This was really fun. I got so much more out of this than I expected. 

Some elements that I particularly liked; 

1 -  His hat being the health indicator. The way that the hat bounces off your head when you land, and needing to pick it up to get your health pip back is brilliant. It feels good, its charming. Great. 

2 - The firing mode being linked to whether I am on a wall or not is great - it ties it all together, it was fun to think about my positioning and was an elegant way to avoid using a second stick for aiming, or locking the aim all together. Great. I acknowledge that others might find the gun frustrating to use but I thought it was great. It is not so much a gun as it is a part of the platforming challenge. Its not a power fantasy. 

3 - I thought the difficulty was well tuned, no issues with getting through levels and enough deaths to keep it interesting. 

4 - Loved the moment at the start of the 'boss level' of the first area where suddenly you are faced with new music and a tight group of 20 or so bats above you - great change of pace, and super fun. 

5 - Placing the torches automatically as you go is super charming - adds to the atmosphere and a very well designed touch. 

6 - The way the vendors in the cave would spawn in when unlocking them was very satisfying. Good work - though would be nice to see generally more 'movement' in that cave space once they are unlocked. Steam coming out of tubes, rumbling the ground, more ambient sounds super local to which machine you are standing near - etc etc. 

Some elements I would focus development toward

1 - The text font feels placeholder, something with some more *feeling* would be nice. 

2 - The game has a lot of charm - a bit more feedback whilst in the game space would be good. The hits and grappling/sliding on the wall feel a little lighter than they should. 

3 - The UI should change if I am using a controller - additionally, I found 'Button North' (Y) as the universal button to interact a little strange. Really feels like 'Button South' (A) would have been more logical -> though I dno if the choice for Y is to keep elements in the game points 'upward'? I dno - felt odd, and with no UI to tell me this was the case I did miss the interactions in the cave for a moment at the start. 

Thanks for this -> super good. 

Our team has /jam/feedback-quest-8-indiegames-x-indie-streamers/rate/3773442 if you had time to go and have a look. Its in a similar space to your game, so might be of interest. It is super challenging though - be prepared!

Thanks again,

Rollmop.

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 8! My name's Hythrain, a co-host and one of the streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live as I stream your game! If you're interested in seeing my live reaction, let me know and I can send you a link to the VOD once it's posted to YouTube!

So my normal approach for any game in these events is simple: I get the game, make sure it's not a virus, then play it with as little information on how to play as possible. This way, I can judge how intuitively someone can figure out the game. Only if it's obvious that I need to read more will I do so. I note this so you can get a sense where some of these feedback comes from. In addition, I want to note that feedback and rating are different; don't use this feedback to gauge what I'll rate, nor should you view my rating as entirely indicative of my feedback.

This was a treat to play. I was really enjoying myself with it and the various side missions.

There are three areas in particular that I think could use improvement (though I'll also admit, I forgot this game was supposed to be considered a bullet hell so one of these areas you may just outright disagree with).

The first is control over the gun. The way the gun fires can feel very frustrating since it requires very specific conditions for each thing: on the ground to shoot two bullets up, in the air to do one up and one down, and on the wall to shoot horizontal (with the second shot going in a diagonal). However, I often found I wanted to be doing horizontal shots while on the ground and simply couldn't, forcing me to dodge around to try and bait enemies above me. If there was one thing we could get, it'd be some sort of control over the gun and the way both bullets shoot. I'd rather have a means to shoot both vertical and horizontal from one position than most of what I'm going to say here.

The second is in regards to the size of certain obstacles and the room the player is given. The first time I felt like this was a problem was when I first encountered the spinning blades in that tiny little vertical corridor. The window becomes so very narrow and problematic for a lot of reasons, especially for what's essentially one of the early levels. I also really felt it on the first mission to only use the left wall, as the final jump has this spike that is so incredibly hard to avoid given how early into the game it is. This, I feel, is also the one you'll disagree with.

The third issue had to do with invincibility frames. The player gets two hits before they die, with the first hit represented by losing their mining hat. If they recover it, they regain the hit. The problem I had was that 9 times out of 10, I would be hit in such a way where I would not have the time to react once I regained control and would just immediately be hit, as the invincibility frames seem to be only half a second or so. If I wasn't knocked back in the perfect way when I got hit, I was basically dead. It was really frustrating to have this happen. I do feel the invincibility frames should be increased to give the player more of a chance to regain control of the situation.

