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I don't think any of the player's moveset should be "allowed to be difficult".

Yeah, I think certain moves can be challenging to do/use, so long as not all moves are difficult. Throwing an axe mid-dash to alter your trajectory and squeeze through a tight space should be tough. Just hitting the first enemy you come across shouldn't be. Like I said, I planned for axe throwing to be secondary in general as an element of combat, but then I didn't implement the regular axe attack (I treated the axe tossing as movement, which I worked on and tweaked first, so while hitting an enemy with the axe isn't great, movement with the axe throw is highly consistent in the air).

I'll definitely be adding music and SFX to the prototype (as well as improving the axe throwing) after the jam ends, but for now it'd be bad faith to add it in ^^; I had plans but didn't budget my time appropriately for it.

Thanks! I agree, the gameplay is definitely lacking. There's a lot of challenge to both keeping track visually with the upside down world and the axe throwing. Originally I planned to have normal close range attacks as well, similar to Hollow Knight combat, but I ran out of time implementing and bug fixing. If I were to do it again, I'd put more into the primary world that you can visually see (even if they aren't perfectly clear, but at least more clearly hinted at) and make the reflected world more something you have to take a pause to look at (like moving your cursor to the top of the screen, or hitting the up arrow / w key).

As for the axe throwing, oof, yeah. Even building it and playing a ton, I couldn't figure out how to make it feel as good as I felt the rest of the game's controls were. Maybe if the axe were more linear in its path it would be easier to judge, or maybe if I helped auto-aim it. Ultimately I gave the axe normal gravity and figured "it's allowed to be difficult, since the primary form of attacking will be close-range," but it ended up being the only way to clear out enemies, and that's a serious issue. Maybe if I reduced the gravity of the axe to make it fly more straight, or if I put no gravity on it for the first X seconds of travel then enabled gravity, it would be easier to properly aim. I did originally have a full projectile path hinted when was working on it, but it was visually way too much clutter and also, uhh... couldn't aim down lol. Math is hard when trying to calculate the future, and my formula didn't work for negative angles.

Yeah, I made the choice to sleep on Friday instead of implement audio. It's not a choice I'm happy with either, but in terms of my personal goals I wanted to make this game as visually appealing as possible. Too often I build something that works but looks like garbage, so the past couple of game jams I've more-or-less built visual tech demos more than anything. The camera system I wrote during the jam to do what I did is something I can take out of this project, refine a little, and move into my shared library, for instance. I agree the game overall is more frustrating than it is fun, mainly due to the axe tossing mechanic feeling like it's fighting with you rather than working with you.

Thanks for playing my game entry though! I'm glad I at least managed to check the one box I was really going for ^^; Time for me to re-focus on fun over fidelity in the next jam.

Eyyy

Ha, I doubt I'd have won, but I'm proud of what I made ^^;

standard ASWD/arrow key movement, click to shoot a spitball platform.