- I love the game aesthetically, the cel-shading + pixel filter has a lot of charm to it. The subtle bloom shader also makes things feel a lot more vibrant.
- Applying the theme of Tower to both the tower itself and the tower of books that Fernando carries is really cute and clever!
- Fernando audibly grunting when falling a long distance is a nice indicator for measuring how big a fall really was.
- The fact that falling a long distance can spill the books you're holding puts an interesting strategy on navigation. Going all the way to the top is technically the fastest approach, but going back downwards to the portal means you have to strategically platform back rather than drop all the way to the bottom.
- I tried collecting all books on each floor before going to the attic which lead to some interesting and fun gameplay moments. It gets pretty tough when you're holding 20 books at once!
- The fact that the book stack will shrink downwards when under low-hanging ceilings is an incredible touch and adds a lot of polish!
- Being able to revisit past levels (and not being required to collect all books before going to the next one) makes routing the book collection really interesting. The earlier floors could technically be partially skipped if you feel that returning with some powers will make it easier.
- I really like the arrangement of level parts. The more I played, the more places I discovered I could shortcut using my unlocked abilities.
- I love that the movement abilities are given in a random order, it makes each playthrough different!
- The different difficulty levels are very appreciated.
- I appreciate that OpenDyslexic is used as the game's UI font.
# Comments
- Regarding the different movement abilities:
- Feather fall
- The horizontal movement reduction, although first feeling weird to me, made me realize it's great as an option to make last-second adjustments to jumps.
- Mashing the jump button makes feather fall extremely powerful: it slows down your fall speed regardless of how fast you were falling, it greatly increases horizontal movement, makes almost any fall safe regardless of books held, and drains the meter a lot more slowly compared to holding the button. If this was intended, great! I do think it makes movement a lot more interesting, though it's a bit uncomfortable to repeatedly press a button to perform it.
- Double jump
- When on the ground, jumping and holding the jump button until feather fall activates will prevent Fernando from double jumping. This makes it a bit hard to double jump at the apex of the first jump.
- Walking off ledges prevents you from double jumping.
- Camera:
- The camera doesn't collide with the trim on some parts of the tower's walls, causing clipping issues.
- Default sensitivity for camera rotation on controllers feels a bit low. An option to quickly recenter the camera would also be nice.
- Looking all the way downwards makes Fernando move in an awkward fashion, like moving only left or right when I'm holding forwards. Reducing the camera's vertical rotation range might help avoid that.
- Collision:
- Fernando occasionally gets stuck on slopes.
- On my second playthrough, I managed to get stuck inside of a wooden beam and couldn't move at all.
- Other stuff:
- A lot of platforming segments are on narrow beams, which I know can be frustrating for some players. I don't mind it too much though. - The drop shadow beneath the player disappears quickly. While this is more realistic, it makes it hard to use for gauging where the floor is below you while jumping. I think the fade is a nice touch though, so making it visible for at least the entirety of Fernando's jump height would keep the flair while making it practical.
All in all this was a lot of fun and I had a great time playing!