such a cute and fun lil thing with some of the coolest meta shit i've ever seen in a game - the ending stretch really is that good, too. don't want to say too much, this game is short and it's cheap - just go play it and find out for yourself!! now!!!!!

edit, 1 week later: just played through the alternate route and wow. it most certainly has its flaws but what it adds is really quite impactful - made me feel wrong for acting like i had beaten the game after my first playthrough. play it also!!!

It's like a playable CBeebees program, but a really charming one that actually respects children's intelligence.

It's also an existentialist nightmare dissecting the horrors that comes from mortal beings attempting to play god, after the morals behind an omnipotent being's control over the world they inhabit are questioned. The illusion of free-will has been broken with the players consistent presence within the story as "you", and the game dares to ask that if we were to discover the existence of entities beyond our comprehension controlling the fabric of reality, if it is best that we simply comply, like the protagonist and their companions on the journey, or attempt to fight back and seal our own fates like how the Scraps do, who are the real heroes of the story.

Ultimately, this leads to an insane meta-commentary of the illusion of free-will mentioned earlier; the player having to question the ethics behind their actions and whether they themselves are truly in control of the story, or are simply being puppeted much like Atoi, coming full circle. The Scraps being brainwashed to conforming with the rest of the characters, as the actual player must grapple with the heinous acts they have committed after learning the Scraps true intentions, feeling a further disconnect from the character of "you".

Fed up with the world they're forced to reside in, Atoi manages to escape and is sent to a new reality, where they can build a new world, to make their own stories, using the abilities "you" bestowed upon them to control their own fate, until it dawns on them... they've become just like "you". Atoi goes beyond anything any other character before them has gone before, using their newfound capabilities to create an escape from the actual video-game, slowly crawling their way out and ending the game... no longer in the game. This bullshit reality they was brought into to is no longer to their concern, because it isn't real, it's just a pre-determined hell that you (the player) mindlessly follow along with, controlling Atoi's every whim, under the impression that "you" (the character) is just an extension of yourself and not some depraved entity playing mind games with you, as a way to torment everyone in the world into following "you's" every sociopathic whim. Atoi can truly go and live away from it all, while you must sit with everything that has just happened; Atoi reading you the story of everything you made them do under the orders of "you", leaving you with nothing but regret, you could have stopped at any point... but you didn't... it's all your fault...

It's really cute and it made me smile. :)