This game really captured so much about what I love about Metroidvanias! I was very impressed by the size of the map and really enjoyed the lack of handholding throughout the game despite the frequent dialogue - often a dangerous pit trap to avoid! Movement felt snappy and I really enjoyed some of the more unique powers, especially the cloud gust ability that allowed you to jump off of the floating orbs. I also thought that the music and narrative all tied the game together quite nicely in terms of worldbuilding.

One thing that I would love to have seen expanded on is the graphics of the world. Having every environment be made up of one tile set with a solid color background prevented me from being as engrossed in the world as I think I otherwise would have been. Of course, I understand sometimes graphics may not be a strong suit for a team. Still, I think some kind of art in the backgrounds and some small details in the terrain could go a long way and help tie together the already-great world even more!

Great work and thank you so much for sharing!

We played this early in the jam but didn't make it very far, as we had a lot of other projects to check out. Revisiting this was a priority, as we really wanted to give thoughtful feedback. This game is clearly a top contender in this jam - huge congrats to you guys for crushing it!

The bad stuff first:

- Maybe it's a personal qualm, but we really wanted to be able to skip the dialogue. Not because the story wasn't interesting - because it was - but because it felt like it locked you out of the gameplay for too long and sort of droned on. Our submission was admittedly weak in narrative, so again it could be more of a personal opinion.

- The cloud jump ability felt a little awkward to use. Aiming with the mouse made it so that using the keyboard to play was just a little more annoying than it could've been. A possible fix (at least for us) would be to make it 8-way directional, so that you could bounce from the orbs more quickly without having to use the mouse.

The good stuff:

- A huge map to explore! This is a Metroidvania jam after all, and it was refreshing to be able to explore at the breadth that this game has to offer.

- The art style is consistently satisfying to look at. The character, enemies, tiles, upgrades, etc all look like they belong in this world, and that really goes a long way.

- Enemy AI! It feels really good to battle with the enemies in this game. The way wolves back up when you approach them makes it just hard enough to run past, so engaging with them becomes an actual choice. The flying enemies that shoot bolts at you are really inspired as well.

- It's crazy how little we find attacks with directionality, even in games like these that are heavy in combat. Big thank you for having directional attacks, so you can combat stuff flying directly above you. On top of that the character feels great to control, so getting into encounters is way more fun than it is disengaging.

Take our complaints with a grain of salt - this was such an excellent entry, and one that we really wanted to revisit with legitimate feedback. It was an awesome experience - thank you so much for making a really fun game.

Here is my feedback about your game. Pleas, consider that i played +- 30 mn, I got 2 abilities ( wall jump and the jump on floating balls ):

The cons

- When you die the game doesn't save your data like old games. This lack of modernity about this point lead to frustration beceause :

  - You lose the sensation of progression beceause you lose the abilities, teleportation point, map progression, etc, you got if you were not able to reach another rest/save

  - You lose motivation to redo again all you have done

  - You feel punished for nothing

  This is what I disliked the most and made the joystick fall off my hand to stop play the game

- On my opinion Visual are bad, or even inexistent. All rooms are visualy looking the same, there is no background or decoration that help to memorize visualy the different rooms. It breaks one of the 7 principle of game feel which is novetly on the visual side, and reduce the envy of the player to continue the game as it seems visualy boring. Hopefully the micro level design applied on different room give diversity and save your game on this point to give visual diversity

- Possibly a problem of pacing with the rest/save point, some times in 30s of gameplay i was able to go so easily from one to one another, when in 5 min of gameplay i wasn't able to get one another. And when you die and loose all your progression if you didn't make it to reach another one it is really frustrating to loose 5 mn of gameplay

- I felt like there is lack of guidance. The feeling of freedom is here, and i think important in a Metroidvania, but there is no clear guidance where to go. There is a lot of story, which is great in such a game in a game jam, but it is not used to guide the player in any ways and i think it was a missed opportunity to link the narrative design with the level design as well. Maybe next time, if you use a narrative sequencer for the story of your game, consider to use it it as well for the level design

- Also in terms of macro level design I got a sense of "submerged by all the possibility". There is a lot of, way more, room blockers you seen in a little time on my opinion, so I wasn't able to memorize all the room blockers you putted and didn't get the tipical reward feeling in Metroidvania of "Hohoo i got this ability and i remebered i got stuck in this room, but with this new power ups i won't be stucked anymore !". I got more ta sensation of random rewardning beceaus i didnt' memozrized properly all the room blocker beceaus there is a lot of them, and so when i got an ability i was more saying "hu ok i'll go back to see where i can use it beceaus i think i saw places i can use it to help me to reach to new rooms even if i don't know where"

- There is 2 enemy that are looking too similar in terms of gameplay : the wolves and the human/bandit ones. I think it might be okay to have this in a final game with dozens of different enemies, but in a game when you are limited in the number of enemies like thise one by cohnsiderating the game jam i didn't find the interest of the human enemy

- Melee attack on joypad should be X, not Y, beceaus X is nearrer to A that is used for jump, it is important to have such 2 button so commonly pressed near to each other

- I didn't understood properly the story at the start of the game and i didn't felt engaged with it

Pros :

- The character maniability is really good ! It is so pleasant to move with this character, the sensity of fluidity is present 100% of the game ! The game designers of your team can be proud of what have been acomplished :D

- A scenery introduction to the game, it's a + to have done this in a game jam !

- The overall musics are really great. They are more on the atmospheric side than the rythmic one, but are fluent, dynamic, don't feel repetitive at all, and give a real + to the game ! Bravo to the musician !

- A lot of content and a lot of to discover ! The game seems generous to what it have to offers, and i feel like I was far from having seen everything in it

- A MAP !!!!  I reapeat, A MAP !!!!

- The abilities to discover feel great and are so pealsant to use. They are really engaging and we really wanna use them again and again, this gives a lot of diversity on the movepool the player can do

- There is a pretty good micro design, even if per moment there is repetition of platforms placement in a same room and it reduce the sensation of organic world, globaly it gives a lot of variety in the world of the game and this is clearly one of the good point of the game ! There is a good use of overall gamespaces and give engagement on exploration to the player by using divesre level design technics, really well done Joseph ;) !

- The game have no crash, no bug, run really smoothly on the browser, it is a real qualitive bug-free product from my experience on it, Bravo to the programmers that managed this !

- Pretty well polished, especially on the SFX. For example when you are in the menus, the background music change to be less present to make you understand you are in the menu, in another game "situation". I really appreciated it

Anyway, pleas take my "cons" commentary as professionaly and not personaly. I know this is a game made in a game jam, and I kenow how hard it is to finish a game. This is my own my opinion and I clearly don't have the truth to be able to clearly say what is the "way to go" to do a metroidvania, this is just my personal feedback. But having "cons" commentary is something i think important to help developers to know things that may possibly frustrate the player, and so they can take actions afterwards to improve their game and their skills !!

With all of that saied, your game guys are the one I consider the best one I played so far on the game jam on my opinion, surpassing everything else (including the game we've made xD). Meteora should deserve a place in the top 3 in this jam !

Also, there is clearly a quality gap between your precedent game (Gaots Gorge) and this one ! If you keep improving yourself like this I can't wait to see your next game :) and you can be already pretty proud of this one ! Keep up the good work !