One of my favorite entries ! This is a very polished little game with great audiovisual presentation. I love the work you've put in here.

Gameplay wise, it's mostly very good. The bumping and auto-attacking works really well and fits the jam theme perfectly. The cursed sword was the first upgrade I found and I actually quite enjoyed one-shotting most enemies. Most upgrades were good. I will say that the wall jump felt off though.

I enjoyed the metroidvania structure and level design. It worked quite well. My only major criticism would be the going up to the final ability room and the combat in that room being overtuned.

Great job honestly ! 

This little game might just be my personal favorite. The combat being bump-based, including pogos and pin-balling yourself amidst a crowd is very satisfying and easy to get into for how simple it is. The dash and stomp naturally extend this core mechanic. It feels a bit like grazing for points in a bullet hell. It did get a bit messy in the last mandatory combat room, with how little space there is and how you can chain-bounce between getting hurt, and hitting the enemies.

In terms of presentation, I like the character portrait and UI on the left, letting the game itself have a retro aspect ratio while still utilizing wide screens. The portrait is cute but could've used some actual utilization to dignify its inclusion. Love that you went not just with a tight 8-color palette, but that it's split between greens and yellows. They're easy on the eyes while still providing contrast for only the essentials. Nice to have different music for the biomes, also! A proper game completion screen to mirror the title screen would've been nice to tie a bow around the whole thing. 

Structure-wise, it's fun how the game kind of starts you in the middle, and then sends you up and down for key abilities. This culminating in a challenge up top and a treasure down below felt like a nice alternative take to coming full circle. 

This is very cool! Did not find the hidden sword, but I did manage to get to the end and the money room. The presentation is great here, I love the pixel art with the minimal palette, and there’s some very solid animation work in there for such a small timeframe and such a variety of enemies.

The core mechanic of bump-based combat is neat, even if occasionally quite difficult in tight rooms, although the rather forgiving amount of healing and save points meant that it never felt too unfair. I especially enjoyed the parts where you had to use enemies to progress.

I’m a bit less charmed by upgrades. While the dash is cool, and I like how it plays into the big bounce, I found the cockatrice feather a bit unsatisfying to use. I’m not sure what it is about the momentum, but it never felt natural, maybe if it had a very brief stall before falling or something? The wall jump felt even more “off” to me, it feels like it absolutely launches you away from the wall, when your normal walking speed is rather slow. Still, like I said, the core mechanics are good enough that this is only a minor gripe.

The overall world design is solid too. I was lost for a little bit at the start, although things started flowing nicely once I got an upgrade, I suppose I just happened to wander into the wrong part of the castle. It’s a shame you weren’t able to finish everything you wanted to do and the game ends rather abruptly, but hey, that’s gamejams for ya.

Very impressive job overall, especially for a solo project, the polish on this is great. Excellent work!

Looks simple, but is actually much deeper that seems at the first glance. Fun to play, location design is peak, enemies are creative. Combat is very enjoyable, but movement sometimes felt just wrong like with the wall jump. Still, awesome game!

Really awesome the visuals are really good I love the enemy designs it feels good to play (there's like, some nuance to complain about wrt to wall jumping and stomping but its also like, very vague to talk about), and it really makes me wish I had implemented bump combat into my own game so i could've cut it down to 2 buttons lmfao

Great looking game and quite a lof of fun too, nice use of a limited color palette. The auto-attack mechanic is novel and fun to use. Only qualms would be that pressing jump a second time to dash downwards feels a bit counterintuitive and I thought the spikes damage was a bit too high, the deaths that left me frustrated came from spikes. Otherwise, very solid entry

- Bluemeany

Definitely one of the most solid and well-executed entries I've reviewed when it comes to the controls, mechanics and overall presentation!

The pixel art for the backgrounds and characters is absolutely gorgeous, with some of my favorites being the main character's portrait in the corner, and the knife-throwing enemies. The music is great too, and I love the sound effects and the sense of feedback on hitting and interacting with things - although the micropause when collecting a big cluster of jewels seemed a bit excessive, unless it was actually unintentional lag!

The auto-attack took a while to get used to, but it turned out to be quite a satisfying and fun mechanic, especially hitting enemies from below or jumping on their heads. Overall, a very clever implementation of the theme! The powerups were fairly basic Metroidvania fare for the most part, but they were well-implemented and fulfilled their role in the progression well. The most interesting one in my opinion was the drop-kick ability, and I wish it had more use throughout the game.

The map was fun to explore and never got so big that backtracking would be a problem, and I enjoyed the various secrets and shortcuts I found on the way. I think my only major complaint was that some of the enemy placements seemed a bit unforgiving (mostly on the final "ascent" section to the last ability), plus I wasn't a fan of the spikes being able to hurt you when touching them from the side - but those are small nitpicks more than anything.

Obviously a final boss would have really helped tie everything together, but considering the time limit and the overall level of quality and effort in everything else, it's hard to complain!

Very nice entry, I had lots of fun with this one...

