This is a game that is insanely way more deep than most jam games ever really deserve to be. Especially for a two person team. I am really impressed and I have no idea how ya'll managed to cram so many little things and polish a lot of it in this short a time. It really is something and the effort really shows.
But, there not being an in-game tutorial, tooltips or anything along the lines to me personally is A CRIME of the highest order. I found it very difficult to get into, particularly on the keyboard.
But, once I got used to the controls, and how to manoeuvre the UI, it quickly became one of the most replayable and intriguing games I've played so far this jam. Which just makes me more passionately offended it was so hard to get into.
Other than that:
- The void / aetherial aesthetic is a very unique change of pace and stands out quite a lot, and I love the way it actually does somehow keep the spring vibes. It is quite a surreal setting that feels kind of like "Springtime on the moon" to me. Very cool.
- Combat with the different weapons and status effects is awesome. The sheer variety of weapons - and then my favourite part: The way you get to customize them with that pretty unique flower slot system to give them different powerups (Curious, was it inspired by anything in particular? Or something that was just imagined on the fly?).
- World changing with the map generation, very cool.
- All enemies are quite neatly designed and are interesting in their variety.
- Great customization.
- Very neat music.
- Loved the leaf hitpoints.
And for the issues.
- As mentioned, lack of in-game tutorial, button/key tooltips was really frustrating. At least on keyboard things did not feel too initially intuitive for me. Had to keep a copy of the game page open on the other screen and constantly peek back and forth before I got used to it. Especially when getting used to the inventory.
- While I generally like the art, my first character was a light-skinned elf who for the first zone merged with their skin color into the background, and for the second zone that happened to their clothing. Eyes hurt quite a bit during that. But on my second run I purposefully picked something that was darker and stuck out more from the background and it was a lot better.
- Suffered performance-wise quite a lot in the underground stage. Was using Opera GX and I don't think it liked the lighting/visibility effect in there. ;-;
Anyways, to wrap it up. Big smacking stick(Flowering Branch) was the favorite weapon, followed by dragonfruit.
And should maybe seriously consider continuing work on this to some capacity sometime. Feels like there is something pretty unique and cool here.