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(+1)

Right, first of all, I beat the game with all 7 hearts! For context, I've beaten both HK and Silksong, so once I saw those (very wacky) keyboard controls, my first instinct was to grab my controller, which worked great, which I'm very glad for. Maybe let people know this is a game where controller works best!

The gameplay is simple enough, pogo off stuff, kill stuff, get hearts, then survive the last phase, easy enough - unless of course the camera moves just as quickly as the character, in which case everything feels really dizzying and hard to follow. You used Hollow Knight as a reference, which is good, if you look at how the camera there works, there's a delay/smoothing effect where the players' fast movements aren't INSTANTLY followed, they're on a kind of delay with an ease in, so that if you're doing quick bursts of movement, your eyes have a chance to follow and breathe into the motion, rather than having to instantly see the whole world shunt half a screen, this is especially useful when performing pogo actions, as it gives people much more of a chance to position correctly for it. Trust me, I beat Silksong with beast crest, so I enjoy a good pogo challenge, but that heart on the right (not that one, the OTHER one, you know the one I mean) has really tight, punishing pogo, and the camera just exacerbates that difficulty. 

The camera does affect the combat too, but I have a separate issue with the combat, and that's attack telegraphing. The slimes (whilst, in a regular interval) have no telegraphing on the attack, which makes it basically inevitable that you take damage from it (or at least from the enemy room on the left), even if you're good and use the ranged attack parry (which was fun to use, btw!).

You did compensate for this extra difficulty by being generous with the pots I will add, but those two things of camera movement and enemy attack telegraphing are two things HK and Silksong are both *exceptional* at, and its worth taking another closer look at how that looks and feels in those games to get a sense of how you could adapt those techniques for yourself. Otherwise, very good first attempt at a platformer! <3

(+1)

Thank you very much for the detailed feedback!! I really appreciate it!

I was planning to mention controller support, but unfortunately, I realized after submissions were closed that I'd forgotten to include support for the heal and bullet actions (possibly more? I forgot.) But you're right, I should've still mentioned it. I also kind of just ported HK's keyboard controls, which I know most people dislike. I will be looking into alternatives if I ever make another platformer.

I knew something about the camera felt wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was, so thank you for the in-depth explanation!! Also, great job on the beast crest thing no wonder you managed to find all 7 hearts lmao (I think I never took off the hunter crest)

You're totally right about telegraphing. The slimes actually played a little squash-and-stretch animation right before attacking, but I guess it was too unnoticeable. I will be putting more effort into that from now on.

Glad you liked the parry! It might be my favorite thing about the game. I have always loved the parry from Dead Cells, so I knew I had to add a similar mechanic.

Thanks again for the effort you put into this feedback! I will definitely be incorporating these tips in the future!