Great game!! I love the artstyle, world design, and especially the platforming! The character moves so well, and the tight controls lend themselves well to the platforming. You paced everything well, mixing in combat with puzzles and challenges, which I really liked. My only major gripe is something I already saw others mention, the combat feeling a bit weighty and not too impactful. Overall, it's still very well made and enjoyable, great work!!

I really had fun playing this game, but I didn’t finish it, I’ll explain why later! :)

Pros:

• The narrative intentions are very present and help make the game engaging well done! (I especially loved the narrative twist during the 1st boss fight!!)

• I am a HUGE fan of the music! The boss theme and the second biome’s music are definitely the best I’ve heard in this jam—congratulations on this part, you did a fantastic job! 🎵🔥

• The boss was really interesting, well done!

• There’s a map!!

• The pacing of the respawn point is well done.

• The progression feels rewarding—you really feel like you're evolving more your progress in the game.

• The overall art style is cool! While I think it could be enhanced with lighting and other advanced visual effects, it still works well and remains visually appealing. :)

Cons:

• I feel like the hitboxes of enemies and damaging obstacles are a bit too large—I often took damage when I thought I was safe.

• I’m not a huge fan of the combat system. The attacks feel slow, making it difficult to use effectively against fast-moving enemies. It was hard to find the right moment to strike. Also, I didn’t really see the benefit of the combo attack system (Does the last hit deal more damage? I didn’t check, but it didn’t feel like it). But this point can be considered as personal i think it is okay to have slow attack systems but you should feel more the impact of them (making more damage, screen shakes, particules, push enemies way further, ...)

• Some gameplay elements weren’t immediately recognizable (lack of affordance/visual clarity). For example, I didn’t realize at first that the spikes were harmful, and I didn’t expect the clouds to damage me because they didn’t look dangerous.

• Even though I enjoyed the narrative, I felt like there was too much text at times, so I ended up skipping some of it. However, this is just a personal preference, as I think your storytelling definitely adds value to the game

Why I didn’t finish the game:

When I reached the second biome, I got stuck at the door locked by two levers.

To pass through the flame walls, you have to use your dash while in flame form. But I found the dash timing really difficult to get right. On top of that, the flame walls instantly kill you if you fail, and you lose all your progress on the two levers when you respawn. 😭 After about 15 tries, I got too frustrated and decided to stop playing.

Despite that, I really think you made something impressive, both in terms of content and quality (especially the music!). You should be really proud of what you’ve achieved! Your game is a very strong entry in this jam, and I can’t wait to see what you create next! 😊🔥

I made it through to what appears to be the end, based on some comments below (got the air element).

My thoughts:

- The environments look really good, and the level design challenges are great; I enjoyed them.

- The element switching feels cool, and I like that we have some idea of what is still coming (water and earth, presumably), but that there's also different powers that can be unlocked per element (e.g. both the dash / walk in fire and the fire shot).

- My single biggest gripe with this game is that fire pillars instant kills you (or does so much damage that I just died instantly every time), especially in a game where checkpoints can be way off and a number of levers could be pulled that need to now be repulled.

- I also had a lot of trouble with the combat primarily the sluggish feel / long wind-up that doesn't feel/look deliberate, but also the short attack range). I basically never fought the little horned dudes that chase you when you're close because once I start I always take damage. And the flying enemies are just as bad, given how much damage it takes to kill them. It makes it feel like combat isn't generally worth it.

- The bosses were great, if a bit frustrating due to the combat things noted above. There were also a few attacks that felt a bit blindsiding; e.g. the first boss's arms up maneuver that summons the flame floor felt like it had no telegraph at all and just happened instantly, so when I was next to him I just instant took damage. (Though, to be fair, that's not necessarily a problem, since I did learn my lesson after that.)

- The fact that you can't use lanterns again after they're activated feels perhaps a bit too harsh, especially in a metroidvania, where you're likely to go one direction and then come back the other way past a lantern, unable to heal up. It feels like no-heal sections should be more closely curated by the level design.

- I never really used the heal until the last boss, because I couldn't figure out how to recover energy. (After my first heals, I assumed it would be attacking, and tested it, and found it didn't work, because I just did a single attack, not a combo, another feature I realised later than I should.) I might just have missed the tutorial for that, so potentially just a me thing.

