itch.io

This was very creative, I love it. Awesome cinematography too with the perfectly cut fireballs (Is this what cinematography even is? Idk lol).
Altought I need to say, found it a little funny how it escalated from a single forest to the destruction of the universe on a single page flip x)

Fun game, and I like the character designs.

The dragon might need a buff tho, on my second run I killed him on a single flamethrower while still on the first Rabbit wave lol (but hey, I guess we could just say flamethrower is overpowered too)

Very satisfying game, and visuals + sounds are super sweet. Story was also funni.

There's not much to talk about actual gameplay tho, and there seemed to be no punishment for dying or taking damage, but I guess that's on the spirit of it lol (For the better honestly, since you can take cheap damage when entering a new room by spawning right on top of an enemy, so if there was any punishment that would've felt pretty bad)

Recoil would get out of control too quickly lol. Besides, you can dash throught the enemies, idk if you noticed or not, maybe I should've made that more clear, but oh well

Thanks for playing tho!

That's a very funni and charming one defintielly x3
Pretty creative too. Love the option to crash the game.

Not much more to comment tho

Fine game, altought still a little rought around the edges to be honest.
The upgrade system idea is very cool, and that Archero-ish gameplay was also unexpected and I'm all in for it. Visuals are also pretty nice.

I couldn't really push myself to play for too long sadly tho. The movement is a cool idea as I said but it do feel kinda sluggish at times, and the hitboxes are also too big, specially considering most of the time you're fighting on narrow passages, so maneuvering around to dodge stuff feels pretty janky. (The shield upgrade does help to alliviate this problem a bit tho)
The enemies can also shoot from offscreen, wich is never a good sign

I also missed feedback for when anything happens, when you hit the enemy or the enemy hits you the bullets just dissapear and takes your hp with it, sometimes you may not even realize something hit you.

For a 72-hour game tho, this is still pretty good anyway

That was sweet. I can't recall when was the last time I saw a visual novel on a jam so that's pretty unusual too.

The art is super beautifull and the story itself is also very endearing. I also love your extra little message at the end, felt very human :>

I don't know how to give much more feedback than just that tho, as I said Visual novels are quite unusual lol, But I certainly wouldn't mind a world with more of them.

Ohhhh, I didn't realize you could move while holding it damm.

Thank you tho, I'll try again later x)

Very cool game but I don't think it's possible to get throught this room on-beat

duh-dah----duh-dah(?) - YouTube

(Don't mind obs lagging at the start lol.)
(Might write an actual review coment later, just wanted to point this out for now)
(Edit: wait a bit youtube is being unpleasant. Ok raw link it is)

Anything is good I'm sure. (Or at least it was last time I participated lol)

Don't worry, when a jam is focused on only one or the other it's usually always clear on the page

Okay, so, I kinda really wanted to love this game, but sadly I can't all that much...
Like, I can FEEL all the love and passion that was put into this, I really can, but there are a lot of tiny things that kinda add up and makes things less enjoyable sadly.
I still had a fun time with it tho, even if pretty short. The TV Npcs are actually really charming and funni to have around, And I also really like Elina as a character, both design and personality wise (Altought honestly, cute anime witch is definitelly my weak point, I am just fully unable to not love any character of that kind)
all the character designs in general are extremelly cool honestly, I really love how this hoster looks, specially on the dialogue portraits, but the actual sprites aren't anything bad either, even thought a few enemy animations look very iffy I must admit.
I'm really sad that the main character isn't an original asset tho. Like, I wouldn't mind if it at least looked like the character I'm playing as, but man, that's clearly not Lumina lol (I would probably not even realize it was an external asset if it wasn't by you guys showing Lumina's design actually, I only know it is borrowed from somewhere else because other people pointed it out)

The music is also really good, and I really appreciate the addition of a music player lmao, as unecessary as that might sound xD
I would actually love having that main theme (Ethereal Frequencies) posted somewhere like youtube or such, it's really that good. Only complaint I have here is that the music in-game doesn't have a smooth loop, it kinda just stops awkwardly before restarting, but oh well, not the end of the world.

Now to some actual nitpicks tho, the level design is really rought as it is right now. There's just a lot of big rooms that feels pretty empty and with huge blind jumps with spikes on the bottom. Try making every room to have at least a little bit of "regular platformer game level design" instead of making "big open explorable squares", if you even understand what I mean that is, I really don't know how to explain it properly.
Combat also feels very aimless as of now, since it's just spamming attack button inside the enemies and they die, witouth real knockback or any kind of impact at all on hit, and the enemies's attack animations also feel very weird for having no real windup or telegraph before coming, and also have no impact on hit (IF I got hit by someone at all that is, I genuinelly don't know since combat REALLY lacks feedback and polish)
The first boss also felt really weird as, he didn't really attack me at all? I'm not sure if he even has any attack already programmed but on my fight he just wobbled back and forth and let me just slice him up for free.

