Some good feedback! Thanks for the extensive reports, Udderdude
One thing you should do here is, ask yourself "Why am I doing this?" Why do you have a point of no return, and why is it in the middle of the Tower instead of at the end?
Why did I do that? I don't remember. I thought it would put a cool sort of finality to the Tower section, maybe. I've thought of the same thing, but I decided to keep it for the demo just so I could see what people said about it.
Also, I would suggest throwing a few guards into the first section of the game; ones you have to run from, [...] like they're wet tissue paper.
This may also be a good idea. The problem with having a guard in the dungeon that you have to hide from in shadows, though, is that the room is already dark, so adding shadows seems a bit weird. Also, I wanted to introduce the shadows in the mine because (a) there really aren't any shadows in the Garden, and I like it that way, and (b) I want to gradually introduce new aspects of gameplay to the player. And as for why you would ever want to use Edgar after you get Lira, as Udderdude found out, there are many things that Edgar does a better job of than Lira. It's all about finding out each character's strengths, and using them in proportion.
Bricks you can walk through should be transparent. (An exception should be made for bricks which are supposed to be secret passages, etc)
The text message you get when you pick up the gloves is really long. Consider reducing it a bit. You may even want to consider auto-equipping the gloves, and only let the player get more info when he/she has two weapons to choose between.
The Pause menu screen could use some text as well as icons. This is especially important as the text message you get shows the name of each menu item, but the names aren't in the actual menu.
I don't like that it's called the "Pause" menu screen. It seems confusing because it's not an actual pause feature, it's a menu to choose stuff from. Consider changing its name?
You should be able to hit Z at the Pause menu to leave it, since you can also press Z to back out of it's sub-menus. Currently just plays an error sound when you do so.
The mushroom guy's purple shots can be obscured by the grass, and it's really hard to see them sometimes. They should always be in the foreground, and probably be a bit brighter also.
Dying at the same monent as the first boss does causes the crystal things to gravitate towards and be collected by the spot where you died.
Mushroom guys popping up under you during the first boss seems kind of cheap. You take damage if you don't know they're about to pop up there.
Might want to add a "Current objective" thing to the pause menu that tells you what you should be doing or where you should go. For instance, after killing the first boss, "Go back to the gateway".
Good thoughts/finds. I'll consider these, thanks!
You get a new character right before the boss, but using her to fight the boss is way harder than using your starting character. Doesn't make much sense to me.
In fact, that second character just feels really weak in general. I found the game much harder while using her. Maybe she gets more useful later on in the game, but not when you first get her.
Even after I found Lira's double jump, she still felt like a really weak character. Her low attack power just doesn't allow you to take out enemies fast enough at close range before they also damage you. The double jump is useful for getting up high, and that's about it.
Again, as said above, it's about figuring out when it's better to use each character. Lira isn't meant to make the game easier, but rather to make the levels and combat more dynamic. They're both better than each other in their own ways, and as the game gets completed their personal strengths will be brought out more and more.
I don't like how the character turns a solid red color when hit, it doesn't look similar enough to other games hit invulnerability state. Make the character flash between two shades of red, at least.
If I could find a way to do that, I would. Unfortunately Game Maker's color blending functions are a tad limiting.
When moving from left to right rapidly, the quick camera panning can really start to be an issue. It will even whip to the left and right when you tap left, then right. The camera panning should be a bit slower than that.
I realize the camera has some whiplash problems, still working on that. It's a bit better than it was before, but not a whole lot.
The bees are really annoying to fight. They're hard to hit and seem to swarm around randomly. They're also really hard to see, at points I had no clue why I was taking damage until I noticed the tiny 3x3 sprite buzzing around. That they only do a tiny amount of damage doesn't really make up for the fact that they're just plain irritating to deal with. The worst part is that there doesn't even seem like there's a good strategy for fighting them.
I dunno, I really like the bees, but most people don't seem to agree. Also, it's generally easier to fight them if you remain still and attack with Edgar.
The part with the tons of spike balls going around a maze with grass covering most of the passages is like the difficulty level of the game suddenly went nuts for no apparent reason. It's frustrating to deal with due to the visibility issues of the grass (you can't accurately judge your position, or the spikes), and delaying for any amount of time causes the spikes to hit you. If you miss a jump, which is easy to do, you also take damage. The short invulnerability timer really doesn't help here, either.
Even if you think this part of the game is fair, going from relatively easy to punishingly hard in an instant is not cool. After that, it's right back to easy stuff, so it really feels out of place. I REALLY recommend removing this section, or making it much easier by removing most of the spikes and grass blocking your view.
Interesting, I never thought that part was punishing at all. To me it was just a little extra challenge to add some flavor, but I think you're right in at least toning it down. I'll have plenty of room to add challenges later in the game
Secret passages in the mine are much harder to notice compared to the grass world, which had bright, obvious yellow flowers near them. I'm guessing this is intentional, though.
Well, yeah, they are secrets after all. Some of them have more obvious indications than others, depending on how much I want players to find them. You just have to keep an eye out for things that look strange or out of place.