got me thinking, among other things, about the various priorities the 3d platformer can take on...been playing this a bit in tandem with what is shaping up to be my first full playthru of mario 64 (and with sephonie as the most recent 3d platformer ive returned to) and i feel like they all illustrate some kind of imaginary rubric that u can place most of not all 3d platformers on. mario 64 here represents games that prioritize the Player Character above all else, famously slaved over for total perfection before a single real level was ever made...i'd say games like Demon Turf and Pseudoregalia pick up this torch the most. sephonie is for me the undisputed peak of the focus being the world itself, in a physical geometrical way...every move in ur toolkit is about interacting with specifically the space, u cant accomplish nearly as much in an empty room as u can with games in that first category. cavern of dreams then is a herald for games that mainly prioritize the world, but as Context rather then Shapes. its super super refreshing tbh...the spaces are about as far from abstraction as u can get despite how surreal and impossible they are. thinking about places and objects as Themselves are essential for solving the puzzles, which are the main focus here and an absolute delight...so many moments of realization were paired with a joyful smile. also super adorable and crittery, and vaguely disquieting but not in a way where it feels like its secretly threatening...all the colors are right there to be appreciated, its just strange to walk thru such expressionist worlds. an incredibly worthy successor to rareware platformers, which in retro terms were the kings of this kind of context-heavy approach (and in a slightly different way, story-driven adventure games like psychonauts). many of these indie 3d platformers take from the rareware lineage, corn kidz 64 also gave me a lot of banjo vibes, but all the games turn out so different! wonderful stuff, and extremely comforting game...v little high stakes platforming, just vibes and exploration and cool puzzles. also even tho this was a fairly easy 100%, its one of my favorites ive probably ever done...half of it gives u one of the coolest rewards EVER, the other half contains one of the coolest puzzles in the game...which ended up being the final card i needed, so it rly went out on a high note. and ofc, the whole game Expertly makes u feel like a Little Guy