Hey! Sorry it took me so long to get back to this. I'm always busy doing this, that, or the other thing it seems... but anyways, thanks so much for taking the time to give me some incredibly detailed feedback! I'm going to get to each of the points you brought up in the order you brought them up in. So here goes!
-Thanks for catching that one... truth be told, the implementation of those buttons was a suuuuper rush job and I just wanted it to work because I realized AFTER releasing an update (silly me...) that those buttons didn't actually do anything, so I kinda just did the scripting equivalent of vomiting all over my screen to make it work in as little time as possible. I've patched it up and it's going to be rolled out with the next update I'm putting out. (this Friday, May, 10th if anyone's wondering)
-I know... everybody else who gave me detailed feedback screamed at me about that too. I fixed it. Everything's WASD in the currently in this version, again... the next update. Also in regards to the camera, I've added a feature to the missions which will allow the player to use the free camera to look a certain distance away from themselves in order to scope out an area, identify a point of interest that they might want to go towards, or make a plan as to how they're going to approach a platforming challenge. There are probably many other potential uses for the feature that I haven't listed, but those little tidbits alone sounded cool enough for me to want to add it. I like adding things that will allow me to "let loose" a little bit more and go as crazy as I want with the project's vision while still remaining in a scope that can be completed on a reasonable timescale and budget.
-You have identified my Achilles heel... sound. I actually have very little experience working with sound in the engine I'm using to create this project and it happens to do some really funny things when you try to adjust sound levels in the engine... so I'm figuring that I'm just going to have to make a couple different versions of my sounds that play at different volume levels to alleviate the issue. It's probably going to be a pain in the rear, but it won't actually be a ton of work... just another thing to add to the endless list of things to do.
-I really appreciate that you made this particular comment about the fading projectiles because I wasn't sure myself if people would be confused about the way they fade or not. Nobody else has mentioned anything about it to me, so the fact that you have just lets me know that it's probably something that other people have noticed and maybe even something that has given people a negative view of the game... I'll probably do something like make them destroy at 30% or 40% instead of the 5% they do now... it is pretty bad now that I'm really thinking about it. I'll have to play around with it and have other people play around with it too to really get an idea of how I should approach that issue.
-In terms of game length... honestly, if you can knock out the whole story of the game in less than 12 hours but find yourself having so much fun playing the game that you continue to play for the extra stuff... that's the sort of "length" I'm trying to go for with this game. I aim to give this game as much replayability as possible in a non random and non "this game is going to take forever to come out" kind of way. The approach I'm looking at right now is sort of taking some elements from Warframe in the sense that you will have access to a variety of characters with a rather limited set of abilities, but a number of other unique traits that make the particular choice of character you make all the more important for what you're attempting to do, some elements from Spelunkey in terms of the way it generates "random" maps from predetermined chunks... which Warframe also does but Spelunkey does it in a 2D environment and in a way that makes somewhat more sense for me to look towards, obviously elements from Sonic Adventure 1 & 2's Chao Garden which I feel like I shouldn't need to explain if only for the purposes of this response not being the length of an actual book........ and the last big point of inspiration, and really the biggest one is Pokemon Mystery Dungeon which reimagined the existing "mystery dungeon" format in a way that I don't think any other game... even my game could come close to, but again... my post-mortem and analysis of those games could be another book all in itself. From PMD, I mostly just want to recreate the feel of having a "team" that you're working with and despite the game being very singleplayer focused... the player not feeling like they're essentially alone in the world they're exploring (which is how I personally feel in a lot of games... but again... another book)
I feel like I've slightly deviated from my point, so I'll close this one with... I know I have issues with replayability... It's the thing that is on my mind 24/7, when I feel like I have a proper solution to it... I'll implement, test, and deploy it immediately, and... umm... hopefully not a) go insane. b) give up. or c) run into a brick wall in development that will cause the game to just not be feasible to release.
Again, thanks for the feedback... thanks for ending on a positive... really helps when actively typing a response to a message. If you want to talk to me about verticality in level design, or my approach to things, or generally want to know more about the concept for the game... because you mentioned everything Chao Garden-like attracting your attention. I feel like you would adore the idea I have for the full concept of the game. I definitely intend to finish the game, even if it has to be something I end up just having to do in my off time and releasing as a scaled down version of what I originally wanted to create for free, but hey... that's the biz... so it's whatever either way.
I'd strongly encourage you to join my discord server because I feel like there's a much better back and forth we could have that could help us both improve in our quest to become better game designers... plus I have cake! There's a link to it in my game's start menu if you're interested. I really would like to keep the group full of people who are genuinely interested in the project and are willing to give it feedback when they've got the time to, however infrequently. Thanks again for the feedback, like I said earlier... really appreciate it!