Also more of a weird thing to complain about, but the first dialogue between Lumina and Elina feels very awkward lol. Like, it really lacks some naturality I think, I don't really know how to explain. Perhaps having more portraits to better convey different expressions for the characters would have been nice, but considering how high quality those are I assume you just wouldn't have had the time to do it unfortunatelly. At least Elina got very likeable afterwards tho, at least for me, but I'm probably biased xD (Lumina not so much tbh, she felt kinda awkward during the entire game, altought that might also be side effect of both not having multiple portraits and also not having an actual in-game sprite, so she really felt like she wasn't really part of the world you know.)

And I guess that's it, sorry for the essay lol. I'm definitelly keeping an eye on this if you go for smvm tho, I Need more of Elina. I also recorded my playthrought altought I don't think anything interesting happened on it, but if you wanna see it anyway then just hit me up.

This was a trip indeed.
Not a lot else to say honestly x)

I have the same complaints as Falcon already pointed out right below me, as in the first Boss's lack of telegraphs and the audio for some reason was super buggy and choppy on some areas (and It was even buggier on fullscreen for some reason)

Otherwise very funni little game, I love the shitposty aesthetics, and some of the dialogues made me genuinelly giggle, specially the ones from Barac-uda and Alucarp x)

I recorded my run too if you wanna see it, but there's really nothing special on it aside from the choppy music, so... yeah

Yay finally got around to play this!
First of all, really love the art, it just oozes charm everywhere, and Rhubarb is both adorable and charismatic, I wanna hug him. Heck, even the music is charming, Impossible not to vibe to it xD
Not to mention the intro and ending (wich was also really funni).

Gameplay was also super duper smooth, I took a big while to really grasp the grapple controls, but even while I sucked I was just having so much fun, sad thing that the game ended right after I was starting to actually master it for real, but hey, no problem there x)
Difficulty curve also was very on point, I really did feel like I was learning a little bit more of the techniques at every new room, so level design also has my praise (Altought while on that topic I have to say that there were a few places that felt like blind jumps, wich aren't good, but not enought to really impact my enjoyement that much).

Only real negative thing I have to say is that, this isn't really a Metroidvania, you know? Like, it was very linear and straightforward. Wich isn't a bad thing by itself, but hey, we're on "Metroidvania Month" after all. And having that idea in mind I did try to explore a bit, I attempted to reach a few higher areas that seemed to be openings, but obscure invisible forces blocked my path, wich was a little dissapointing I must admit. Like, no problem on making a linear game, that only affects one of the criterias after all, but if there are places you don't want the player to go, make it very clear that this is the case, never make the use of the evil obscure invisible forces.

Oh also, if you hold the "down" key, Rhub will loop his walking animation while staying in place, but I don't consider this a negative because it was mildly funni.

And I guess that's it! Still super fun game overall. I recorded my run too, so hit me up if you wanna see it.

Okie, this one was just awesome honestly, I loved it way too much. That artstyle is just too adorable and the music is also very cool!!
Gameplay is also on point, movement feels really great, altought kinda sad it doesn't really evolve out of the very very basic. The proc gen actually works extremelly well, I'm quite surprised to be honest, amazing work on that, altought I assume this system costed actual cool habilities, since everything is pretty much just "a key to a door",  wich is a bummer, but hey, still impressive nonetheless.

That said, the game itself is still too simple for me to really have a lot to comment about, so I guess that's pretty much it.

Now to a few nitpickys tho: Both the player character and the sawblades keeps on moving during screen transitions (As in, while the screen is still pitch black) so sometimes I took some very cheap damage from either a sawblade I didn't had the time to react or to a spike that my character threw himself into before I could see what was on the room I just entered.
Also, when you die at Retriever mode, you need to manually set it to that mode again, otherwise if you just retry from the get go it puts you back into Finder, wich wasn't the end of the world, but was mildly incovenient.

And I guess that's it really. I recorded me playing if that ever sparks your interest as well, so if you do then hit me up for it.

There you go then!

