Death by Ten Thousand Cuts

Thanks for the comprehensive feedback, and for playing! Addressing your points:

"Jumping doesn't seem to be responsive when sprinting uphill or downhill."

Indeed, this is particularly noticeable in Choices, Choices when moving from the key platform down towards the exit gate. Working on a bunch of first-person controller improvements, including adjusting the "snap" distance for slopes which should greatly improve the feel of this.

"When jumping from a ledge running uphill I expected extra upward momentum but sometimes I end up dropping like a stone. It would be nice too if we could get small speed boosts from running downhill, and maybe extra forward momentum from jumping downhill."

Interesting idea! In all honesty, I've considered something like this; not 100% sure if I want the player focus on traversal alone (jump timing, danger avoidance, etc) or if I also want to add a speed optimization factor as well. I expect I'll probably end up adding a mild downhill boost / uphill slow, to make more complex and interesting routing available in future levels. Distances that can only be cleared with a downhill boost, speed challenges where slopes need to be avoided (at the cost of a more dangerous route), etc.

"Spikes and such should reset whenever you win or die to reduce randomness."

Another game design idea I'm toying with. I sort of like the randomness of the obstacle timing, as it can occasionally force the player to attempt other solutions instead of hyperfocusing on a single optimal route. But there are also potential downsides as more complex levels and time challenges are added, I don't think I want to take too much agency away from the player. A high-skill player shouldn't be thwarted by a bad "roll" of the randomness, that would probably lead to frustration. 

"Needs some banging music tracks."

Hard agree. Coming soon. :)

"Give sound effects for everything to make the game feel more alive"

Also coming soon! I'm not 100% happy with what I have now so I went back to the drawing board for the rest of the effects. Definitely a priority though.

"Maybe move the player back to the start when they die instead of a Game Over to keep the action going?"

Noted! I'm in the middle of adding more data points to the Game Over (and also the Success/Escape) screen, which might make it useful to always be visible post-run. But I'm not against adding speedrunning niceties like this.

"The overall total number of deaths for a level could be the minimum number of deaths instead, so players could make a goal of 0 death runs for each level."

Another interesting idea. At the moment, the game design is leaning heavily towards a one-change-per-run structure, but I do have some ideas for the future that would add gameplay like this. 

"An option to make the player run by default and use Shift for walking would be nice."

This is actually kind of brilliant! Sprinting is smart, auto-sprint is smarter, always-sprint-with-input-action-to-go-slower is galaxy brain. Going to play around with this idea. 

"A way to make it clearer what killed a player. For example in level 3, if anything kills a player from above or behind then it's hard to tell what they did wrong"

Agreed, adding a "you died from..." note post-death is on the todo list, along with some additional logic to make it harder to die from just touching dangers. Spikes should kill you when they drop on you, but not if you bump up against the side, for example. (Also also, hoping to add some 3D sound cues for things like falling axes so the player has a little more warning about incoming threats.)

No!! I decided to make a game that I knew everyone would not be into. Thank you for noticing!!!!