Hmmm - lack of support for a thumbstick on a gamepad was a bit off to me - ideally, both dpad and left thumbstick could be used for menu navigation and gameplay. Also, having barrels with coins for 'free' behind obstacles negatively impacts the pacing of the game. After dying, instead of immediately going back into the fray to try to overcome the boss that killed me, i spend half a minute on getting the first room of barrels (because I'm not gonna leave gold behind, right?), heavily messing with the tempo of a rougelike game
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Thanks for the feedback! I'll definitely add thumbstick support. That was something I completely overlooked. For this type of game, I usually exclusively use the dpad, so I didn't even think of it. Shouldn't be hard to add, though. As for the pacing, I'm thinking of add checkpoints before the bosses, because a couple people have said they just do not enjoy having to go all the way back to the beginning. Maybe I could have a screen at the end when you're rewarded based on certain things, like if you beat it without using checkpoints, or beat it without getting hit. I originally planned to add checkpoints, but the game being short led me to try out a kind of roguelike thing, but I'm not sure if it was the best choice. For the pacing issue of having to stop at all the barrels, maybe I could just make the barrels break in one hit, so you aren't stopping and starting as much, and slightly reduce the amount of coins they spawn.
I think making the barrels break in a single hit won't address the core of the issue. Getting to them first time tests the player in some way and the coins are the reward. But once the player finds the barrels and knows they are there, it is just a time sink - no skill is tested, no effort or curiosity is required, just a ritual that "yup, i need to get those barrels first, otherwise i'm playing suboptimal". At least that's how I think about that and I believe making those barrels persistant would be a better solution (once collected barrels don't respawn in subsequent runs, they remain destroyed forever on that save file - player was revarded for their exploration, and cannot abuse "reexploring" the same part over and over again). But again, this is only my opinion and I'm sharing it only because you asked :D
Thanks! I'll think about it. I've just started implementing checkpoints. Making it so barrels and collectables don't respawn after loading a checkpoint makes sense. I think I'll try it out and see how it feels. On the other hand, they are kind of meant to feel like coin blocks in super mario. You can collect coins if you want to, or you can just run past. If you die before getting to the end of a level, you rarely go through it slowly to collect everything, you usually just run to the end, to get back to where you were. I'll have to experiment with it a bit and see which feels right.