Greetings! First of all, I'd like to thank you for not only taking the time to try out my demo, but also taking more time to comment and give it an honest critique. You've brought up some very interesting points that'll influence my next patch for sure.
Tuso's involvement and Aisling's power are both issues I've found myself wrestling with many times. Older builds of the game had Aisling not being able to bubble Tuso, both characters being able to fail, and every key returning after respawning. I've seen many testers tap out after seeing every key come back. I was told that the game was pretty hard, so I added features to smooth out the experience, but it looks like I've made it TOO smooth. I believe I will take your advice and make some difficulty options (Level Skipping Enabler, Bubbling Enabler, Keys Respawn Enabler).
My testers absolutely hated Aisling being able to perish... Trying to protect Tuso was taxing enough. So instead, I decided to make Tuso the smart friend and Aisling the strong friend. I want to relay this dynamic through future cutscenes and upcoming level designs. Example: later stages (that wasn't in this demo) will operate more like an obstacle course and you'll have to have Tuso solve the puzzles in the correct order to even get to the last key. So if testers started to think that failing had no consequences, having the whole stage reset to bar that final key changed their tune. Also, (mini spoilers) future stage will have obstacles that Aisling cannot hinder at all without Tuso's help. More iterations and testing ahead, to say the least, yet the last things I want to do is feature creep this hobby project... again.
Your feedback was insightful and helpful! I appreciate your thoughts and the fact that you even played my game. Thank you once again!