About the tutorialization tho, I think it's cool for the grapple jump to stay as somewhat of a """secret""" thing, but yeah, If you wanna do stuff that actually requires it, then you should have taught it more directly at some point. I think the ideal here would be for the early game to be designed with only the straight grapple pull in mind, and only introduce the jumping later on near the end.
That first health upgrade I actually had problems with the first jump only lol, everything else felt fair enought, altought as you may notice on the video I didn't actually try to do that little section with the glide, since I could still get the upgrade by tanking the damage anyway, even if it felt a little wrong to. (I'd prefered if that section was a little longer, as in, making it actually impossible to beat witouth gliding, because otherwise it felt like I was just missing some kind of technique rather than I was supposed to backtrack to there later.)

But as I said, it was still plenty fun tho, looking back at it now I kinda wish I took some more time to explore more properly, since it did kinda feel like I speedrunned the game in some way lol, even if I played it twice just to check that one place on the last room. But hey no problem.

Ok that one was really fun, I love it. Graphics are also really charming, and the music is a banger oh boy, but I kinda already expected that since I was already familiar with Orange's work from Discord x3

I actually don't really have a lot more to comment on it, it's just cozy grapple fun really. I took a while to figure out the controls, but once they clicked I really just went wild, it was awesome. Altought I might say that the level design felt like it was made with the "grapple-pull-momentum-jump" in mind, but I don't really think this technique was really tutorialized anywhere, or at least not that I noticed. I can't really tell for sure tho, I grasped it pretty quickly so it was just natural that I abused of it the entire game lol, so I have no clue how it feels to play witouth doing that constantly. When I discovered how to do it I went "Aha!", you know? Like, it felt like it was supposed to be something more advanced. (Or that's just an effect of me playing Celeste's last level before it, idk, it's a possibility too, because you know how that level goes right? xD)

Nitpickys tho: I am really not a fan of how the glide is tutorialized with blind jumps. Like, this way it felt like the glide was a bandage for them (Because there are indeed a few blind jumps here and there, even if not enought to be bothersome) instead of something you'd use for actual challenges with it, but fortunatelly this concern was momentary since you actually made me use it properly later on.
It also felt like it was a little impossible to avoid taking damage sometimes, not really sure how to explain why tho (I do believe I may just suck tho). Like, the first health upgrade near where you get the punching, is it even possible to get it witouth taking damage at all? I tried a few times, but it didn't felt like there was, unless I'm missing a way to cancel the hook pull that I didn't realize.

Ohhh just remembered while writing this too, for some obscure reason, if I'm not constantly holding the left key, the character will always throw the grapple to the right, regardless of wich direction I was facing, wich was really annoying sometimes, making me take free damage and messing up my wall climbs. I was playing on web tho, wich you mentioned that could be potentially buggy, but other than that it was pretty smooth.

And I guess that's kinda it, I recorded my run too so hit me up if you wanna see it (I actually played the game twice because the firstt time I took the upper route on the last floor, so I tought I could've missed something on the lower route, but when I got there I didn't really see anything so I guess it was just two completely normal runs lol. I still only got 80% tho, legit no clue where the last item is).

I also really like some of the scenery, the trees and flowers looks very pretty, just tought I'd drop this here x3

Aw, pretty sad that there isn't much here, but at least I could get a little taste of what was gonna be the main meal.
The screenshots looks very promising tho, really wish you guys could have done at least a very rushed little level to test out the fun stuff, since as far as I understood from the game page, the essentials are technically already done, so even if it was glitchy it would have been understandable.
But hey, it is what it is, really wishing luck for you if you ever continue working on this on future to come.

Ta na mão!

That's most likely a winner already, but I'll try my best to give some feedback anyway.
Pixel art is just gorgeous, altought I bet you're already aware of that, and there's also a lot of polish on everything, wich I really appreciate, everything feels really satisfying to do and has a lot of weight, wich is awesome.

The actual game design is surprisingly simple tho, I legit have not a lot to say about it. Both combat and platforming were actually pretty basic the entire time, wich is not a bad thing, mind you, the game was still done on a single month after all, but idk, something about the artistic side being so awe induncing kinda made me expect a little more I think. But hey, it's still great fun tho, really liked the bosses too, even if they were also pretty simple fights in essence.
Actual nitpick I have with the combat tho, is that it felt really random wheter I would do a backdash or an actual dash. I think your intention was to always make the char do the backdash while engaging to make it easier to avoid attacks, but for me that was actually pretty disorienting, since when I pressed to dash my intention were always to phase throught the enemy instead of retreating. And I also would have loved if there were a better indication of wheter I can dash or not, because let's be real, only warning me about that After I try is comedically too late xD

Minor comment that doesn't really impact the game at all tho, I actually tried to traverse that falling bridge on the beggining by backdashing the entire way throught just for the funsies, but the backdash isn't fast enought to actually do it, so I was punished for it, making me backtrack all the way to there twice, but hey that's already more my own fault anyway x3

And I guess that's it really, as I said, not a lot to comment on, this is just a really really well made game, and definitelly one of the top spots on the rank already. I also recorded my run, but it was a whoping 50 mins lol, altought if you wanna see it any time, just hit me up.

