Since you're going the full Kickstarter route with this, I guess I should address some design issues I had with the competition entry. I didn't see this covered while skimming the thread, so I figured it was worth pointing out. Sorry in advance if it's stuff that's already in your pipeline. Apart from these two points I think the game is very solid, and definitely deserved winning.
1. The special weapons weren't really obvious. It takes a while before you get the ice pepper, and fire for the red one looks similar to the regular attack, so when I was playing around to see what it did after picking it up, I couldn't figure it out, as I didn't notice the difference, so I wasn't sure if it were a passive effect, or maybe something I had to use later.
Sure this stuff could be solved in the documentation, but it wouldn't hurt to have it implemented in a more intuitive manner. For example, a mini-puzzle that requires you to use the special item right after picking it up, and a more obvious difference in how the special fire looks from the regular fire.
EDIT: After replaying to confirm my statement, I have to admit that the red pepper special attack does differ quite a lot, but at the time it still had me confused. I'm not sure exactly what else you can do with it, but maybe introducing the ice effect before the fire one, for a more obvious effect, rather than just assuming you are getting increased damage?
Also, my second playthrough raised aanother issue. There's no downside to using the special attack (when you have the red one, anyway), unlike games with similar attacks like Castlevania and Ninja Gaiden which use up ammunition. While I'm generally not a fan of having limited resources for stuff like this, it feels weird that the more powerful attack doesn't just replace the regular attack while you have it. What's the purpose of even getting the choice?
I would add either an obvious downside to the fire attack (it could be really slow or have limited range?), or have both weapons replace the standard attack (to keep it consistent), with added power to the ice attacks (eg. a second attack to a frozen enemy kills it)
2. I didn't like the bosses much. The presentation is great, and the general design ideas are definitely nice, but dodging their fire felt clumsy and unprecise due to how fast the attacks were. In both fights the only thing that worked for me was finding a safespot that I knew could never hit me, which made the fight both trivial and repetitive, especially for the one in the castle.
If I were to design this, I would go for slightly more randomized attack patterns (eg. slight offsets in timing or direction, or just shuffled set patterns) that always forces the player to react to what's coming, but at the same time I would make them slower and easier to dodge, so that the game remains manageable while the player still feels like he/she is doing a good job.