this is a good first game! i can tell you put a lot of effort into it.

some notes on the jam restrictions to keep in mind for future GBJams:

• you should not have mouse input anywhere in the game, even the main menu. otherwise, the controls match the jam restrictions.
• you mostly stuck to the 4 color rule, but there are some extra colors around the edge of the screen that you missed and your dialogue box also doesn’t match the palette. you can see from this screenshot where i have removed the text in Aseprite. there are six colors (check out the palette swatch squares in the upper left corner of the image).
• your font adds yet another color (white) and the anti-aliasing adds hundreds of extra grays around the edges of the letters to make them look smoother. these all count as colors.
• your resolution also isn’t actually 160x144 because your fonts are at a much higher resolution. the ending screen looks to be about 640x600 base resolution and actually has hundreds of colors in it.

other thoughts:

• it doesn’t make much sense to have a choice to go to sleep at the bed since there is nothing else to do. maybe you had planned for more though?
• the different music in the second dream really helps to add to the nightmare feel. nice job on that!
• the ending seems abrupt and doesn’t conclude the story in my opinion. it would have been nice to add some kind of narration there or something. i feel like some kind of narration between the two dreams would help too. why does the character have a nightmare? what changed that might have caused that?
• it would be cool if there was a way to avoid or defeat the creature at the end of the second dream and have a different ending. maybe you intended to do something like that but ran out of time?

nice work on this though. i hope you keep making games and you join the jam again next year!

It looks more like an Atari 2600 game than a Game Boy one.

 There isn't really a story, but for a first game, it was a decent attempt. 

The color choices seemed random to me, but if the goal was to make it look like a dream, it actually worked.

And the OST make the game more weird, i like it!

It's a brief 2D platformer that causes some bizarre feelings!

I gotta be honest: I don't really felt the jam's theme into this game and I don't understand the history....

However, I really enjoyed the environment you created! I loved the colours that you chose and the OST matched it perfectly.

I like the idea of this being "What if Yume Nikki was a 2D platformer", and it does have potential for bizarre horror. It's a shame how short it really is. I do think the gameplay could've used more polish as it's easy to get stuck on the side of the wall, and I couldn't fall asleep a third time because it wouldn't let me click the button, so I got stuck until I pressed enter. I also wasn't a fan how the visuals looked, though I guess they work in context of a dream.

I appreciate you making this cos again, this concept has a lot of potential and could really work with more dynamic level design.

Hope the grandma is doing well.

a unique experience with eerie world. the platformer movement is a bit tricky to get right. sometimes i got stuck on the side of the platform. the color palette could also use some work, especially to contrast between player character and the background (unless it’s intentional).

overall, a great attempt to the gamejam. kudos for making it!