Hello, I just finished the game! It took me 20h50m and I think I got 100% of the items.

I found it challenging, especially figuring out how to get some of the optional items. But I didn't have any trouble in terms of bugs or anything like that.

I thought the game was really amazing. The design of the world was so interesting and full of surprises. Every area felt fresh and new, even the ones at the very end of the game. I loved how it progresses from "normal" video game areas like jungle, cave, mountain, etc. to strange alien structures. The atmosphere in some of the later areas was really cool. The powerups were great and kept surprising me and overall the mechanics were really interesting. I think this is one of my favourite games I've played in a long while.

There isn't really anything I didn't like. It is easy to lose a lot of progress when you die, which is sometimes frustrating, but that's also part of what makes the game interesting. There is a lot of tension in parts like the escape sequences after many of the bosses. When I got frustrated, I just had to take a break and come back later.

One thing I wanted to comment on is that the game progression feels fairly linear. It's not truly linear because there are different paths to explore within each area, and you can backtrack to get things you missed. But the overall structure feels like you end up going through the areas in a set order. Usually, I prefer exploration games that are very open-ended, and I get bored when they are too linear. But I never got bored with discovering more of the world in this game. So I don't think the game being somewhat linear is a bad thing. In fact, I think you did an amazing job and this game shows how good this kind of linear structure can be. But if you ever want to make a game with a more "open world" style I would love to see it.

If you want to put me in the credits, my name is Sylvie and I would want a blue and purple gradient like this:

hi, I beat the game! 23:52 to beat the game, and 24:52 to get 100%. I’m blown away by how huge it is; I can hardly imagine how much time and effort went into this…

if there’s room in the credits, I’d like a #ff6c24 to #00b543 gradient; something vaguely like this: (all lowercase)

I had a great time with the game! the pacing was slow and meditative – it took me an hour or so to get into that vibe, but after that I really enjoyed it. I think that first long section where you run through a long long field with no enemies was probably the turning point where I started to really get it.

I liked the level design a lot – there were generally secrets where I expected secrets (even just small coins), and the visible coins in the early game guided me into a lot of moments where I thought “wait, can I get there right now? I don’t think I can… aha! I can!”

the level design felt… playful? teasing? mischevious? like, before the first bat boss there’s a long tunnel with no obstacles that you run down. if you jump as you go you can see there’s an upper tunnel too. and if you missed that, there are bats up there that you’ll notice when they shoot. so, now I know there’s an upper tunnel but I’m already committed to the bottom tunnel b/c it’s long; I eventually get to the end and find this teaser:

so the level design is telling me “ha! just kidding, the upper tunnel was nothing, just 40 coins, not really worth it :)” but I am Suspicious so I go up there and aha, there’s more! well, just some boring tunnels that don’t go anywhere. hmm, drat. but I finish going all the way to the 40 coins and… there’s even more! a little maze at the end, to get a valuable trinket

that whole sequence felt like a game of cat-and-mouse with the creator. the very long tunnel to go back and forth added a lot of time to each trip, which gave time to think and predict the level design. it was pretty essential that the tunnel was completely empty to not distract me with game mechanics (jumping, enemies), and the game moved out of the computer and into my head, which was very neat. I think there’s stuff like this throughout, but this is the most concentrated example I can remember right now.

there was an almost-similar moment here: this room seems hidden, and I passed by it (I was on the left). then later I came to it from the right, and saw that it must exist. then I went all the way back to the left and went in, and that revealed that there was another hidden passage, accessible from the right! so I went all the way back around to the right side, crawled in… and there was nothing there. I was expecting a circuit key or something

I didn’t realize doors (where you can press up to travel to a back layer of some sort) were a thing until after getting my first cube. I consistently had trouble seeing them throughout my playthrough – I didn’t find the save before the first shark boss, and many of the last collectibles I found (e.g. one in the green sunken ghost ship area) were hard because I just didn’t see the door, which was a bit annoying

I think I would have figured this out a lot sooner if the house near the shark boss had a door – the upper house had a door, but I didn’t try it because I had already tried entering the door-looking spot on the lower house (next to the well), and nothing happened.

I got stuck at the water jump after the first cube; that was the one time I had to ask for help. I ended up going back into the dog zone to get circuit keys to unlock the door to the map, because I didn’t know it was a map yet and thought it might be required. I wondered for a while if there was some way to use the new portal – it was the only “activated” portal on the map, so I thought maybe I could use it somehow. maybe I was tired and would have figured it out eventually, but I got stuck there.

