First I'll address the art style overall the watercolor style of art being displayed contrasting the more traditional digital art style of the characters work really well. The animations of the main character worked really well from the walk cycle, the jumping, and idle animation works really well.
Next I wanna talk about the gameplay on its own. As collective the first few scenes work well to introduce the player to the world and the movement. The only issue I had with the beginning was the lack of explanation for opening what I would consider the inventory of the player. The text boxes were simple but work well for the artistic style of the game.
Upon traversing the world further I grew confused with the level of verticality of the world. At one point it seemed to go up forever in these environment of white boxes, but then I reached a jump that seemed nearly impossible as I neared what I can only assume is the apex of the world. I attempted the jump several times and continually hit my head before falling all the way back down. It eventually began to irritate me and I moved back down to the forest area to travel further to the right. I eventually reached some difficult tree branch jumps, but unlike the previous example was able to clear it after a few attempts. I eventually reach what I thought was the end of the forest being blocked by a white wall. I then traversed upwards after backtracking slightly and eventually ended up in the "Ice" biome. This is where things got frustrating. The black blocks having never been used instantly knocked me down before resetting me back to my last jump and taking away a heart from my health.
This area had lots of leaps of faith where I was completely unsure if the jump of the character would clear the black boxes often resulting in deaths or multiple lost hearts. Having adjusted to the controls and jump height of the character I was confused on the constant failures. The other issue is with the save points for this section. If I died I had to then attempt the same difficult jumps from before. Followed by risking death against those black boxes again to reach a new area. Not to mention the more tight layout of the ice biome created a cramped atmosphere, in addition to the fact that my jump was being interrupted by the platforms resulting in lost momentum and often a loss of heart to the black boxes.
Last Notes:
- I had a bug where the red eyed raven enemy would completely disappear from view as well as its projectiles which resulted in a loss of several hearts with my inability to see it at all.
Overall the art style and gameplay bones are there and I think with more time this game could really be an addictive romp through a world of creatures and satyrs. The movement is satisfying and the gameplay is easy to adjust to even without a tutorial, the controls being so minimal helped me adjust quickly.