Those are the three areas I can think of. Otherwise, great job! I can tell how much you're putting into this game!

Really good Bullet hell movement, dodging everything just feels really good! (suck at the platforming tho xD)

Gameplay
Overall, it was very impressive! the gameplay of bullet hell and precision platforming mixed in a way I couldn't even imagine! 
The difficulty curve was a bit steep, and this would mean you visit the progression much more early in the game, I didn't feel like I played enough! And only later then, levels would bring you into more into that kaizo strategy pacing.
This is just a suggestion, but enemies I feel can have some more novelty, at first, they are very satisfying to shoot up, but they become kind of annoyance later on. A progression system of sorts could possibly be given for killing enemies(or scoring system).

Visual/Sfx
I do think there can be some impact sounds/feedback, like when the player lands or grapples the wall, walking sounds as well. but these can be very quiet still, the sleekness of the player felt nice that way!

Its a fun game felt a bit weird at first but got used to it quickly. I think UI needs some polish rest is really good

I played the browser version, not the downloaded version, so I'm not sure if that would have made a difference. The game felt a bit laggy/not smooth through most of my playthrough. I adjusted my refresh rate in settings to 120, and later unlimited. I also set my resolution to match my monitor's resolution, but it still had laggy moments. I have a high-speed, wired connection, so not sure if it's on itch's side or what 🤷‍♂️

Overall, I like what's going on. It reminded me a bit of Jump King, which I have seen be played before. The controls were a bit touchy, but I managed fairly well. Made it to the 8th level of the first climb, but didnt finish it. The different merchants are quite cute. The rewards for challenges is a great way to keep players playing and getting better gear. 

You can watch the VOD here, starting around 1:43:00
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2556016317

Hey, I really like this!  Everything felt very good to me in terms of controls and movements, even using a keyboard.  I like the vibe, the level structures, and then the upgrade systems.  And in the beginning at least, I never felt like things were overly difficult, so it's a nice ramp up.  But I can see that things were starting to get hard as I went, especially in working with the shooting mechanics, and the enemies that also shoot.  Also, just trying to go fast will be a fun challenge after you complete everything.  I also like the forgiveness of the helmet damage, so you're not just dead after one mistake. And if you can move fast enough you can catch your helmet before it falls too far (but it falling is a nice/fair punishment).   Very clever design.  And overall things seem very nicely polished, with a good amount of juice.  So, I don't really have much feedback other than great work!

I think the game is already looking really polished in a lot of areas. The lighting is excellent, those normal maps really pop, and the wall slide feels perfect. I also love the music, it has a fun Donkey Kong vibe that works well. The upgrading mechanics are clever too, and it’s impressive how much is already thought through.

A few things could use refinement. The jump feels a little floaty compared to how tight the wall slide is, and I struggled most with trying to jump from one wall to another, especially left-to-right, which caused me a lot of trouble. The main character sprite also doesn’t quite match the quality of the rest of the visuals, which are otherwise strong. On the gameplay side, it’s frustrating when enemies damage you just by touching; it would feel more dynamic if they had attacks instead, and I wish enemies below me would stay hovering above me so I always had a chance to shoot them. Zone selection could communicate locked areas more clearly, and the score screen at the end looks placeholder, it would be great if my final rank showed faster, so I instantly knew how I did. The dynamite sequence at the end also felt a little slow. Lastly, I noticed I was getting C/D grades even while making decent progress through the tutorial levels, which seemed a bit harsh and undercut my sense of accomplishment, players probably won't want to revisit the tutorial levels so I recommend being overly generous with score. The upgrade systems are well thought through, but they feel almost mismatched in a linear precision platformer because I lack agency on what I'll do next? 

That said, the game already feels very smooth in most interactions, and it’s clear a lot of polish has gone in. Its a fun unique precision platformer.

Great game if you like precision platformers (which is not my case...).

Controls feel good. Progression through levels is good (at least for the first 8). Helmet/life system is great.

Great work!