Lightkeeper

I like the particle effects and the use of dithering for lighting. The light increasing based on your number of kills was a neat idea, though once the number of enemies picks up it usually stays pretty big. It's a shame you weren't able to add those wave and upgrade mechanics you mentioned, since I think those would have helped keep the gameplay fresh.
I will say I'm not a huge fan on the reload mechanic. It sort of just feels like you have to pause gameplay for a big every once in a while, and it doesn't add anything. Maybe it would have been better to just let the player fire as often as they wanted, and then added a punishment for missing shots or something. Still a good job for 11 hours, though.

Very beautiful, I very much enjoyed the ligthing ideas.

I have not really understood the reloading, it seems like it takes a while to reload and it does not always work? (Maybe the idea is that one can only reload once the magazine is empty but that is a bit punishing).

Despite the use of what you call "placeholder" sprites, it's still a consistent and good-looking, if simple, aesthetic.

The chain reactions upon explodifying an enemy are very satisfying, what with all the clouds and particles. But I didn't quite understand the reloading either.

So juicy! This is like juicier than any game I've ever made alone. :D
Good stuff, I wouldn't mind seeing something with a proper player sprite and maybe some progress mechanics. But it works alright as a score attack game. You should enable highscores ;D
I got 6000 points \o/

I found this a very aesthetically pleasing game already! Nice idea having the health indicated with the size of the inside color. I was kind of confused with the reload as well at times, maybe because I kept spamming the button in the beginning. Maybe there could be some further indication when reload is in progress, a progress bar maybe? At least it felt by the end that it was working with a delay after pressing the button.
Well done though! Pretty game with pretty special effects :)

Fun for a bit, but then I wished there was some progression :) The aesthetics were nice and although the shader didn't add much to the gameplay IMO, it also fit. The UI was minimal but it was mostly ok: some nitpicks about it are that the small font in the tutorial is a bit unreadable (o looks the same as c?), and maybe the reload indicator could have been placed next to the cursor somehow, because I couldn't always see when I needed to reload. The particle effects sometimes obscured the enemies, which could turn into an interesting mechanic if made more intentional.