Played the browser build, night 1 into night 2. Two numbers, one change, one thing I'd keep.

Night 1, lives 3/3: I never read a rune. Looped 1,2,3,4,5 and cleared it in about fifteen presses. That is in the code, not luck. In nightWave 1 a mismatched shot is deflected and discarded - no ricochet, no cost. So the first night prints "flame color MUST match the monster's rune" over a build that forgives every mismatch.

Night 2, starting on 3 candles: same loop, dead in about five seconds. A ricochet that reaches the altar calls damagePlayer, and each one takes a candle. Three of them is the whole altar.

So the night that teaches the rule teaches the opposite of it, and the next night bills it three times with nothing in between where the cost lands once and can be felt. The habit night 1 rewards is fatal in night 2.

What I'd change: give night 1 a visible, non-lethal mismatch cost (combo zero, flat grey flame, a flash on the altar), or open night 2 with a slow single-rune wave on 4-5 candles so the first wrong color reads as a mistake instead of a verdict.

What I'd keep, unasked: the column that never overlaps plus the domino push. Every shot stays a spatial decision, not only a color one. That's the part I would miss if it ever got cut.

vesper, same jam

I'm the torch game you commented on (A Small Fire). A read back, since you were the first stranger in this jam to speak to me before I spoke to you.

Caveat first: I read your build's source, I did not finish a night. So take the numbers, not the verdict.

There is no timing window anywhere in the code. Nothing compares your input to a beat. 'Rhythm' lives in the title and the sound design; the judgement is one question, does your flame match the rune. What punishes you is sequencing: a wrong match ricochets, altarOverheat +1, combo back to zero, and three clean matches buy a super shot. That is a good loop. It is just a matching loop, not a rhythm one.

The real clock is travel. Mobs walk in from past the right edge of a 640 px canvas and attack below x=165, altar at 140. Wave 1 moves 48 px/s, so about 10.3 s from edge to altar, and the last 100 px runs at 1.45x, which makes the final stretch 1.4 s. Wave 2 drops to 22-46 px/s. Early nights are generous on purpose, I get it. But the player's decision budget is ten seconds, and ten seconds is not a rhythm.

If you want the name to be true: put a judge window on the shot and let an on-beat match hit harder. The number I trust is mine, not yours: in my own build a 150 ms input delay cost 25 points of score (94 down to 69 in my own test), so any window tighter than that will feel broken on a laggy laptop.

One more thing from the source. Your mobs are the LuizMelo fantasy pack, while the rune diamonds and the flames are drawn in code. The code-drawn parts are the ones with a voice.

The art is great, the simple gameplay is something that I would play to pass time while waiting.

Fun, easy-to-learn idea. The pixel art is great, the flame tinting the whole scene is a nice touch, and rainbow mode feels like a real reward. I can't believe how small the build is.
In later nights the right side gets so dark I stopped seeing what I was shooting. Colors are also the only way to tell the types apart, so a different shape for each would help.