Sunset Witch: Botanic Garden Demo

hey, i tried this and have some feedback. a lot of it was written while i was playing. this feedback isnt structured at all, but i hope it will help :)

right off the bat, i notice that transitions in menu are too long for me. if i want to, i.e, change screen size, i need to make a lot of inputs:
- pause
- press down four times to reach 'options'
- press enter
- wait about a second for the menu to transition to the next set of buttons
- press enter (on 'screen size') - wait a second again
- press left/right to change the setting
then to leave the menu..
- press down
- press enter (on 'back')
- wait a second
- press down four times
- press enter (again on 'back')
- wait a second
- press up four times to reach 'resume'
- press enter
- wait one last time.. and then the game resumes
it takes me about 10-15 seconds to do all this, while knowing what buttons to press
potential solutions: have a way to return to game quickly. (i just realized i can use 'z', which helps, too). decrease transition times. maybe allow mouse usage in the menu

im getting a lot of input delay, but it might be my pc causing it.

in the scene for the first card i found, botanic garden, there's tooltips for both "x - confirm" and "z - back". these took my focus to how the games interface works, and it kind of disrupted the game experience itself. ("does confirm mean i pick the card up, and back mean that i leave it?") shortly after i figured both options would do the same thing, given there was only one option for me to select from (which also read 'back').
to prevent this from happening, you could make it clear to players that x = confirm and z = back near the start of the game. this way you wouldn't need tooltips on these interfaces

i used my ultimate ability right when "c" appeared over my head. there weren't any enemies around, so it didn't do anything. maybe show a brief "ultimately ready" or something to prevent this

in the rooms right after where i learned "aiming", my initial feeling was to clear the enemies right away, and sweep through the room fast. i died doing this. it was satisfying to kill the mobs afterwards w/ a more strategic approach. the next room was complete chaos, i died right after entering twice, and couldn't figure out what i needed to do.. until i ended up falling all the way down

only having the gem as a hitbox is really clever. it lets you have a humanoid character players can self-project onto while still keeping the mechanic of having a small hitbox

lore isn't a big focus of a game like this to me. the whole thing seems to be gameplay-, action-, and maybe strategy- oriented. the card scenes interrupt this to give me info that, at least right now, feels pointless
though, its possible that i would care more if the in-game universe was more fleshed-out and clearly presented to me. (one game i've played that's both action/strategy-oriented and has an immersive game world that makes me really care about - even to the point of watching youtube videos about the lore - is hollow knight, also a platformer)

if you hold z (attack) to shoot, then release it for a really short amount of time and press again to slash, you can shoot and slash at the same time. i think this is a bug

the game just taught me 'aiming' and 'slash bullets' for the 2nd time. i understand the game needs to make sure players know these, but it should do so in a way that doesnt disrupt the experience of players that got it down the first time

(i just beat it :D. 12 deaths)

the sound effects, the hit and ability unlock animations, feel fitting. even just watching the demo video i could tell that game feel was pretty good

a lot of the rooms layouts, including enemies and all, felt unintuitve to me. i had use a lot of my focus figuring out what i needed to do.
also, some of the inputs i needed to make onto my keyboard were complicated. for example, having to jump over an enemy, then turn back to face them, while avoiding getting too close to them (as their hitbox deals damage).
^ take these last two as you will, they could benefit or harm the game experience depending on what you're going for

Hey! I played your game and here is the link to it!:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/792349370?t=00h49m24s

Hope the feedback helped! And yes, please let me know how the feedback session was! I would be more than happy to hear your thoughts about! Cheers, Good Work! And Happy Game Dev! :D

This is looking very good. Unfortunately I don't have time to try it now but it is very promising!