This one was really neat. I loved the art, especially the movement, and the backgrounds were mostly on-point as well. The boss was actually really nifty. Having to switch characters is mostly effortless, but it would have been better if they'd all been on the left D-pad (that may have been for some future plans that don't show up in this demo, but it mostly just made things a little trickier. At one point in my playthrough it seemed like I was going back to start instead of back to the last save, and then when I went to the menu and continued, I couldn't really move after death, except in menus. But that was fixed on restart so I was able to finish the demo.

This is a neat entry! I really enjoyed the art direction - the tilesets using the diamonds as a way to tie together the rocky areas and the grassy areas looks great

The character switching for abilities is neat, though I admit it toook me a bit to discover I could even do that

Each character has obvious strengths that you play to very well in both the level design and the enemy design

The lack of checkpoints feels a little brutal tbh - I expected the healing totem thing to serve as a save/check point

The background art is stellar, and really helps set the world and mood. The lack of outlines on objects is an interesting choice and you executed it very well!

Congrats on submitting!!!!!

Lovely tech demo! The gameplay mechanics were implemented well, and I do like how the different enemy types encouraged you to use both players. Zeke's parry was very satisfying to pull off and is probably one of the best things about the game.

Here are some observations I noticed while playing:

• The long bridge puzzle becomes impossible to solve if you don't activate a certain target at the top-left of the area of the cave before jumping down, as you won't be able to make it up without Thissa's climb ability.
• The second boss phase's solution was not very well-telegraphed at all. I think it would've been better if you, for example, made the salamander's head glow red as it was charging, to give the players a hint that they should be doing something to it at that point.
• Thissa's wall-climb is a little bit too slow and janky, I feel like it would have been smoother if you gave her a wall jump to complement the climb and gave the climb itself limited stamina, like Celeste does.

No other complaints, though! Everything else is pretty neat!

This game has a ton of potential! The multiple character concept is a really unique idea for a metroidvania, and it is woven into the story quite well. The art, character designs, and animations are all really lovely, although as others have mentioned, the soundtrack is a bit repetitive. I do have quite a bit of feedback around the implementation of the combat and boss fight, though:

- As others have mentioned, not being able to use Zyke's sword in the air is quite frustrating, and makes some of the enemies impossible to hit without taking at least one damage.

- It would also be great to have some auditory feedback when the sword hits an enemy to distinguish it from just swinging at air.

- The common enemies took too many hits to kill, especially when you might have to backtrack through a room for the target puzzle and kill the same two enemies 2-3 times.

- The boss' two phases were both very cool and had well telegraphed weakpoints, but each of them had some frustrating idiosyncrasies. The first phase's forward movement requires you to be moving in the opposite direction, and when it begins its attack it suddenly moves farther backwards, this means you have a frustratingly small window to cover the reverse distance and then parry. The second can also be frustrating in when it chooses to spawn its attack target. I was often finding it spawning when it was directly in front of a wall, providing no opportunity to shoot it, so I would just have to wait until the next time. And the amount of damage the boss needs to be defeated means that these issues become heightened by the repetition of facing them over and over again.

Sorry for the wall of text, but I do see lots of potential in this game! So if you work on tightening up some of these more frustrating issues, I'm sure it can become a really great experience!

This was a cool demo, the character switching is a fun mechanic and it was used well to explore the world. The art style has a lot of charm and while I see that other people have been commenting on the music, I like the general vibe it has going for it, it was a very relaxing playthrough. I liked that each character had a very different function and using Zyke's parry attack was particularly satisfying. I also think it's awesome that you have the game detecting if a controller or keyboard is being used - it's a small quality of life thing, but I really like it.

Some areas where I struggled:

- I had to put the game down once cause I couldn't figure out what to do after I got Layla, even when I came back a second time I only accidentally switched characters (I was trying to go back through the door to my house to see if that would trigger anything, so I pushed "up" and there she was). After switching it took me awhile to switch back to Zyke, the distinction between up and tapping the right control stick was pretty strange to me, I would have preferred to just have all the characters be tied to the d-pad (I was playing on controller).

- The first boss was a very cool concept, but it was pretty hard to figure out and felt a bit inconsistent at times. I definitely liked that each character had their own role in the fight, but these would be my suggestions for improvement: 

a. give a bigger timing window on the tail swing windup, it was pretty stressful edging just ahead of the boss, especially when I wasn't even sure if I was supposed to try to parry such a fast attack. A roar or visual queue that it's about to swing could be helpful too. 

b. For the parry, I found myself whiffing half of the counter attacks, so the first time I even parried successfully the salamandar just ran straight into me and I wasn't sure if I was doing it right.

c. For the arrow phase, I think it's cool that you have to strategically plant yourself in front of the salamandar, but the rate at which fireballs came out was inconsistent and frustrating at times. It felt like playing chicken with the salamandar. Some of the times I'd jump down off the platform he was charging at and as soon as I did that's when it'd queue up a fireball.

Again, really cool concept for a fight and good utilization of characters, just some areas that can be polished to make it a more enjoyable fight.

3. The long bridge puzzle was cool, and I liked the room that had the hidden wall clues, but I definitely only found the final switch because I missed a jump while backtracking. It was also kind of strange that I could find solutions to the puzzle before even finding the puzzle itself. I heard a noise when I threw the first switch and knew that something was going on so it's not all bad, but I think these kind of puzzles are more effective when you present the challenge and then make the player explore to find the answers - the first bridge puzzle to the right of the town was really good for this.

Oh, I also encountered a bug where the first time I died after saving after the first bridge crossing I respawned back at the very beginning of the game. Quitting out to the menu and continuing my game brought me back to the save point and I didn't encounter that bug again.

Overall I had a good time playing through the game. The switching characters concept is super cool and you've got some really good ideas in there. I'd like to see it or something similar to it developed further. Good job!

I must admit I got a bit confused (and still am) about how to fight the first boss, the parry to do it damage initially worked.... but once it started flying across the screen I didn't work out how to defeat it... I kept parrying as it flew past but it didn't seem to take any damage...

So I am only commenting up to that point.. But I liked the graphics the sound was minimal but still good, story was nice.

Playing on a gamepad, some of the controls were a bit odd (switching between characters for instance), but worked well on keyboard..

Looking forward to coming back (and hopefully working out how to kill that silly Lizard)