Thank you so much!! This is incredibly detailed and valuable feedback, I really appreciate it. And your timing could not have been better as I'm about to announce the official demo release date for Steam!
note 1: the itch demo is quite outdated now, so a handful of your comments have already been addressed :D
note 2: any points that I don't respond to are things that I completely agree with you on and either will be, or have been, fixed!
- "It's unclear why the diamond disappears when you freeze the arrow". Totally fair. I redrew it recently to make it stand out more from the normal diamonds but I could definitely still do more to show the correlation between the arrow freeze and it breaking. I'm gonna try adding the little shockwave effect (that arrow has when it freezes) to the diamond too which might help a little. I also want to add an indicator arrow that points to offscreen collectibles, that way I can make the indicator shatter too when the arrow freezes.
- "after the first (diamond) appears, it would be nice to have a pop-up explaining what the Skin Market is". I just recently implemented this! In addition when you unlock a new skin there's a pop up to let you know and you can it equip it immediately without having to go to the cosmetic screen.
- "Enemies should have a respawn effect before they reappear, so players aren't caught off guard". I recently implemented a delay in-between enemies spawning and them being able to hit the player. I think the ghosts especially were causing a lot of annoyance to playtesters but this seemed to help. Making the colors being more noticeable could also help out here too!
- "Platforms that move automatically and platforms that require the arrow to move should have distinct icons so players can easily tell them apart." Strongly agree. I'm actually reworking the platforms that require the arrow to move so they'll behave a little differently and they should be much more distinguishable.
- The other worlds were just enabled last second before releasing this version so I can get some quick feedback from in-person testers lol. There will be a big message like "Thanks for playing, check out chapter 2 and 3 for some sneak preview levels" in the official demo.
- Also there will definitely be a Level Select option available during gameplay!
Again, thank you so so much for not only playing the game but also taking the time to leave such detailed feedback. This is incredibly helpful <3