Enjoyment 3.5/5 / Execution 3.5/5 each. Enjoyment rounded up to 4 for charm, execution down to 3 for what feels like a lot of unfavorable player collision. - A number of issues feed into each other--there's what seems to be a big runback to a boss I only reached once (at least one of which I'll grant that's mostly on me) and at one point I even found myself respawning from a spike checkpoint into an enemy. There's some of what I call 'inadvertent frustration platforming' which is when the platforming or reflex aspects of a game in particular cause frustration the developer probably didn't intend.

Sensory 4/5 - Everything is unified except the tiles. Honestly pretty good all around on this score. Feels very Hollow Knight influenced, but that's no crime!

Metroidvania 5/5 - Upgrade/exploration on par for meeting jam genre criteria.

Minimalism 4.5/5 rounded up - I see the theming, but I don't necessarily see it borne out even meeting its stated goals. Incidentally the game probably would have had more conveyance with a more chiaroscuro-focused scheme. To honor the vibe I'm getting that this really wasn't minimalist I'm giving a symbolic half-point off but it won't affect the sort.

I know I may have said on a stream that I hated the platforming/runback a little. I did. However, the game is still very charming and definitely seems to be an accomplishment. If a version appears with slightly more generous hard checkpoints I might even see it all at some point! Until then I recomend extending the adorable art theming into the tiling and giving a little more background contrast vs the characters and enemies.

I was really pleasantly suprised by this one! Judging by the cover I did not expect much, but once I got into it, the style actually started feeling quite charming, and to my surprise all the mechanics felt surprisingly good and tactile to use. The combat, while simple, was genuinely fun. The spear dash felt unique and had a good bit of skill expression. Music was nice. I experienced no bugs. And the game was so big for what it was, with multiple areas and bosses even... I had a great time. I wouldn't pay for a game like this personally, but this really made me smile. Awesome job!!

A game the very prominently wears its hollow knight inspiration, but achieves it quite really. 

You've really replicated that feeling of unceremoniously being put into a world, and left to explore it, fight its foes and talk to its inhabitants.
The combat, while really simple, gets enhanced by the spear letting you run circles around the enemies when utilized, the boss fights were also quite good, and i felt really encouraged the use of a spear as a repositioning tool.

The spear! a very fun tool, which, like another commenter pointed out, I would also have like to have seen utilized further than mainly being for going through small gaps, as in more active usage of it during platforming segments.

Music was pretty good, I loved the silly lil voice acting on the bu- shades. Game lacked in ambience (which is something hollow knight does stupidly well), also the first area, the contrast between the enemies, while there was no issue in seeing the enemies, due to the yellow eyes, still looking at two low contrast objects is just fundermentally tiring for the human eye.

Also I feel that the close camera angle, combined with the spacious, somewhat too big environments led to a lot of blind drops.

Lastly I dont think the theme was incorperated, that heavily, I do get that light and dark but thats a very surface level and not prominent part of the game.

Also future reference for Jams, state the amount of bosses there are, because I had defeated two, collected two upgrades for the spear, and gotten the dash. Yet I was unsure if there was still more content.

But overall a very lovely little game, I can see this being vertical slice of a larger, more complete experience.

This is a wildly fully-featured game for a jam! There's a story, a melee combat system, a really fun dash mechanic, and a fun scribbly art style as well! One might almost feel its a bit TOO much to qualify as "minimalist" but I do think the theme and monochrome palette help it fit more within that description. Great work!

Honestly, you surprised me. This is a strong entry with great ambition and I enjoyed the available content. That said, I'm a bit sad that it isn't a contained experience. I like the mechanics, the boss battles, the chit chat... and the alluded story feels like it has substance, aside from the theme. Now, I do feel that the minimalist chunky pixel style chosen for the characters clashes with the very detailed levels, backgrounds and bosses. A unified, consistent style while keeping the light vs. dark theme would elevate this game a lot more for me. Furthermore, the levels are a bit too big because they aren't filled meaningfully. It's a slog to backtrack one entire area. Lastly, while the difficulty was fine for me, you get one entire health back per enemy, which, combined with the ample health already, made traversal inconsequential aside from the challenge courses.

This has potential. Good job!

I got mixed feelings with this one. On one hand I love the spear (honestly best mechanic) and I was spaming it like crazy having lots of fun in the process. The feedback on the enemies is nicely done and the dialogue is cute and funny (especially Quake's map joke LOL). However, the maps felt bland and huge. I could barely tell the enemies from the background :x It felt like I'm just going lower and lower as fast as possible without any goal or reason in mind. The map felt the same the whole way through with enemies that act the same, and feel the same to fight. Two exceptions I found were the bosses where I really enjoyed the mechanics :) In the end, I quit on the second boss because the run back felt tedious and I've felt like I experienced the game enough to leave a review. Potential is there - some more ambitious art and levels with cool mechanics like these would go hard!

Ambitious game you got here! I can tell Hollow Knight was a big inspiration, and I think you’ve definitely captured some of the same feel. First of all, thank you for allowing me to hold a button to keep attacking, as an old man I appreciate it. The little Simlish voice acting was a lot of fun too.

I’d say my main critique is that the levels meander a bit. They’re quite large, but a lot of the times, there’s not that much to them. Sometimes the camera also had trouble keeping up, especially in areas where you go down. I felt like I had to make a few blind jumps, which isn’t ideal.

I quite enjoyed both boss fights and the arena! The healing mechanic makes for a fun push and pull, and rewards playing aggressively using your generous spear iframes. The spear is a fun mechanic, though I wish there was a more platforming-based area where I really was pushed to use it beyond just throwing it into a perilous area. I also only found one blessing, but having to choose which one to use is a neat concept. Kudos for making a mechanic that could so easily be janky, but having it work rather intuitively, I never managed to get stuck in a wall or anything.

I’m not a huge fan of all the mixels going on, and the occasional lack of contrast (dark enemies on dark backgrounds) but I do quite like the look of all the NPCs. Very charming little setting you’ve conjured up here.

Overall, good work, straight up shbugging it out of 10

A very solid entry! The spear mechanic its really good, and i'm sure you can expand on it (more blessings, the red one I found wasn't that useful). And I also think you did a really good job with enemy variety and the bosses!

The HUD although looks nice, it's a little bit too big, and sometimes would obscure too much of the screen. Also the screens/areas feel too big and with too much empty space, which makes them hard to navigate, and makes a lot of it feel too samey.

You did put in the description that the terrain was more detailed on purpose but I think it would be better to just stick with one or two art styles (you had pixel art for characters, more high resolution for terrain, and simple drawings for the background), it clashed a bit too much.

(I ended up reaching the end of the demo, so defeated 2 bosses, colloseum, and got the dash)

Lastly, I think the combat was serviceable, but only being able to hit to the sides felt too restrictive with having flying enemies, and probably adding a little bit more feedback to it (some more knockback, maybe a bigger hitbox for the attack) would make it feel a lot better.

Some really cool visual stuff, and some great ideas there, i especially like the light spear, i think that was very creatively implemented. I liked the effect before it tells you how to use the light spear. The sound design was good. Some clunky jumps here and there where the player's size relative to the world makes it awkward make it a bit awkward, and the character being black on a black background makes positioning for some jumps a tad difficult, i am not sure if there is coyote time of some sort implemented it is hard to tell, perhaps that could make the jumps less clunky, and sometimes, its hard to tell which way the player is facing but that last point is nitpicky.

All in all a great submission that i enjoyed playing through, and it had some really interesting ideas.