First of all, I really like the artstyle, and also the character designs, both the player and enemies. The music is also nice, altought I really wish it had a nicer loop, since after ending it kinda just stops for a while before actually restarting. (It also resets every time you enter a portal, wich feels pretty awkward)

Level design is also kind of just a mess of platforms, I have to admit, it's very easy to get lost and there's no real challenge anywhere (aside from the infamous bugs but hold on, I'll get there), altought I really love how the enemies are also used as platforms sometimes, that's really a nice touch.

Now about the bugs tho, as you guys are probably already tired of hearing, yeah they exist xD
I legit got the game crashing every time I dared to etither interact or just pass throught that first sign near the red portal, so I kinda got blocked off from that entire part of the map, and there were also some camera bugs that made it simply not follow my character back to where it respawned so I was forced to reset the game, otherwise It would be impossible to play.
Fortunatelly tho, I read throught some comments so I ended up doing the glitch to get all the upgrades, and I'm glad I did, because I could actually enjoy a bit of the game this way, even if only the side of the map that was on the right of the red portal lol.
The game may be full of glitches, but I actually kinda like some of them, honestly. Not only the one of getting all the power ups, but some of them actually felt like good inspiration for actual mechanics imo. The fact I could grow and shrink rapidly to phase throught walls was actually pretty fun, and came in handy to explore a little more of the map when I didn't knew where to go. And I also got a very weird bug where whenever I entered a portal, my character sprite was completely offset from it's hitbox, but before I realized that, it felt like the entire world was the one to be offset actually, and that was actually so trippy, that it was fun to try to traverse the rooms like that (altought the magic wore off when I used the freeze attack and saw that only my own hitbox was wrong sadly x3), legit think that would be an awesome idea for an actual unique level/area for a game.

I """"finished"""" the game, by cheating of course, but honestly I think the glitchy nature of the game is exactly what gave it a huge lot of charm, and it fits the virus-ish theme of it as well, so that was kinda magical.

Don't get me wrong tho, I still had to reload a lot of times, wich was a still a real bummer. And I still have no clue where the upgrades were actually supposed to be lol

There's potential here, but as you guys said, it's unfinished, and it's really visible tbh.

Gameplay is very very janky as of right now, but I can give it a discount. I kinda just stopped after killing the sushi tho, really had no clue how to deal with the soldier dudes. I guess I was supposed to be stealthy since backstabbing does the job quite nicely, but it's really inconsistent wheter the guys actually see you or not, and if they do there's really nothing you can do to save yourself, it's just kinda guaranteed death wich kinda sucks. I also had no clue how to reload my weapons btw, but it didn't really matter since I didn't felt like the long ranged stuff really did any help at all.

I think you guys are gonna need to overhaul this entire early game honestly, it just feels kinda awkward for now. The game doesn't ease you in into it's gameplay, it just kinda throws you there and you pray to know what you're supposed to do. The very first thing on the game being that water section with spikes was just not a good idea, It was really confusing and I took a while to really realize where I was supposed to go (and the lack of telegraph of where there are spikes and when they're gonna actually come didn't help), and right after getting throught that you're thrown in into a very tought platformer-stealth section, wich is a completely new style of gameplay with a huge lot of new mechanics to grasp all at once, wich was very disorienting.

Remember, you guys need to introduce every new thing one at a time, and on a safe enviroment at first, before actually mixing and matching everything on actual dangerous situations later.

The intro music was geat tho.

Okay... Let's see this...
Art is very nice, simple, but still looks great. I also really like the submarine idea, it's a really creative way to make a game about exploring underwater.

But man, that was really draining, I'm so sorry :,3
The movement is fine, really, I don't mind it being slow, and I'm glad you had the courage to commit to it, but really, if you're gonna go for slow gameplay, the level design needs to support it. The map is just MASSIVE, when I pressed esc for the first time and saw that yellow dot aaaaaallll the way up to the opposite side of where I was I was legit filled with pure DREAD of having to walk that entire ginormous path. And the fact I knew it was gonna be just a single upgrade and that I would still have to backtrack AGAIN to be able to open stuff right where I already was made matters even worse. Combat is also just non-existant, none of the enemies poses any threat and killing them with the submarine just doesn't feel satisfying at all, wich made me feel like I was just traversing huge chunks of emptiness the entire time.

