Beautiful game, thanks.
10 hours, 09 minutes, 23 seconds was my time to the true ending. I’m not very good at hardcore platformers. But your games make the experience so friendly and welcoming even for someone like me. (i really liked the way Aria's assistance worked in this one. it felt good to have to work on little side-quests for the ability to make things easier, and then to be able to easily turn your powers on and off to use them selectively. i ended up barely using any helps and no hints, i think largely thanks to the nature of the way it was offered to me, and that let me have a challenging but not impossible experience.)
the structure is fantastic. the way it gives you these initial promises about what sort of game it is and what sort of progression to expect, and then gently twists your expectations and understandings around, while always remaining fundamentally true to those initial promises. you get to explore this structural space at the same time as you explore the game map, and you learn new ways to understand the game map as you get to know it better and better, and it all fits together. this sort of thing is a staple of sylvie games and it's always great, but here it's truly artful.
the music choices are right-on and fun. the jumping felt good. it was great fun to get Sylvie all kitted-out, so to speak. the key sections were a real highlight, for me they were a special reward for having taken time to understand the way the map fits together.
the fable-like story is metaphorically rich, all the symbols both obvious and obscure at the same time. different from the previous Love Games games i’ve played, sort of playing up the dreamy and indirect aspects of your worldbuilding, which i thought was cool.
(Spoilers…)
And to answer your question: It was worth it to me… but does that make it “worth it”? I expended great effort, and through this you reminded me to take care of these parts of myself and to take care of the way that i do so, and it was beautiful and good. But is this result worth that greater effort that you put into it, that wrenching from your heart? Does “worth” even mean anything? I struggle to answer these questions for myself every day, and the struggle becomes nearly unbearable every time I put something out into the world. I hope that you can find ways to learn answers for yourself.