THE GOOD PARTS
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The color palette is nice. I really enjoyed the colors you picked for the game; they feel easy on the eyes and it gives a nice touch to the game.
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The music is OK. It conveys the intended emotions of the game well enough so that it complements what you’re going through when you’re playing.
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The controls respond well too. I have no complaints when it comes down to the controls and that’s something to be thankful for in a jam entry.
THE BAD PARTS
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The boss is unfair. It took me a good couple of tries to finally defeat the boss and it was mainly because (unless it works with patterns and I couldn’t be bothered to try to learn them), there was no way of knowing where would the boss attack from, which resulted in deaths that feel somewhat cheap. The boss itself is fine for a jam entry, but its attack patterns make it more a fight based on luck than anything else.
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Huge map with nothing in it. The enemies you have to kill to get the topite [an in-game collectible] that allows you to progress in the story are right in front of you when you start the game; this is great since it allows you to quickly retry the unfair boss fight so the friction is highly mitigated there. With that being said, what would the purpose of a big map be if you’re not encouraging the player to explore it? It could be just a few squares in size and it would have had the same amount of impact as it does now. This issue is heightened by the fact that the boss traps you in the spot and doesn’t allow you to move freely when it spawns so the size of the map becomes irrelevant once again.
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There’s no loop here. It seems that the interpretation of “loop” for this game was in the map layout, which is a bummer because the map becomes so irrelevant that is practically impossible to notice that if you walk in a straight line the map “loops” you to the other side of it. Although this is a valid interpretation, it’s so disconnected from the game itself that it could easily not be there and just a few people would notice (myself included, because I love to try to break games).
CONCLUSION
Give this one a go. It’s a decent jam entry with controls that won’t frustrate you and a boss that, in the words of the developer, is “easy”. To me, it turned out to be highly unpredictable, and I ended up dying more than I should have because of that. It’s OK, though, it’s easily attributable to the time we have to develop these games so it’s not such a huge deal.
Try to explore the map, kill a couple of enemies and THEN go for the boss, you’ll experience the whole game since it’s a bite-sized experience that leaves you with a good enough impression.
A nice game overall! Good job!