I also really missed some music here, or at the very least some ambience sounds to be constantly playing on the background instead of every once in a blue moon, because silence really just demotivates me entirely. (I gueeesss silence is more atmospheric?? Idk man, to be really sincere, atmospheric games are just not my thing, like, at all).

Also, the game's resolution simply didn't fit well on my screen, so I couldn't see the lower half of the HUD, and by consequence I also couldn't read any of the dialogues properly


I only played until I got the mines upgrade, and I admit I was already going to stop there, I was already not willing to go any further than that point, but then the upgrade aparently just bugged and didn't work, so that was just the excuse I needed to get out for once. No clue if I was doing anything wrong, the mines just didn't want to come out, wheter I was inside the submarine or not, but oh well.

I'm sorry man, I really really tried to have fun here, but I couldn't think on anything to do for that honestly, I just didn't really wanted to mess around here, so I just got kinda... bored.

But hey, this is still a very impressive entry nonetheless, I admire how you managed to pull out a map this big and filled with good looking visual props in a single month, and as I said, I have huge respects for you diving fully head on on your vision for the game, even if I not enjoyed it at the end. And it's also a complete package, wich already deserves praise by itself.

Short and sweet, that was good. Really fun game to play, movement felt great and juking the ghosts out felt really awesome, and the hitboxes are on point for cool looking close calls. Love the squishi boi char too, he's adorable.

Not a lot to say about it tho, it's still super simple honestly, but that's not a bad thing by any means.
Only critique I really have is that the ghost sounds are kinda very weird, and also a little too loud so they block off the music, wich is sad because I was vibing to it. The atmosphere didn't really creep me tho, but it might be just the very music's fault as well. It gives way more of a sense of "chill mistery" than something actually dark and scary.

I got the "try again" bug a couple times, and as far as I've noticed it glitches because after pressing the button the game unpauses for a bit before reseting so sometimes you just die several times before respawning and that might mess up the game's brain a little, but that's just my theory.

And that's all I have to say really. I recorded my run if you wanna see it for anything, but it was pretty chill so nothing outstanding about it.

Por sinal, linda foto de perfil

no problem, thank you for replying :3

Altought I really don't want you to get the wrong message about the boss here, the problem is not that it's "too hard", it just feels unfair, wich is completely different. In fact the boss itself in theory sounds actually easy enought, the problem is that there's just too much stuff that feels like is completely out of the player's control. Yes I do agree that it could be more clear that you're supposed to stay on the edges, that's really lacking some indication, but even if the player knows that, if the boss corners you into a wall you simply get stuck and bullied, there's no way to get out of there and that just feels like the boss is straight on cheating.

Late correction but I realized I have no clue what a boomer shooter is x)

What I meant was like, the first time I play a game kinda like classic Doom

Very Very sweet. Bouncing around and smashing stuff are indeed extremelly satisfying, and just really fun the entire time.
The game is essentially as simple as the artstyle tho. It's great, don't get me wrong, it's soft and tasty, but I just have nothing to say about it at the end, honestly.

I guess only real comment I have is that the jumping sound effect is a little annoying, especially considering I was constantly bouncing and rebounding the entire time, but it's survivable.

I also have to say that the resolution is a little weird, since it looked like this on my web, it just didn't cover the entire screen, but no worries this wasn't really impactfull on the game itself anyway x)

That was really neat, kinda love it. This was actually the first time I played a boomer shooter myself so that was quite fresh too.

When I started the game the UI was totally broken, but just a trip back to the menu to scale the resolution down fixed it no problem (Altought that do mean I had to see the opening cutscene twice, so making it skippable would have been really welcome, and if it was, at least none of the inputs I pressed skipped it).

