Holy shit, the "Now Loading" jape got me IMMEDIATELY and the transition to the dark lord's volcano lair was genius. It carries on in this vain throughout. The gimmick does begin to wear thin after a while, and some jokes land harder than others, but in general this is a marvellous piece of work presentationally, very well done.
Also, the combination of animations + event work? Genius, and well-timed.
I will say, the bits where I had to play the game - if you can call it that given the lack of actual explicit gameplay - fell short of the cutscenes. Like, the trial-and-error nature of the waterslide puzzle felt quite cheap,, but the presentation once you finished it was clever and fun. Some of the puzzles are better, but the mapping combined with the constant "haha gotcha"s started grating a bit after a while.
I feel like the game coulda been 1/3 as long and I'd have had just as good of a time, if not better.
I think I see how it all worked, and I'm keen to try something similar myself, but in general the actual "game" part of the game didn't work as well as the terrific cutscenes. "Take the stairs" REALLY got me. I wish it'd been more of that and less "chasing the game's maps around" haha.
Just generally a great experience. Feels like a flash cartoon from 20 years ago with how pacy it is and with the style of humour. Didn't always land, but when it did it LANDED. Really solid work.