sound for grabbing or interacting with the books would've helped or at the very least a task HUD.
Art ★★★★★
I can tell where most of the love went into this game, beautiful environments and character design. The custom animations were great, I just wish the protagonist's animations weren't mixamo. But I understand the time restraints. All three environments were beautiful, only thing I can think of is particle effects but outside of that I have no notes.
Audio ★★☆☆☆
Lack of sound queues hurt the project. I don't really have notes for this one, I just wish there was more audio feedback.
Theme ★★★☆☆
The theme being "invulnerable" and having a temporary invulnerability shield works for the most part, the enemies didn't attack fast enough to really warrant using it until the snail boss. But the invulnerability felt very shoehorned in for the sake of reaching the theme criteria rather than building around it. If the combat was improved to warrant its usage more or if there were gameplay mechanics built around invulnerability outside of sponging damage, I think I'd given it a higher score.
General ★★★☆☆
I think the game's environmental art and character designs is its strongest, everyone involved with the art knew what they were doing. The biggest thing for me is the lack of feedback or tutorials. I understood the game mechanically and I saw button prompts on the screen. I talked to the frog which told me about the staff, the book, and implied it needed fireflies instead of money, so I knew the objectives. Only time I've seen a tutorial on-screen was for the rewind features. I think if it was a puzzle platformer using the rewind features more my experience would've been better. If it were to incorporate the theme of invulnerability maybe using the invulnerability shield as a way to deflect or push things around to solve puzzles would've been a bigger hit. Overall I think the combat just was very weak, it was slow, inputs felt sluggish, and with no feedback it didn't feel rewarding when you defeated an enemy. I was a little disappointed when the snail was defeated that it was just an end screen rather than the frog's missing book or even a snail death animation. Level 2 had a beautiful environment but I felt more lost compared to level 1.