Thanks for playing!
I can't imagine how much work went into this to get the art looking as good as it does currently as well
Not much to be honest. I'm avoiding making assets like fire. It does have quite a bit of rendering, particle and lighting effects though.
which forced me to be in close combat with enemies, so I ended up focusing more on jumping than shooting
That's actually a good thing I guess, but I need to make it less overwhelming for players at the start. For a skilled player tight spaces turn into an enemy meat grinder.
I can see the addition of a faster run option being helpful, maybe it could work like the rodie run in gears of war.
There is a mechanic for "running", but it's easy to miss it in the tutorial because it's very subtle.