Epic, cool game. I've got a lot to say about this one. I'm sorry for taking over the comment section.
The cycling mechanic is really cool. It seems like the kinda thing I personally would steal from a game I like, but if you came up with it yourself, that's really clever and it works real well. It means you can play with your prefered playstyle longer while keeping the variety.
It's awesome the enemies switch with you, that makes the game feel more dynamic and coherent in a way. It adds another layer
You've almost finished controller controls, if only you shot in the direction of the joystick. Bummer, but understandable for a gamejam of course
For your information, I only figured out there's a dash in level 4, after I tried to get a controller working. A little mention in the story would've been nice
It would've been nice if all the 'go to next level' portal thingies were at the top of the level or something, so they'd be easier to find.
I did have to restart at some point. After upgrading my apples the entire time, I bought one blast in all directions upgrade that was so bad that it became unplayable. The only way to not hit yourself is to perfectly time a dash. Keeping that timing consistent, calculating where you're gonna go, avoiding all the attacks from the enemies with way more range, and making sure you don't get hindered by the dash cooldown, while some enemies blast apples in all directions without friendly fire, is literally impossible. I beat one floor with it, but it was way too painful to continue. I must say though, the idea is really fun and it's very cool how the enemies get the same upgrades as you. The skip button is really helpful, great foresight.
Okay, it was probably just the last level that was really hard, and after playing it a second time, it's very cool. I even played it a fourth and fifth time so yeah, really wasn't that big of an issue. After those other playthroughs I went back to my first one and beat it without using the apples at all. Mostly level one powers, was actually quite doable. It's awesome that they then can also no longer use the apple powerup
I'd say that more ammunition is almost a nerf.
About the fact that enemies seem to get the same upgrades as you, I understand that might have created some issues so you did it slightly differently for the player and for the enemies. It is now a bit weird though, but I do understand. With more time you might have been to able to only pick upgrades that are beneficial to you even if the enemies also get them? Currently the shooting faster with the spinning wheel, or any of the damage up upgrades are very strong because the enemies barely get an upgrade.
About the general feel. I think the speed and friction were correct, and I'm positively impressed with how the enemies traversed the tough obstacles. The obstacles were well placed and created many fun environments. Some levels were more open and others more closed. This encourages using different weapons which was well done. Okay back to general feel. The main thing that bugged me was that you moved much slower when hugging up against a wall. This is a pretty common phenomenon in Unity games and maybe something to look out for next time. This annoyance is even more annoying when dashing.
About dashing. I think you have about half a second too much cooldown. I might just suck at the game, but it happened way too often that I lose 3+ hearts in one go because of a dashing mistake. My usual mistakes: 1.) The wall slide thing I mentioned earlier 2.) Walking into an encounter not realising I'm still in cooldown, because to me it's surprisingly long 3.) You can't dash through enemies. Absolutely no shame here, a dash takes an enormous amount of testing to get right, and you guys' scope wasn't exactly small as is.
Here's some feedback on each individual power, in order of most fun to least fun (still fun, don't get me wrong here).
Shoe. Awesome because you can hit once at max range, or twice closer by, in other words, playing more risky rewards you with more damage
Apple. Awesome because it ricochets and you can hit yourself. Sometimes when I wasn't careful I didn't realise my last power ran out and I instantly blew myself up. Unfixable without lame changes, funny, skill-issue, keep it in the game. The upgrades for this one were very varied and fun (bar the slight inbalance).
Rose. I liked the simpler gameplay in the mix of the more hectic ones.
Needle wheel. While fun to try to go into close range to shoot from close up with a fast but short range weapon, it became practically impossible to avoid damage, so I either gimmicked or damage boosted most of the time. But when I did do it correctly it was very cool
Crossbow. In my opinion by far the most lacking. At long range it's very inconsistent and that makes basically unusable. I didn't really play with it that much though, so don't blame me if I'm wrong
The thematic is very cool, and the music fit really well too. I liked the music.
I'm not really a story kinda guy, but I didn't mind reading this one. Please read this as a complement thank you. One of several things I liked was how well the spawnpoints of the enemies tied into the story.
I'm also not one to talk about art much, but it was very nice, and fitted the gameplay perfectly, which is nice considering the amount of options in the game
Very cool game, have an emoji: 🥋