A Handful of Dust

Hello there, I tried your demo and let me tell you I just loved the art, particularly the Gorgon so congrats on the work! 

I'd like to offer you some of my impressions, and suggestions:

1. I found the mapping somewhat odd, I get it that the area isn't added until it has been fully explored but these huge vacant rectangles seemed ugly for lack of a better word. Personally I think that a heavily shaded preview of a visited area or smaller rectangles would look better.

2. Given how huge the map is (despite it being just a demo, its breath really surprised me) the character indicator is rather hard to see at times.

3. I found a bug in one of the slopes, it's next to some stones of The Mire, I think, since the game doesn't allow you to walk off ledges the animation kept clipping until I jumped off it, in my whole playthrough this was the only instance of this that I found.

4. The lightning that begins in The Mire is rather jarring, having the whole screen turn white also hampers the combat and platforming, perhaps doing it only once or twice and then just a slight flash?

5. I didn't like the vibration on grabbing ledges.

6. I found that if I jumped and the character was spinning it would fall through the ledges despite having clearly jumped high enough.

7. I'd like it if you were able to pick up thrown axes that hit nothing to recover them.

8. There is a transission of areas, I think it was from The Hollow to the next one were the whole screen has some fog and then abruptly it's gone.

9. After beating the Highway Man I came to a sign and when I tried to read it it caused the game to abruptly close.

10. Consider adding the chance to change the direction of an attack, I had to do a full stop before being able to change the side, this made dodging and then attacking or attacking multiple targets much harder

11. Lastly, perhaps ease a bit on the damage done by those flying water spirits? Those felt unfair rather than challenging.

Hope seeing of your game soon!

friend, I tried your game and I am aware that it is not a final product but you should consider the weight of the game, almost 350mb, considering that it is a pixel art game.  the weight should be on the music, you should consider converting one music format to another.  

Hi there, I am a YouTuber focusing on Indie Games and I also do other things! Been testing your game for a while now and I have also started recording some Gameplay Walkthrough:

Here is some of my feedback for now, contact me for a faster way for communications, I would like to help you and test the game further more:

♦ Game Idea: The idea is not eniterly new but from what I am able to play right now it looks like you have put the idea of 2D side-scrolling games into a good use! Would love to see more from you for sure!

♦ Gameplay: The game runs smoothly and had fun actually playing the game, having that double jump is nice! I also would like to know if it is possible to play this game using Keyboard, some inputs are not supported and I have explained one of them in this video (related to changing the weapons).

♦ Story: I know you have that written above, and I know this is still early in developement, but it does not hurt to let you know that the story side (in-game) is missing, the focus in on the gameplay which is really fun, you can add up some story elements to the game through certain notes with items that tells the story or parts of it.

♦ Artwork: The artwork of the game is a style that my little brother loves! It has that pixel art style which is very common and loved by most players nowadays! I also like the characters design! However, the items have only one color and shape to be picked up, even though that they are different when collecting!

♦ Audio: I love that thunder and lighting going on, having the sound effects early done in the game is always a plus! The game could use some background music, I see that you have it during the boss fights so far!

♦ Bugs & Constructive Criticism: I believe the video and what is written above is what I have for now! I would like to add also that the boss fight with the Ogre was pretty easy! Some other enemies were harder than him to be honest (I will have more footages soon as I have played more than it is shown on this Gameplay video).

♦ Things to Double Down on: What you have here is a very good game and I would love to support those who work hard or have a talent! This is what I am capable of doing as a show of support, hope this gelps! You should really make the demo shorter though, around an hour! The full game can have the best of what you have planned! I would love to see more of this content, keep it up sir!

Hey I tried this, over all pretty good for what I tried, although the game quits on the screen transition after the first checkpoint, so I only played around 3 min.

I prefer moving in air while attacking. 

Also health bar on enemies.

Hey, this is really nice for a first attempt at developing a game.

UI is very good.  I was able to figure out what all the buttons did and how to play just on the first screen, which is great.

The movement feels a little janky.  Hard to describe specifically why, but I did notice that releasing horizontal movement buttons don't slow the player down in mid-air, which felt odd.  Also at the beginning of the game I would always jump at max height for some reason, but I think this stopped once I got the double jump.

The ogre boss felt a little strange too.  Getting knocked away by the boss's attacks looked awkward, and sometimes the player's damaged animation would play inside the ground.  And for a game that's clearly inspired by a lot of souls design discussion I'm surprised the boss didn't have better tells for attacks.  Personally I'd prefer checkpoints next to bosses, a shorter input buffer duration, no fall damage, actual background music, etc. but that's just me.

I think I heard the music transition into an "ending" theme when the boss died?  If so that's a cool touch, I really like when the music changes like that.

I used the "dive" attack a bunch after discovering it because I thought it was fun to use.  I'd talk about combat more but I honestly found myself jumping and ignoring over a bunch of enemies.  Once the game said I levelled up, but I checked the menu and couldn't find a level or exp listed?  I think it could be more satisfying to have a meter or something displayed.

This was pretty cool, I just think that movement and some enemy behavior could be more polished.  I recommend closely watching someone play A Handful of Dust if you can, you may be able to pick up on issues better that way because I'm having difficulty describing them.  Good luck!