This game is really hard to rate. On the one hand, the game is confusingly designed, the player has no idea what they're doing, the boss sometimes instantly kills you, other times you can kill it with just 5 health, all while the game doesn't seem like it fits the theme at all.

But yet "good design" and "fits the theme" aren't judging criteria here. Enjoyability and creativity are. And this game is massively creative and one of the most enjoyable games I've played in the jam.

The problem is, of course, that good design would make this game less interesting. Or at least, if the player knew what was happening, the crypticism of the mechanics becomes boring, and the mystery of the game fades. If you understand immediately that your goal is to connect houses together and that raises your stats, or that portals lead to new areas where there are fresh houses that haven't been connected yet, it makes the game less fun. Sure, the game does tell you at the beginning that "dry clothes are strength" and they're "the only constant between universes", but without context, you have no idea what that means.

One of my favorite games ever is LSD: Dream Emulator for the PS1, a Japanese only game where all you do is wander around a few areas, and touching walls warps you randomly between them, all with very absurd dreamscape imagery that has more and more textures getting corrupted over time. That game doesn't exactly have good game mechanics, nor does it explain any of them either, and I still barely know how they work to this day.

It's that kind of absurdism that permeates this game's structure. Also, it helps that the character moves pretty fast, and the world is large and easily explorable with the ability to climb any wall.

Now that's a fever dream, and I love it, even though I have no idea how that fits the theme. I didn't really get the world reroll idea, and what I'm supposed to do with the boss.