Initially we got curious due to the game's great artstyle, but turns out the real masterpiece was the writing and the dialogue all along. This game probably had the best and also the funniest dialogue we've seen on this gamejam so far, and I hardly doubt anyone will even come close! It looked so unassuming at first, but as we kept attempting bosses and NPCs kept having more and more new dialogue, each better and funnier than the previous, providing more and more character expression and development, it actually felt unreal how much there's packed into this game. In the end, the story turned out to be surprisingly compelling, individual boss's arcs were quite impressive, and the ending was really satisfying, especially with all the short side-stories we got on the way (cactus and snake arc is goated). The gameplay also turned out to be surprisingly interesting, each boss was genuinely subversive, especially the very last one (although the second boss was far too easy compared to the rest, and didn't give us much chance to read second location's NPCs' dialogue). Despite some of its appearance, it turned to be an incredibly compelling game, and the fact that it was made in just 7 days is just astounding. Also we appreciated the similarities to Undertale/Deltarune's writing style, while still undoubtedly remaining an independent solid project :D
Although this is definitely our favorite game on this gamejam, there are still some points where it could be improved even further. First, it's somewhat buggy and unpolished, which was especially sad when the dialogue boxes went beyond the screen hiding some of the text (it turned out to be fixable by making the window narrower). If the game had more visual niceties, like effects on hitting the enemy, or more fleshed out transitions between areas, there'd be barely anything to criticize - we really hope you do finalize the game, because it does deserve to be known. Additionally, having to lose to the bosses to see more dialogue worked kinda well for harder bosses, but it's sad if you miss a ton of dialogue due to fluking the boss, and annoying to intentionally die to the boss to not miss it - though I'm not sure how exactly this could be remedied. Also at times it felt that the narrative strays a bit too far from our main goal, but the ending does conclude it quite nicely. Aaaaaaalso some of the map art looked a bit rough, especially on the 3rd world
So we really do hope you finalize this game, and we will definitely be recommending it to other people! It was truly, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the games we've ever played