I love this. Best game so far. Engaging enough that I played it for 17 mins, because I wanted to get to the ground floor. It's claustrophobic and tense. Took me a while to realise I get more time by attacking enemies than going for items. For a full game, no doubt you'd need more variety in the room designs, enemies etc., but the office space you've created is surprisingly rich in detail. I like moving around with the torch/stick. Music is engaging. Likely needs a bit of balancing to make it harder to get out – I found I just needed to kill a few enemies and I'd have plenty of time to run down 10 flights. And I'd make the items worth getting – right now there's no point going into a "No enemies" room as you're bound to come out with less time than you went in with. Maybe make the speedy-item also last for longer as it typically just gets you down one floor... which you could have done faster by not entering the room. Also, I'd love a 'surprise' boss level at the end... like you think you're just going to go down stairs and reach a door, but you find you've got a corridor to navigate first... and from about floor 5 you start having enemies coming up the stairs at you (ones that don't give you any / much additional time).
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Wow, thank you very much for your insights! I appreciate your time writing the review.
I'm glad to know you enjoyed my game. The aesthetic and level design were one thing I really was happy with. I really look forward to adding more variety to the design in future builds! There's definitely a lot left to be redesigned in the item and enemy departments. I have noted your suggestions down; thank you so much for them.
Balancing-wise, I actually did quickly rebalance it before the deadline; you can try it in the Windows download version. (It's the [HARD] V1.0.0 one.) However, I believed I overcorrected a tad too much, as I found it to be too punishing for combat-oriented players, making Hell too risky to even try entering. Even I couldn't finish it myself, haha. So, I decided to let the web version be the easier version (the [EASY] V0.8.9 one) instead.
Lastly, that Boss Fight idea plus enemies in the stairwell are such banger ideas. I really dig them. They're very congruent with the theme I want to go with and fit neatly in the setting. Thank you very much. They will definitely go into my to-do list for future development of this game!
One extra detail: when an enemy was in a doorway or just the other side of it, I couldn’t hit it, even when in range. I had to either go through the doorway myself or wait for it to come through.
Good luck with the next iteration of balancing and the upcoming changes. I look forward to playing it again. (FWIW I didn’t get dizzy, but maybe that’s because I kept going into rooms.)