An intention of mine was to use pure black on "solid" tiles and a lighter black/gray-ish tone on passable tiles but i guess i'll try to tweak that a bit more.
The idea of the kid climing is that first Z is pressed to attach them to the ladders (Usually, they'll enter a "CLIMBIDLE" state) and then the player uses the typical commands on follow/run/idle states and can press Z again to get the kids off the ladders.
It's a weird system that came from my current limitations but I want to make sure the level design supports the gameplay better.