That looks cool! I like the composition of several of the scenes. Falling down a sideways world terrifies me so much that I wonder why it hasn’t been done before.
I played Trip World. It sits right beside Kirby’s Dreamland as a platformer with unique level design and a gentle atmosphere. A scene plays before the title where two sagely forest animals face off in the mountains. In this scene, flowers have an unknown significance. One flower blooms atop of a rabbits crown while he menacingly gains possession of another. The very first transformation I get allows me to grow flowers on other animals’ heads. It pacifies them and stops them in their tracks. Could the rabbit in the intro be vying for world domination?
The truth is, most of the creatures I encounter are already pacifist in nature. They don’t hurt me if I touch them and few try to attack me. I can kick them to death but my score counter remains the same and I don’t seem to get anything out of it. I do, however, get a bump in my score every time I cause a flower to sprout on their heads. There are even some enemies that will only attack after they’ve been attacked themselves. What this means is that most screens do not pose any sort of challenge; instead, it feels like taking a nice jaunt through a world.
The jaunt is nice, too. The music is great and every creature is animated with a lot of character. Seaweed transforms into a hermit crab. A squirrel morphs into a mushroom. It’s just great to walk around this place. No pit is an endless pit. They all lead somewhere and sometimes connect me to alternate routes. The one time this game made me upset was the very end. There’s a three stage boss that feels really unfair. All I have is a pitiful kick and the game sets me up against a doppleganger that can dive from the air, slide on the ground, and shoot spikes from its body. Perhaps there’s a message there. In a world this peaceful, I would not want to be like him.
I’m having a great time exploring different filters and finding which ones feel truest to these worlds. Here’s what I picked for ZAS and Trip World.
