Drake's in another one of her horror moods and focusing on Kirby again.

And Kirby is reallllll good at the tonal shift from "happy frolicking" to "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!?!"

Even though the shift in this game is abrupt as hell XD

Playing Grey Area. Lots to write home about I think.

I enjoyed the art. I enjoyed how elaborate and much more subtly sinister the difficulty select friend is than all the enemy characters in the game.

I enjoy the kiddiness of it.

The movement and controls are wonderful to mess around with. It's lovely to just repeatedly sit.

I hope I'm not about to reveal my dreadful ignorance but I really enjoy that it's a precision platformer without wall jumps or double jumps. If there is a wall jump or a double jump that I've missed, then oopsie! But if I understand correctly, then the game has a jump and a dive. All other movement is momentum based I think.

Technically, a dive can function as a wall jump if you dive into the wall and momentum bounce of it. And it can count as a double jump if you use it to gain more distance in your jump. But I consider single jump and dive to be distinct. Particularly because you only get one dive per jump and bouncing off walls doesn't reset it. In my opinion, a precision platformer with wall jumps is usually one that also has wall grip and the ability to scale walls infinitely by repeatedly wall jumping. Maybe hampered by the wall being littered with hazards or by your turn speed from a wall jump being too slow to reach the same wall again. Grey Area's dive isn't quite like that so I consider it different.

Something that really stands out to me though, is the two different styles of gameplay used for I guess you could call them the levels and the overworld.

It's a game about a kid sleeping and dreaming I think. The main game seems to be the dreams. And the 'overworld' is when you're awake. (I don't know, maybe there's more main game in the waking world! Maybe there's dreams within dreams! I only played for about an hour before I wanted to get some thoughts down. Will play more. Maybe will see more layers of dreams.)

But what I saw, was the sidescrolling precision platforming in the dreams, then you wake up and the protag is in her house. It becomes a top down view.

Hold on, let me look up, yeh girly's name is Hailey.

Yeh so, you wake up in Hailey's house, right? And I don't know, there's something about this particular part of the game. The switch from sidescroller to top down, right?

But it's the same because you're still the same Hailey and the game still uses the same sprites, but it's not the same because she faces different directions for moving up and down, but it's the same because she still jumps but it's not the same because there's not the dive and the momentum anymore.

And I don't know. There's something that really speaks to me here about a child dreaming about her idealised sense of movement through the world.

In her day to day life, she's jumping around everywhere, she jumps on counters and jumps on the family car and she jumps everywhere. And it's like she's dreaming the imagined adventures as projected from the running around the house.

Did you ever hide as a kid? Not hiding from people, but that too, but like hiding for play. Like under furniture. Inside cupboards. Inside laundry hampers. Inside bushes.

I did this. And I imagined this as sprawling fantasy adventures. I thought of dragons living in the caverns of these spaces.

I remember being a kid and hearing that Miyamato based his work on the Zelda games partly on his childhood memory of running around and exploring his grandparents house. I remember reading that in a magazine and thinking yes, that's exactly right. I know just what you mean my man. The laundry hamper is the dungeon. I am glad that we are on the same page.

I feel that with Hailey living a peaceful chill top down life and running and jumping everywhere, and then dreaming the fantasy. That cool trick jump you did off the sofa? That was really cool and graceful and dexterous? It is now mandatory and if you fall then you have to talk to a stranger or have a doctor's visit.

Looking forward to playing more. I heartily recommend others check it out.

luigi t-posing

this post doesn't have any concrete spoilers, but i am talking about my basic opinions of animal well and the overall structure of the game, including hidden stuff, after completing it. so if you want to go in with zero information, skip this post.