The map was great could really feel it opening up with each new ability, and the game looked great, I'm not sure the jewel mechanic added that much for me (but it didn't detract much either as it never felt like you were struggling to pay the cost of the "jewel" gates. The wall jump felt a tiny bit janky as has been mentioned elsewhere and the walk cycle animation was slightly strange... (but in a very charming way that I grew to love) 

Possibly the most distracting thing (for me) was the slightly apologetic  text where you got the last ability and then again in the last room -  There was certainly no reason to be so apologetic given how well rounded the game is, it could have been replaced easily with text that made you feel more like you (as a player) had triumphed getting to the game, and that you as a developer had triumphed (by delivering such a well rounded game)

Great job.

I don't have much to say about this entry because it's so competently made. It looks great (I love the GameBoy palette contrasted with the blue-ish shadows and the orange highlights) and it moves very well. It sounds very crunchy too, which I liked a lot!

The Ys-like combat is interesting but sadly I never got the hang of it. Avoiding damage in the smaller rooms often felt impossible and it didn't help that many enemies attack the moment you enter the room, without giving you time to position yourself. I gave up near the end, in the room you enter by wall-jumping from the bottom to get  instantly mugged by two crows (my nemesis!). I had to redo it many times and if I somehow survived those first few seconds, another crow would instantly kill me the moment I paid 50 gems to open the door. (And that was despite having the Cursed Sword!)

There were other such situations that felt unfair, like taking the Cockatrice Tail's back to the save point: if I messed up the jump, the enemy would stay dead and I would be stranded, forcing me to redo everything. Simply having a switch to hit to create a shortcut would have done the trick, I think.

Wall jumping  felt a bit weird: it seemed to me  the character was facing the wrong direction and the horizontal movement was disproportionate compared to a regular jump. But it was really the only ability that felt less than perfect, and it remained very serviceable.

I think what I liked most was uncovering the many secrets and finding the upgrade items and rings. The power progression is also very noticeable and enjoyable. It's a good thing there's a map and I used it near the end to find where I could use my new abilities.

Overall that's a great entry that could use a bit of balancing near the end to be really perfect. Good job! ;)

Enjoyment 5/5: I have next to nothing negative to say. Everything about this game that might be considered 'rough' for a platformer of its style is less than the standard value of 'rough.'

Execution 5/5: Almost no bugs or glitches to be found. My only real nitpick is that some of the map choices involve some one-ways up and down that seem like they could have maybe been two-ways.

Sensory: 5/5. Everything feels very tightly integrated; visuals/sfx/music are all about the same right era and quality all-around. Love the Kirby-esque enemies.

Metroidvania: 5/5. There's a fair bit of map to explore and quite a few mobility upgrades. Push to attack works really well.

Theme-Relevance: 5/5 Your interpretation was strong IMO and it also integrated well with the game mechanic choices and aesthetics.

This is my first 5/5 of the jam. IDK if it's presently a contender for top 5, but if it's not, it should be.

Awesome art style and the combat is unique and intuitive. (I never played Hollow Knight, but the combat looks similar). Essentially my only complains are, that some spaces are a bit to tight (for movement and combat) and that the player is a bit slow. Other than that the game is really perfrect. 

Really good, hard to believe this is a one person thing! I liked the use of the music and colour palettes for different realms, the old gameboy graphics style and the smooth controls. Pretty hard overall

I didn't listen to the advice and picked up the cursed sword and proceeded to get crushed lmao

But really, wow. An absolutely stellar jam showing. Great metroidvania progression, appealing and cohesive audio and visual style, and interesting mechanics executed well. I'm basically at a loss for words. Awesome work!!!

Very good entry! The bump slash combat was really satisfyng, and the level design and progression through it were solid

You might think auto attack mechanic would make a game feel too easy or boring, but you couldn't be more wrong about that if you play this. The auto attack mechanic is well implemented and makes the game feel very unique. The map is meticulously crafted with a lot of hidden shortcuts. The basic movement felt a bit too slow, but the inputs were nevertheless very responsive. 

It's a pity that the game ends prematurely, I encourage you to develop it further because you have a great concept in your hands. 

Really good game, had a lot of fun and you managed to add a lot of depth to the auto-attacking combat, the HK-style pogos were a nice touch for that. Art was also really nice and successfully gave off a minimalist vibe even with the amount of detail present.

Like the first review I had some issues with enemies immediately ambushing me on room entry - the ravens in the final room in particular were a huge pain. That room in general was kind of disappointing and felt like just enemy spam, but considering its the last proper room of the game I think it's understandable to be petering out by that point.

What an interesting automatic attack mechanic — it fits the jam theme really well. It really does feel like a metroidvania. I experienced some difficulties, such as being attacked VERY quickly by enemies right after switching areas. The art and sound are spot on. Overall, I found the game difficult; it’s quite strange not being able to attack with inputs lol, but it’s a really AWESOME idea.

Thanks for sharing the project!

This game is really good! The combat is incredibly unique and fits perfectly with the tight controls. The art here is also very pretty, there was never a point where anything felt out of place. 

If I had to give a point of criticism, I would say that some room transitions with enemies immediately present felt a bit unfair or unreactable, especially when paired with the glass cannon effect of cursed sword, but save points were common enough that backtracking was never a major pain point.