So I wasn't going to write much about this game but once I started going through my notes and turning it into a proper writeup this comment kind of ballooned.
Let's start with the good: the graphics and the sound. The graphics are simple and retro, but visually pleasing and it's usually clear what everything is supposed to be. Retro and minimalist isn't my personal favourite style, but it usually works and a lot of people like it, for good reason. The music doesn't quite loop which is too bad because it's quite pleasing to the ear. Often I find this type of chiptune gets tiring but that never happened during my fairly long play session.
I really do wish there was more of an intro explaining what's happening and how to play. I generally prefer games with story- in this case, it works fine without heavy story content and some will prefer it that way. Still I think most players would appreciate a small introduction. The how to play thing I'll get to at the end.
I found switching characters very awkward and unintuitive at first. I did get used to it somewhat but it could be improved. It's not clear which character maps to which button or which character is currently active. The order of the keys seems to correspond to the order of the names, but the names mean nothing to me- portraits or even just colors would be better. Leaving one character in place and moving the others can also be tricky.
Combat is also a mixed bag. I found that sometimes I took a whole ton of damage for no apparent reason. Some characters are definitely better than others- the black character is powerful but dies too easily, the blue character is completely useless unless I'm missing something, the red character is the best. The worst thing is getting suddenly switched to a much less useful character after the active one is downed. It was sometimes hard to hit enemies and I found that stunlocking was an effective if degenerate strategy.
The shop only seems to work once. Is this a bug or intentional?
The first time I played this game I got stuck on the first puzzle, the one with four buttons. To be honest, if your composer hadn't clued me in in the Discord, I would never have figured out that puzzle. I assumed that the special abilities were all attacks and had no idea one of them could duplicate. I kept trying combinations of two and three buttons to no avail.
Stuff just happening with no indication what has happened or that anything has happened at all is a recurring issue. There's a reason a lot of games have a click, and Zelda has that little jingle. If solving a puzzle opens a door offscreen I won't notice that it's open.
I did really like the puzzles themselves, especially the light balls/reflectors puzzles. The statue puzzle wasn't half bad either, though I prefer the other type. I'm kind of glad that the push blocks didn't really become a puzzle because I don't like those.
The pacing and length seemed about right. It's long enough to be satisfying but not so long that it becomes tedious. Importantly, no mechanic overstayed its welcome. New types of puzzles and gameplay were introduced before the last ones got too stale. I kind of wish the game had a map, but the world was small and straightforward enough for it to not be a problem.
I think I almost finished the game, but lost all three characters and had a game over on the way to collect the last gem. The lack of a continue option here is a little cruel- I'd already sunk a lot of time into the game and wasn't willing to replay everything again. To be honest I was kind of surprised by the sudden game over considering how forgiving the respawn logic was.
I'd like to see more quality of life features in general- this game is on the edge of needing a save feature- but in a jam it's not uncommon to see those fall by the wayside.
With all that being said, for a first game it's pretty damn good. It has a lot of what I would consider beginner mistakes, but it has reasonable gameplay, visually pleasing graphics, and audio, and it seems to be completely functional. It's not my favourite game in the jam, nor do I think it is the best game in the jam, but it's on the same level as a lot of them, and if you hadn't mentioned it was your first game I never would have figured it.
I think the biggest piece of advice I'd give is to consider that your audience is coming from a place of zero knowledge. Your game may be easy, its systems and plot completely straightforward to you, but things that are obvious to you may not be to the people who play your game. It's essentially a black box, and they don't know a lot more than what you tell them. Of course determining what to tell and how to tell it is the big challenge. You do want to make your players feel smart after all.
Going back to the puzzle I nearly got stuck on, this is a dead easy puzzle if you already know how to solve it. Even if you only know the mechanics, it's still pretty easy. But I had no idea one of the characters could duplicate- actually, for the first few minutes I didn't even realize I could switch characters. I looked at the layout of the pots and thought that was a clue to which three switches I needed to hit- no dice. I think that introducing this mechanic early on was a good decision, but you need to actually introduce the mechanic in some way rather than assuming the player already knows it.
This game definitely has its flaws, but it's pretty good taken as a whole, especially for a first game.