It's pretty fun overall, I do love dashing around and shooting stuff, altought it's still rather simple anyway so I can't really think on a lot to say on that regard.
Some complaints I have to say tho, there's no telegraphing for when any of the enemies are gonna shoot, so when one appears right on your face you simply have zero reaction time. I'm also afraid there is no indication of wheter or not there are any projectiles coming from behind you, even if as far as I've noticed while playing, I didn't really got hit by anything of that kind, but still, it was a concerning tought to have. (I did got jumpscared a few times by turning around tho xD)

The game was all fun overall, until the final boss honestly. It felt like a really rought fight I have to admit. Aside from there being no telegraphs for bullets and missiles nor for when the shields gets up again or when an enemy spawns, I also got really frustrated by how I died a huge lot due to how the electric field move always lasted way longer than my shield, wich was just unfair. The idea of the move is cool and is a neat way of forcing the shield into the fight, if only it stayed active for less time it would had been a delicious attack to defend yourself from, but that was sadly not the case. I eventually discovered that the edges of the arena are safespots for this specific move, but when I tried to hide there the boss would just hug me on the wall and pat me with missiles that I couldn't defend myself from, because, spoiler alert: my shield didn't last for long enought, and I also couldn't consistently destroy the missiles with bullets because the boss was already kissing me anyway, the missiles hit me as soon as they were shot pretty much.

I have to say, unfortunately I threw the towel there, and I didn't even gave it a huge lot of attempts, it was just a little too frustrating to be worth to keep trying :(
I had a blast with everything that came before it tho, the other two bosses were pretty fine too.

Also, more of a personal nitpick, but I kinda felt like the mouse sensibility was a little too low for me, would have been nice if it was changeable, but that's not a huge problem anyway.

I also recorded my entire run if you're curious to see it, just ask me for it.

As an experiment, that's vey good. You have a very unique idea, and I apreciate you going with it. But I'm really sorry man, I couldn't really enjoy this, sincerely :,3

The movement is pretty neat and not that hard to grasp once you figure it out, don't get me wrong, but it really is a little way too slow honestly, for most of the game you're really just watching your char slowly flying straight to somewhere you didn't want him to go at all, not to mention whenever he hits a corner he changes his ""rotation"", wich was pretty annoying considering you need him to be on the right position to go to places.

There's really a huge lot of potential here to make a cool puzzle-based exploration, but for that to happen the level desing will really need some overhauling. Pretty much every single tap on the arrow keys is essentially a blind jump, since most of the times the closest wall to your direction is waaaay ahead off-screen, It would have been just way better if you could always see exactly where you're gonna land on from any direction. That would have been easier to achieve if the game was divided by single screen rooms, but I think that's not entirely necessary, I believe you could keep the more open world while still getting a good level design if you made a few more iterations of it.

Also, the yellow pointy things REALLY look like spikes. I was very afraid of touching them the entire time, and only realized they were inoffensive once I messed up one time and ended right on the middle of one.

And honestly, the one thing that turned me off the most is actually kinda silly, but it was the music. It's just... off. It feels so needlesly eerie, almost like if it's something out of an horror game. It really made me very unconfortable the entire way throught. I'm kind of a guy powered by music, but unfortunatelly this time around that was a downside for me, really. No clue if that were your objective or not, but if it was then, good job! Iiiif it wasn't tho... then yeah... sorry x,3

(Also, the game crashed at one point, but I couldn't push myself onto trying again sadly, so I didn't finish it)

But hey, as you said yourself, this is experimental after all, and it's very welcome. I hope you or anyone else keeps on experimenting some more on this someday.

This was pretty fun, altought it do still need some tweaks honestly.
I love the idea of the grapple mechanic, but in execution it felt really weird. In fact, from the games I played on this jam this was the hardest to get used to controls so far (And in the end I actually didn't really, and by consequence I didn't explore everything I could sadly). I believe this might be due to my little vendetta against "spacebar to jump in a 2D game" thought, if you used a key like, "H" I would probably have had a better time. I'm usually a quick adapter tho, it's really rare for spacebar to bother me that much, but that was one of the cases unfortunatelly.
But hey, that aside, grappling around was still super fun tho, even if a little janky. Altought I have to say that most of the time I felt like I didn't had real control on wheter it would actually pull me or not, it kinda just did it when it felt like it.

I also couldn't quite figure out what the hat did, whenever I tried using it it just stopped all my horizontal momentum, so I legit couldn't even jump on water with it. Believe me, I really tried, but in the end I just jumped over the lake by abusing the grapple jump a little bit. I also tried to stomp an enemy with it, but honestly, I didn't actually expect it to work, so I wasn't dissapointed when it didn't anyway x)
The upgrade still looks really funny tho, so even if it ended up kinda useless for me I still love it by just existing, it's simply genius.

Combat fells very basic, but it gets the job done. Some complaints tho, There's legit no feedback for when the player takes damage at all, so it feels very awkward (I mean, there is a sound effect, but it's really not enought to get the point across). There was also one single time that I died in a way that I could clearly see the hitbox sizes, and they seem to be the exact same as their sprites, wich can feel bad sometimes, so next time I recommend you to make them way smaller.

