so i'll be honest, this is a pretty unique and cool idea for the game jam, a lot of ideas and mechanics implemented in them in such a short time.
the idea of being able to eat your previous deaths for more time is pretty neat, though i do wish there was a way to snuff out the light on purpose to plan for a future attempt instead of waiting it out.
also the fog of war or the darkness did feel a bit frustrating trying to navigate it especially when low on light, even with the lanterns lit up for landmarks, and the animation of the candle feeling awkward with movement.
but that's just me being blunt on how i felt playing it, overall though the idea and theme all fit extremely well in what it was going for. the light growing dimmer made sense due to an actual candle, same with the movement, needing to jump around, grabbing more candle wax increases the time, lighting torches up and wind killing you instantly or using fire to rise.
even if the gameplay felt a bit off, everything else about it all made sense in the situation of the candle. nothing left me like, 'oh that didn't make sense.' so in terms of creativity, very well executed especially when made in a very short time.
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Thank you so much for the feedback!!!
For the "self-destruct" mechanic, we did think about it but we thought players would just spam it in the spawn to then have a crazy amount of light and timer, since the timer doesn't have a limit. This is on purpose, we wanted this death mechanism to be more of a less punishable death and a way to get further away from spawn, but at the end you kinda need to to do some parts of the level so it's deffinitly something we can improve design-wise.
For the candle animation, i agree it feels a bit off, but animating a static candle to run, jump wall-jump, sprint-jump is pretty hard in 4days, our poor artist lost a lot of sleep this jam xd. Of course i know you were not complaining about the art, but the weird animation, i agree!!
For all the creative mechanics, you can thank our sfx and music composer, who basically thought of every one of them ♥