day 2. or really day 5 or so, given my previous and aborted playthrough but really no need to complicate things there: day 2. i'm writing these logs the next day mostly, but i'll see if i can't fix that.

went down a whole ass rabbithole. though where as that conveys a loss in elevation, i mostly headed upwards. found more cubes than i know what to do with. there was a room early on, with doors locked based on player progression (this door unlocks at one cube, that one at 3, the other at 10, and so on); although I now have something on the order of 8 cubes I have yet to return there if only because there are so many other places to go. i'm frustratingly aware of secrets i am missing and with the help of the world map (holy cow, how did i play without it before? its an essential part of this feel like) i can sort of keep track of where i need to return to. excited to keep bombing this guy.

i am compelled to play it by the aesthetic (mechanical and audiovisual) alone, but i'm also curious to see how things progress. more black holes? more glitch? more story, or is that not really a thing, at least in the sense of "people talk to you, you return to your village a changed man" type deal? we'll see.

Replaying this, sort of—I got lost playing it last time, though I hadn't gotten too far. this time I quickly discovered the map menu which hopefully will prevent something like that happening again. love the general vibe of this game—the graphics, the tunes, the slight hint of something darker portrayed by the weird glitch effect after first getting the Fez. I'm aware this game has an absurd depth to it: a secret language, words hidden in spectrographs. who knows if that's relevant at all though.

another SWERY game, another few hours of tension between charming and obnoxious jank. as compared to Deadly Prem, this game's lack of a Twin Peaks aesthetic makes it a lot easier to digest. played up to the beginning of Prologue pt 2. putting aside the questionable choice of breaking up the prologue into parts, I quite enjoyed the history lesson re: british history and breeds of dogs.