That's about it. Sorry if it repeats some things other people have said.

Overall, I really enjoyed this, and it feels really solid. There's some rough edges in terms of the character controller, particularly with stuff related to combat, but also with some quality of life platforming stuff like coyote time and jump buffers, but all that can be attributed to jam timelines, especially with how much content there is in this. Fantastic stuff; well done!

Nice job on the colour pallet, sound, and mechanics. You is kind, you is smart, you is important.

Very cool game!! Hope yall continue working on it. 

You've gotten plenty of other comments in regards to the awkward combat, zoom-level, and empty space, so I'm not going to repeat those criticisms.

I really liked the atmosphere of the game, the music and the background art did a lot of great work contributing to that, especially in the second area. And I enjoyed the all the bespoke world interactions--different types of switches, doors, moving platforms, pushing boxes, etc. I think there's a ton of potential and I'll definitely check out future updates!

Let me begin by describing the point in this game that broke my spirit (lol): 

• Riding a platform on a horizontal track that moves to the left through a narrow corridor
• Thorns/spikes line the ceiling and floor
• Little zappy electricitybois float within the corridor, requiring you to jump over them and resume platform riding

I tried this segment so many times and once or twice I made it through, but with so little health left that I almost immediately died afterward and got zoomed back to the lamp post to try again. I found it really difficult with the keyboard controls and quick jump to ever land back on the platform after trying to jump over the buzzybois. So unfortunately, this was the end of the road for me! To be transparent, I am a mostly cozy/survival-craft gamer lurking in a metroidvania jam, mainly here to contribute art, so take from my experience what you will. 

I am sure there is a ton more game to see, but from what I did see, I was really impressed with the visuals in this game. It is clear how much expertise and care were put into everything from the character animations to the little lamp posts to the imaginative sprawling backdrops. I totally appreciated the parallax and the sense of depth it provides; if I had one critique for it, though, it would be that because there is so much detail and colour in the background, visually I sometimes had a hard time tracking the grey player character. It might be helpful for him to have higher contrast relative to the backdrop.

As mentioned above, I really struggled with precision when trying to land jumps onto small platforms - the controls felt responsive, but I also felt like they were so responsive that I often overshot small platforms I was trying to jump to. I also wished the attack felt a bit more snappy - the animation is awesome, but the attack itself felt a bit slow and I often just tried to avoid enemies instead of engaging them. 

Overall, great visuals, great sound, and I also really loved the exposition and the sort of "guide" character you meet and follow. It gives a great sense of purpose for moving forward and feeing curious to learn more about the story. Nice work!

The background art is gorgeous! I love all the main character's animations, that must have taken a long time. It's cool how the footsteps change depending on your elemental form as well. I really liked the depth of the story, it really feels like the start of a big game. I don't really have anything negative to say, but there was a room in the first area with a gate where you had to kill 3 enemies to open it, but I ran around forever thinking you needed to find 3 switches to open it instead. I figured it out eventually, but I had been jumping over enemies mostly to avoid them so I didn't know they also controlled gates. This is a true testament to what a great team can accomplish!

I’ve played the game up to the end of the second boss and unlocking the Air elemental, and I’m unsure what to do next, but I’m of the belief that I’ve played enough of what is there (the game page does say “explore 2 carefully handcrafted zones”, after all) to give my two cents:

I think the game sets itself up for an unfairly bad first impression, between the zoomed-out camera and awkward combat. I know that these are things you mentioned will be addressed in future updates, so I’ll try to approach both points in ways that other people haven’t mentioned yet:

• You may want to think carefully about your level design and its scale in relation to a smaller field of view. Compare how New Super Mario Bros. Wii has longer levels with objects spaced out farther from one another to account for its widescreen display, compared to New Super Mario Bros. on DS, for example. I feel that similarly, there’s a lot of empty space in your level design currently, and zooming in on that level design as-is might make navigation much harder.
• Currently, I think the biggest issue with combat (and actions in general, like healing or shooting fire) is that it completely locks player movement, horizontally, vertically and on moving platforms. This means that trying to do any of these actions while on a horizontally moving platform can lead to the platform moving out from under the player’s feet! That being said, this has helped a little in stalling mid-air when waiting for platforms to come closer, and some other kind of mechanic that lets players do this might be interesting, like a spot-dodge action.
• Also, note that you can only attack once in the air before landing as of now. That should definitely be revised as well.