The artstyle is pretty simple, but it's also very charming, and the music is great too, I love the funky theme from the interiors. I also just LOVE the elders man, they're the most charismatic NPCs I've ever seen on a game jam and I will protect them with every fiber of my existance. For real, the fact that the elderly elder is just an elder with 2 hats, fuggin gorgeous, I love him. I also spent almost all my Lotuses with the item that tastes good, and I have absolutely no regrets xD

I guess that's it, I recorded my run so if you wanna see it, then just ask, altought I already warn that most of it is me struggling to use the grapple properly lol

That's a really nice one, and fairly well polished too. Short and sweet, as the wise would say. Feels awesome to just waddle my sword while running into stuff until they die, specially after I just bought 5 strength upgrades and mowed everyone on 2 hits. The mere action of slashing just feels so right here really, to the animation to the sound effect and to the impact and weight of every hit, really makes me feel like the master of blade waddling. When it comes to gamefeel in general you really knocked it out of the park tbh, congrats on that!
Visuals are also really sweet, the animations specially are really top notch. Music is also pretty viby and fits well, altought I have to admit, I closed the game 2 mins ago and already forgot how it sounded like, but that's more because atmospheric music is just not my cup of tea anyway.

The bosses are also pretty nice, they really capture that Hollow Knight/Dark Souls boss feeling. Altought I need to be honest, they both kinda feel like they have essentialy the same moves, the Demon General really feels like just a "Big Dude Tier 2", so if he had some more different moves it would have been nice. (But that can be bias too, I'm way more of an apeshit platformer guy than a souls-like guy, so my ideals for good boss design are also kinda affected by that I guess)

Now to be more nitpicky tho, I really hate when games doesn't use the "UP" input (in this case W) for anything at all, but simply decide to put jump into the spacebar for no reason. This is really just personal preference, I can get over it, but it bothers me still (Not the end of the world tho, heck, the very entry I worked on also commits this sin xD). The level design of the hellish area could be better too, for now it's really just a lot of blind jumps with the risk of falling on lava.

I also had absolutely no clue what the blessings deal were, there's nothing on the game explaining it, and the page said they're "equippable" but there's no input listed as to how to equip them at all, so I didn't use any.

I also assume the Demon General is the final thing you face, because after that I tried to re-explore everything and didn't find anywhere to go with the double jump.
Oh yeah, almost forgot, but I also really appreciate the amount of secrets you added. That's kind of a very important thing to metroidvanias but very few entries to this jam actually do it, so that was a nice surprise :)

And I guess that's all, I recorded my playthrought too so if you wanna see it just ask, but I think there's nothing super interesting on it tbh.

to be really honest, I just really wanted to kill that first rusty knight by sheer stubborness, because I did know I could just sneak past him x3

But yeah, if you want to avoid players like me doing stupid stuff, you should have made him immune, altought honestly, this would take some fun out of him really. I didn't feel like that fight was rought at all (aside from the surprise brakes), I was legit just messing around for the sake of messing around

Ey thanks for playing tho!

I'm only an art guy so I kinda don't know how to reply to comments this time around lol, but about the boss, I guess you could say it's fireball thingy has a very familiar shape and color scheme *wink* *wink* ;)

There you go then

No problem :3

I did escort the first drone btw, I was stuck on the bigger, more blue-ish room that comes after that first door

Ok this one is simply amazing!! The graphics are really nice, and the music choices are great, even if not original sadly. It's super fun tho, I really love how the gameplay flows so nicely, even when I was already completely naked of skills just jumping and shooting was still all I could have asked for. (It  IS the most fun when I had everything tho, that I can't really lie, but I really liked the concept of reversevania and I think you executed it really well here)

Wanna give props to the level design too, the fact it is still completely manageable both with and without power ups is definitelly a hard thing to achieve, but you certainly did it here.
Kinda sad that as far as I've understood most bosses are unfinished aparently, and there simply isn't a final boss, wich is a shame, since I was hyped to have a rematch against doppelganger Zeta, I legit tought the final boss was gonna be him but with all the power ups I sacrificed (I guess that's an idea I'm dropping here if you ever wanna add more stuff)

Only nitpicks I have is that as other people already mentioned, pretty much every enemy is always shooting you off-screen, wich is a little annoying at times. Aside from that there's also some specific rooms with a few blind jumps that are also kind of a nuisance, and the camera is also very iffy when it decides to be, sometimes it felt too slow to follow my char so it got really hard to react to missiles coming from the edge of the screen.
The fact all the teleporters were open from the get go also kinda made me speedrun the game ngl, I'm almost sure I didn't even see every single room, altought I am sure I played throught at least most of them.

