Oh the save points are whenever you reach a cabin. It should say 'saving' in the bottom left with a little animation. Also you can go into the cabin and use the bed to go back to Milan's room. Then using the book there lets you teleport to different save points. The checkpoints are just for longer individual areas.
I'll have to take another shot at that particular forest area as it seems the most difficult so far.
Thank you for playing it and giving me feedback on it!
Viewing post in Aria's Dreamland Dissonance comments
Oh yeah that part. I did try removing the exploding mushroom from that part when I updated the game to V2, though if it's still quite difficult I might nerf it a bit more.
In regards to the rune tiers and wanting there to be a higher max, do you mean just the cosmetic element to it? I am certainly considering adding some more tiers that would be cosmetic only. It just requires a revamp of how the sprite systems work for transformation forms.
I think you are right in that it shouldn't dump all your power when you die. I think I will rework it to where when you get extra runes that you get a kind of buffer against death and each death only takes one of them away. That should make it so it doesn't feel bad to die.
I'll look into making it so you just take damage from falling into pits, (Or maybe it takes a rune instead with the implication being you 'teleport back up' at the cost of one) but it's definitely extra to code yes. I'll work on a more immediate solution for the current builds to have the extra buffers in the meantime since that won't be nearly as hard to do.
Edit: I think I will make it specifically so that falling into a pit will take away one symbol, but death as usual will take them all away and then make the player teleport back up to where they fell.