I also got stuck before the first bat boss; I didn’t know that mushrooms were interactable yet. I spent a while wandering around, expecting to find a claw upgrade that would let me break the bricks in the boss room.

I tend to get lost in metroidvanias, and neither experience was too bad since I got to go exploring and collecting, but I thought you might be interested to know where I got stuck.

I was disappointed by the sunset gates – I beat the boss and then came back to the game the next day, expecting extra-hard post-game challenges, but it was just easy circuit keys. but, I did have a great time getting the last claw upgrade, which was required for the last 3 keys (in the snow area). (the last claw upgrade looking easy to get to but then being a whole gauntlet was a very good joke!)

the final boss was hard and cool and the postboss ascent was really amazing – you really got my heart pounding! I did NOT want to fight the final boss again, and there’s that one really hard jump where you have to get up onto a center platform by bouncing on the friends. I ended up timing out right at the last hard platforming part, on the last jump to the right on the 1x1 blocks. I wish I’d cleared it first try and never realized the stakes weren’t as high as I thought… but then I ended up needing to fight the final boss again anyway!! because I reset manually when my second climb started too slow! haha whoops. it was a fantastic final boss

I loved the reward for getting 99 circuit keys; I can’t imagine anything else that would have been as satisfying. it reminds me of that long run through the grassy field I mentioned earlier.

(edit: I just read sylvie’s comment: I didn’t realize it did something! I just sat there for a while and then closed the game, satisfied)

Phew, that was tough, but I had so much fun! I still have some things to go back for to get that 100%.

While there was a clear homage to classic games, I found the puzzles original and enjoyable to solve. It was very rewarding to struggle with a puzzle at first and then come back to it later with an “ah ha” moment. The abilities were also unique and creative. I found the art very cute and charming at first but once I got into Creepy Catacombs, I enjoyed the darker and more striking aesthetic. I thought the dogs were especially neat looking. I also really liked the music in this area. I didn’t expect the story to take such an otherworldly turn but it made things a lot more interesting and made me want to explore more.

I’m not the most skilled player, so I had trouble pulling off some of the more challenging platforming segments, particularly in the Sky Temples. Sometimes I would get frustrated having to try over and over, which would normally turn me off from a game, but I was determined and it was very rewarding when I eventually got it. A lot of the time I just had to take a break and come back to it.

If you’d like to include me in the credits, you can use the name “genderquery” in an azure blue.

Thanks for creating a great game and sharing it with us!

Hi, thanks for the amazing game!

I can mostly only repeat what all the other's have said. The pace of the game was very slow at times, but I quickly reached a point, where I just had to play through it and see what else there was waiting for me. I started to enjoy the backtracking and seeking out collectables.

The difficulty is a bit all over the place, with some sections feeling so much harder than the rest of it. For me personally the most notable instance of that was, when one is climbing up a series of slippery platforms, right before you get the claw attack. I had so much problems with that, it seemed to require very precise inputs, I started to suspect that it was an optional harder area, or that I would need an upgrade to proceed. I also almost got stuck trying to enter the jungle, until I randomly got the jump after going all the way back down to the beginning of the lab and back up again . And I had to ask for help to get the keycard where you have to change the colors of the mushrooms, that was the last one I got. I might would have gotten it with a lot of trial and error, but at that point I think my patience was used up.

But I think the difficulty of the game is what kept it interesting, if it would have been slow paced and very simple, I probably would have lost interest. I was looking forward to what may come next, because I already saw early on, that you weren't afraid to go all out with the level design. Collecting some of the optional collectables really demanded all from me.

I appreciated the little things, like not having a jump ability for (what initially felt like) a large part of the start of the game. The jump itself is really wonky and behaves really unconventional (especially the wall jump and ceiling jump), but I eventually just got used to how it is. I didn't like how hard it was to get furballs (until the end) making the furball capacity upgrades feel less impactful. The bosses really were a test of patience, I'm so glad I got the spider on my first try, because that fight really dragged on forever. The final boss is really great, but the fight is sadly dragged down by hitbox issues (very unclear where spikes and platforms start or end) which was really sad because none of the earlier fights have such issues. I went back and collected all 9 lives before I was able to beat the final boss. I only managed to beat it, when I found out that I could shoot furballs from the top right, when the weakspot is moved to the left side.

I would like to be credited as "accidentlyAnton", and my favourite gradient is this:

if you can't do gradients with more than two colors, i'll think of something else