Loved it, let me share the top 10 reasons why I enjoyed it so much.
1. never die, just get sent back / lower
2. was relieved to not fall, after the opening demo fall and burn I anticipated a burning death. ha ha
3. I get to gather coins / markers, love gathering stuff
4. jump ends more quickly if I release the jump button
5. feedback for jump gear change via color, I like feedback
6. layers, background, foreground, felt complete
7. speed run : if I know what to do the level is over quite quickly
8. challenging : some of the jumps are quite hard
9. possible : as I improved the timing it got easier
10. simple : no need to worry about moving forward / backwards, only when to jump.
11. lower level / fail zone has hidden goodies. I love levels where I can go back and replay to gather everything, or find hidden stuff.
12. leg pattern changes when jumping up in the air for high or far
Feedback : let me share a few things that came to mind
1. provide option to drop the w, and just use uio. maybe e = i + w, r = o + w, t = p + w
2. add additional keyboard option for left up right as alternates for uio, and space bar for w
3. there's something satisfying about hitting the space bar to jump.
4. What is the difference between a jump gear 1 and a short duration jump gear 2 ( long jump )? seems like I can select gear 2 ( long jump ), and release w quickly after pressing it. Difference is height right? o is lower than i. How about the difference between normal jump and tall jump released quickly? fun to contrast, have tutorial level draw the arc, inviting them to try each.
5. drop the d / s text thing, don't see the point, was distracting
6. explain the d / s thing on the next level, then I can go back to level 1, get the slide goodie and use it.
7. in the intro, I had to click the "continue" three or four times, please support keyboard continue
8. feedback of selected gear : for the first minute, or on the tutorial level, I would prefer to have an icon above Neil's head
9. tutorial : drop the text, just give a very simple world to start with where each jump type is required.
the first level does this pretty well, maybe add some background clues, like clouds shaped with the gear letter to proceed
10. lowest level s entrance, please loop around so I can gather all the gems.
11. please add some permanent power up if I gather all gems on a level, like gathering a D thingy will give me 4 rather than 3.
12. change the walking pattern to match what he will jump. long stride = longer jump, short prance like stride = tall jump
13. on the tutorial, I like the funny stuff, but make it more off to the side, and less required, maybe add option for intro with an attitude
maybe add the humor as a smaller sub text, so curious people like you and me will look for it, and enjoy it.
when the funny stuff is too large or forced it feels like you are saying "get it? get it? funny right?" . I think you have some great humor to share, for me I like it more subtle, but probably there are many people that like the large text "get it?" kind of stuff... becomes a percentages game I guess.
14. I found it slightly frustrating to judge how close to the edge I can come before I'm going to drop. but maybe that's just a learning thing that comes with time.
15. scrolling : have the background scroll at a slower speed than the foreground, this will help give a feeling of depth.
16. depth : make the background a bit more blurry. The high def clear stars and mountains can be distracting from seeing the platforms
warning : I think you will be tempted to make the following levels get harder quite quickly. Your casual game audience will want them to stay easy, with more places to explore. Your serious gamers will want it to get challenging before they get bored. To support this consider branching the levels, so people can explore several asteroids, figuring out how to get all the gems on all the variation levels.
loved it : I quite liked the demo, the balance of difficulty was just right for me, which kept me going as I felt it was possible. The visible levels above made me curious to see what was up there, what can I find just beyond my current skill level. I'm excited to see where the game continues!
mind if I copy your idea to make an android app?
probably it will be just square blocks, like your demo page, and the input as three buttons.
Will have same feel as my android app : "turn go gold"