itch.io

That was really nice ! I enjoyed every second of it :D

Some thoughts :
- I really I could have played with a controller. The game page mentions you could not build a web version, but I really care about here is controller mapping. Seeing what you achieved, it seems clear to me that it would have been fairly easy for you to add it and the game would have been much more enjoyable to play ! Not that it was bad, but this kind of game clearly require it in my humble opinion.
- Got so scared by the sound of the character jumping out of the water xD it made me laugh, and maybe it was on purpose, but just so know it scared so that if it was not your goal, maybe reduce the volume a little bit :')
- Gameplay is great, it works fine, and it has a nicely made pacing so it was truly enjoyable. I had some trouble getting used to my range at first but it came pretty fast. About the blood mechanic forcing you to fight not to die, I think it lacks some explanation. The UI is the only element that seems pretty obvious to me, but since it looks like a classic health bar I did not realize it was reducing, and the blood coming at you when you kill an enemy is too discrete for such an important mechanic. The thing that had me die once because of blood is that I wanted to explore a little bit, just out of curiosity, and well my character just died while walking :D and I thought : if you need to fight without stopping, maybe the map has no reason to be large ? Don't get me wrong, it's far from huge, and I also understand the waves get bigger so you need more room, but maybe it could grow on size with wave index or something. Also, I perfectly understand that it's a jam and thus there's no tutorial, which if you had the time would have avoid me to die like an idiot haha. And about the health bar, just wanted to say that I'm in love with the blood animation!
- A mechanic that I did not use at all is the dodge roll. I didn't feel I needed it since my character was moving fast enough, at least relative to the enemy attacks, even ranged one or the dashing enemies. I took some damage from those attacks, but I was not used to the roll since I never used it, so most of the time where it would have been useful, I didn't have the reflex to use it, compared to a game like Enter the Gungeon (I might be wrong but seeing your roll animation, I would say you got inspired by it :p) where you roll almost all the time since the very beginning because you're forced to (which is great for a game made by a studio called DodgeRoll...).
- I'm sad I could not destroy the crates :( there are only few elements in the environment, so I was expecting the crates to have some interaction. Also because ground and walls are both grey, so seeing an element with another color, really standing out, made me think it was here for a purpose other than decorating or collision.
- About the artstyle, I think the game looks charming and everything has been polished. What I would just say is that I found the ground too clean and smooth for a dungeon ground, and the point lights did not help because they made it shine too much. I also think the game could have been a little bit more saturated and way more contrasted : I found it more beautiful looking when the player is low on health (at least for the contrast, obviously the post processing coming with it would not fit anytime, but - hopefully - you get my point). I also think your main menu doesn't not credit the game. The start button seems placed randomly, same goes for the title, and the inputs are taking all the bottom of the screen, which makes it look like you did it in a few minutes at the end. Not a real issue, but since it's the first thing you see, you should polish it a little bit :)

Other that all of that, it was great ! And to be perfectly honest it's making me want to work on a game with a same art direction haha, I really love it and I think you nailed this 3D pixel art style. Again, gameplay is great and I did not say anything about juiciness because here again it seems clear to me that you spent lot of time on it, it's really well made, feels great slicing enemies and killing them while not being too much, great job for that.

Hope my explanations were clear, feel free to ask if some were not due to poor english :D