Finished a run — got Ending 2 of 5, and the last line of it made me laugh.
The setup works: cursed five-dollar cartridge, a wizard's OS that bills you for every click, a duck with his own ideas about freedom. Good joke, told with a straight face.
Where I got lost: Debt. I never understood what it was while playing — why my own purse counts against me, whether it changes the ending, why it jumped by over a hundred during the second story scene. And I didn't realise the two characters you meet were choices until the ending screen told me so. One line at those moments that this one matters would go a long way.
A few thoughts with the jam in mind, for what they're worth:
- Art and sound are both great. I wouldn't touch them.
- Giving the same monster different attack patterns was a good call — it kept the fights from blurring together.
- Two worries, and I don't claim to know the answer. First, in a jam a lot of people decide in the first minute whether to keep going, and the opening — good as it is — could hit harder. Second, the game felt dense to me, and I think it's because it shows a lot at once. Cutting back to the core might actually help it stand out, though I know there's not much time left before the deadline.
After the jam: honestly, I'd be a little sad if this stayed 1-bit. It deserves a proper high-quality pixel-art pass. I'll be back for another ending.