Thanks for playing! I'm glad you noticed the battle loop I was going for... when I realized that leveling, items, etc weren't going to make the cut, I refocused the combat around the balance you mentioned! I'm happy to hear it worked. I did do quite a bit of playtesting, but credit goes to my wife for giving me a cold dose of reality. She played it twice, and I MAJORLY re-balanced after her first attempt.
The animations definitely took a big chunk of my time, but I'm happy with the overall result! Better transitions are definitely something I'd have liked to add if I had more time. I have no excuse for the jump sound... I'll fix that once uploads are re-enabled (they are close for judging)
Thanks for the feedback on the art! I was trying a different style, as I often do. I tried to simplify everything for easier animating, but not sure if it really saved much time in the end. Line weights are something I've always struggled with, I'll have to make a conscious effort to work on that. I was going to try animating in Clip Studio Paint, which would have given some additional line control, but chickened out on learning a new workflow for the jam. I defaulted back to Adobe Animate (flash), and the paint brush tool is pretty tough to control line weight. There is that pencil tool I guess (sound of crickets...)
As for the characters themselves, I appreciate your thoughts and suggestions on the designs! I was pretty happy with them overall, but I'm glad to get some feedback and hear what's not working from the outside. I don't know that I'd do this style again, but if I do I'll probably refine the character designs!