Oulala! This is a very ambitious submission!!
For the sake of being constructive, because it seems like you are very good at making games (and game jams), I think you could have reduced the scope a little bit (dont get me wrong, you did a very good job!!).
The most fun I had was when I figured out you could long jump between island, that was great!! But then I was psyched into oblivions until I had to restart:
- I’m a frog, surely water wont kill me (it did)
- Okay I cant go in the water, but there is an area with underwater coins… maybe that part isnt deep so it wont kill me ? (it did)
- Okay no water for me, then missed a long jump and hit the water (dead)
When I re-spawned, I saw the boat (that I missed initially), then it took me a while to figure out that I could only get out of it near a dock (which isnt a bad thing either). Which made me wonder, why a boat? (if it was to avoid doing swimming animation I 100% get it haha). This kind of situation also happened on different mechanics that felt optional/single use, which “diluted” the fun.
I think you would have a very solid vertical slice if you merged things together, reducing your workload and improving the “synergies” of the mechanics, for example:
- The flashlight and scanner could have been one tool that does both
- The frog could swim (or float like kirby), without a boat
- The frog could just lose health by touching the water (if you dont want swimming)
- You could remove the life stocks and made the Game Over happen when you lose all health
- You could make the coin give you swimming time/energy/hp
- very “mario sunshine like”, the tools could have been powered by water (that fills up when swimming)
All of this to say, I think you would benefit from finding things to remove from you games than things to add haha.
This game was very impressive, you can be very very proud, the visuals, fighting, accessibility and UI’s are all super good!! And all of this in a 1 person team is a serious brag!!