Well I guess that's it pretty much, I really love it overall, I don't have any rreeeaaall complaints at the end, from the few entries I played as for the time I'm writing this, it's definitelly a top spot contender honestly. I recorded my run for the sake of it too if you ever wanna see it for anything, but not sure if you would get anything helpful from it tbh.

(Btw, the game page says to not choose the first option when I have to make a choice, but I kinda forgot that at the moment so I still chose it, and that didn't block me out of finishing the game at all)

Well the game seens to be pretty neat for what I could see, even if it's all just dev building blocks, the screenshots at least let me see what the vision of it is going for. Altought I have to say that I literally couldn't get past the first room after the starting point, because none of the doors opened and I wasn't able to shoot by no means (I pressed pretty much every single key and nothing happened), wich is a bummer, and unfortunatelly that means that, at least for now, I won't be able to rate the game by it's entirety :(

The game also really lacks optimization, my laptop kinda suffered to run it, I was playing in like, 10 fps the entire time plus with frame drops every other double jump I did, wich considering the areas that I played barely have textures or models at all that's a very worrysome sign.

The music is a real vibe tho, for now the strongest point of it imo (even because it's the only one that I can judge properly at this point in time lol). And silly thing, but I also love the credits window x)

(I could totally try again if someone told me how to shoot tho)

That was really neat. The artstyle is very charming and the gameplay is fun. The moveset flows really well despite being essentially just attack and glide for most of it.

I don't really have any real complaints about it, aside from nitpicks like, I wish the player char had a bit more of knockback when getting damage, and I also missed some kind of telegraph for when the knight guys are gonna stop charging, because I got hit a lot of times due to them just stopping suddenly (Allowing me to headbounce enemies would've both fix that issue and would've also felt just awesome too, combined with gliding and such)

And I guess that's it. The game is very competent, but also still pretty simple so I can't really think on anything more to say tbh. I recorded my playthrought but nothing super interesting happened on it so I don't think it's worth posting here, but if you wanna see it anyway I could send it if you ask.

That's a nice little one, pretty charming. It's still pretty rought around the edges tho, but I could have fun with it regardless.
I really love the artstyle of everything, and the animations are also really nice (altought their triggers seens a little iffy still, if you understand what I mean), and man, the music is an ABSOLUTE BANGER, holy shit, I love it so much xD

About gameplay I think my main complaints are on how the melee attack seemed kinda useless due it's short range and lack of proper feedback of wheter or not I'm hitting something (and on some specific rooms it just bugged and didn't wanted to trigger oof), And I also think parrying could have a little more indication of wheter it worked or not, I did get very confused about that for a bit at first (It was also very unclear wheter I had to hold C or to tap it at the right timing since parrying itself also has no animation, nor anything that suggests you're gonna do it at all, really). I also kinda forgot the dash existed for most of it, but that's already more on me x)

The game was also pretty buggy for me sadly. Aside from the melee attack not triggering on certain rooms, the boss at the end was also seemingly completely broken, or at least the UI was, so I really had no clue wheter I was dealing damage or not. There was also one specific room where I died and started respawning there with no hp, so it was a little tough to get throught it, specially since it had a blind jump with an enemy on the middle of the drop (wich sincerely, was a very bad enemy placement ngl), and I tought on just reseting, but the music was really pumping me up so I decided to just push throught, and then that became a nice little challenge to overcome at the end x3 (Still a flaw tho lol, but at least I got something memorable out of it so hey)

I recorded my entire run tho, so I guess it's easier to just show how it went lol.

You can also see at the end that I tried to restart the game after dying to the boss, but that was because there were 2 songs playing at the same time and THAT'S a bug that can actually bother me for real, so I tried to fix it, but for some reason the game decided to take really long to open again. (It eventually did and I tried the boss again, but it was still broken unfortunatelly, so I couldn't really finish the game, wich is a bummer, since I really wanted to)

EDIT: Forgot to mention, but some hitboxes are also really big, I feel like some where even bigger than the sprites, you should be careful with that too

I prefer triangles tbh

The shotgun really shouldn't be extending it's reload time I swear x)

It's either a browser glitch or purely psychological on your side. I do wish I made a better indication for it tho, it do feel kinda lacking right now, I honestly just forgot about it at the moment.

Thanks again for the comment and the follows tho! :D

Honestly I feel the same about essay comments, I love hearing everything someone has to say about my stuff x)