Once the dash and fire shot is unlocked, I think the game opens up and displays more of its potential. I like that opened doors persist after death; I think the boss battles are interesting and engaging, although they could be a bit better telegraphed for first-time players; I like that the signs around the maps start incorporating more gameplay advice; and I think that generally, the level design is able to make more clever use of players’ abilities now that there’s more to work with.

There are definitely a few things I’d suggest still, though:

• I think your player controller needs a bit of acceleration and inertia. Without this, platforming feels actually too loose and imprecise in my opinion.
• You may want to think about how to map all your different actions onto a controller; I noticed that there is no way to open the map, or switch to the Null/Air elementals on controller, and had to use my keyboard for those functions specifically. (Additionally, right/left on the D-pad currently does nothing, and up/down makes the player move right and left for some reason.)
• Making the fire shot and wall breaking abilities cost energy is a bad idea the way it’s currently implemented. If they’re required for progression and puzzle-solving (which they should be), I think they should either not cost energy, or restoring energy should be easier, besides using a new checkpoint or landing hit combos on enemies.
• On a similar topic, I think letting checkpoints restore energy (and maybe health) whenever they’re touched might be player-friendly, no matter whether the checkpoint has been activated already or not.
• Is there a reason why the Fire elemental has to dash through vertical fire pillars to not be harmed, but it can stand in horizontal ones just fine?
• You may want to think about how your gravity and momentum works as a whole. Moving platforms in particular seem to apply vertical movement velocity onto players and objects placed on them; this leads to jumps being unusually high or low depending on whether the platform you’re standing on is moving up or down, and crates will bounce at the peak of a platform’s movement (and are generally way too affected by momentum, ironically).

I know I’ve outlined mostly ways that I think the game can improve, and I hope it doesn’t come across as an attempt to be overly critical. There’s a lot of areas in which I think the game already demonstrates potential and competence, and as long as you’re looking to continue development, I figure that it’s important that I mention these points, rather than to brush them under the rug and assume that you’re already aware of these things.

Though, I should say: that song for The Ashen Forest is quite good! In general, I think Area 2 does a much better job setting up atmosphere through its music and visuals than Area 1.

I wish your team all the best throughout the rest of the rating process, and onwards as you continue working on this game.

Love it!

I'm a big fan of tough 2D platforming, so the difficulty in some of the areas was welcome. Some spots simply felt frustrating but for the most part, it was just right. I did find the healing mechanic cumbersome or slow, especially in moments where I needed to heal the most. 

Some controls and mechanics were unclear, like how to perform the three-hit combo or energy/the energy bar and refilling it. That being said, it felt rewarding to beat the first boss - the dash was so much fun to use!

There's strong theming and ambience, and I adore the pixel art, animation, and backgrounds! Your team did a great job with style & visuals. The fire form, boss animations, and first-level background were particularly cool :)

I saw on the game page proper that continued development is planned, so I'm really excited to see how it evolves. Great work, Project Null!

This is a really solid entry! Very competently made metroidvania. I think my biggest issue with it is just that the perspective feels oddly zoomed out - everything feels awkwardly small on the screen and it makes any precise movement more difficult. I think the game resolution could easily be reduced to something like 50-75% of what it is now without even affecting the level design and it'd make things much better.

The range on the players attack feels way too small, I found it nearly impossible to hit enemies without getting hit back and ended up stopping because of this. The combo mechanic also really needs to be mentioned in the combat tutorial, I didn't discover it until the first boss and thought the player's attack was just comically weak up until that point.

One fairly minor issue, not being able to heal at already activated save points was annoying. I also found the map screen confusing, showing the player's location or letting me zoom and pan it would help.

Visuals seem nice, though I feel like I'd be able to appreciate them better with a smaller resolution! Don't have much to say about the sound and music, they're all fairly unobtrusive and ambient but are pleasant enough for that.