That's fair. I wanted to reward the player for being more explorative as opposed to speed running through the level, but maybe I could have paced the introduction a bit better. I expect some players to miss it on their first run, and no area in the first level is ability-gated by double jump (that comes a bit later), but having double jump early does help you power through it a bit faster. In retrospect, it might have been better to have ability power-ups be more persistent like in a true Metroidvania, but Shockbot is level-based so I decided to just have the ability reset for every level.
Great Game all around, had me hooked all the way through... and then there's the ending. I'm honestly sure whether I'm satisfied or not. >.> So many questions left unanswered...
 "Shockbot"){kind=icon}
 "Tales From The Arcade: Starship Murder"){kind=icon}
 "The Torture Game 2X"){kind=icon}
 "Exit/Corners"){kind=icon}
 "The Ranger with the magic bow"){kind=icon}
 "Hexologic"){kind=icon}
 "Pixelo"){kind=icon}
 "Sala"){kind=icon}
 "Scalak"){kind=icon}
 "The Town with Only You and Me"){kind=icon}
 "A knots story"){kind=icon}
 "Revenge of Dog"){kind=icon}
 "Pixoji"){kind=icon}
That's fair. I wanted to reward the player for being more explorative as opposed to speed running through the level, but maybe I could have paced the introduction a bit better. I expect some players to miss it on their first run, and no area in the first level is ability-gated by double jump (that comes a bit later), but having double jump early does help you power through it a bit faster. In retrospect, it might have been better to have ability power-ups be more persistent like in a true Metroidvania, but Shockbot is level-based so I decided to just have the ability reset for every level.