Game was incredibly interesting loved it alot.
The puzzling concept was amazing, loved the ominous vibe it gives.
The whole candle thing gave me really Sky, Children of the Light vibes can definitly see that it got inspired form that game. Which i love alot.
I am going to give some feedback tho things you can improve for next time.
1. First things first, main menu with some options, Esp a Volume switch option would be nice. Now i know this was part of a game jam which are often tight windows so ill forgive it but It would be great next time.
2. Make sure you play through and check collision properly. the blocks sometimes moved up or down even tho i hit them from a left but because my angle was a bit skewed it has weird interactions. Which normally is fine but if you are chased by a shadow to kill you its a bit less fine.
3. Healt drops i would not put on a random drop chance, but rather every 3/4/5 bats for example in a game this short. can be easily done with a up counting interger. It puts a bit more power in the players hand rather then them being left out for chance. When a game is longer chance based concepts are perfectly fine. But with games this short the whole chance thing either if a player is lucky makes it way to easy. Or can get kind of hard when a player is unlucky.
Overal the difficulty was perfectly fine tho didnt really notice that i struggled with anything.
Also one last tip, Look in to the Godot game engine. Game engine i highly recommend esp since you want to become a gamedev. Lots of indi games made in there its a decently easy engine to learn. And nice to make quick game jams in.
For the rest i found you from rewatching Nin10Doh! 3th one. And i looked at all the artists involved and then i saw your flash videos loved a bunch of them and lead in to this game. Keep it up!!! ill keep a eye on you see what else comes from you. You have a fan!