maybe a perfect game? in the sense that it does exactly what it seems to set out to do. a shockingly beautiful character study despite the strange outsider-art vibe its going for. in many ways its strange, surreal, mixed media aesthetic makes it what it is, and lends itself to a non-literal style of implicit storytelling that i've never seen fully realised in games like it, outside of maybe OMORI's black space.

puzzles were sometimes frustrating, i accidentally 'beat' the game after only collecting around 6 effects because i had no idea how to progress, but once i got around the roadblock i was stuck at and found the next piece of content i was able to truck through to the end with minimal use of a guide, caving to the super helpful Steam discussion board when i felt myself getting frustrated. i don't have much patience for puzzles in games anyway, so i do think its perfectly to see everything important without a guide.

this is exactly what i want out of a video game and im glad i was able to find this