Loved to see another implementation of the “one screen” idea! The art style is very unique and detailed. Personally, the dark environments with brighter characters are quite easy to read, and together with the sporadic music, they make for a truly bizarre and haunting experience. The main character is very cool and extremely well-animated, and the little cutscenes when collecting powerups and at the end really give her a lot of personality.
The array of powerups and items is quite impressive and creative. The switching mechanic took some getting used to, but all the abilities feel fun and satisfying to use. The star ability was my favorite, being simple and effective to use, and I also loved the ability to find hidden objects by zooming in - it really added a lot to the feeling of discovery. However, I think the base jump could be a teeny bit higher, as it feels like you can just barely make the 2-tile-high jumps that are expected of you.
Shooting and deflecting is also nice and has a great sense of feedback, though the enemies do take a while to put to sleep. Combined with the fact they wake up eventually, it often feels like it’s better to just run past them. On the other hand, I certainly appreciate the ability to slow down bullets, as it helps even players with skill issue (me) pull off the deflections!
The map is fun to explore and has a truly impressive amount of content and secrets packed into a single screen. It does lead to the issue where it’s hard to see things at the farthest zoom level, while the closest zoom is a bit too close. The UI being part of the map itself rather than its own screen layer was also a bit confusing at first - it took me a while to find the health bar, and I initially thought the matchbox icon was an item in the level.
That said, it was awesome to see so many secrets and optional interactions. All the unique NPCs really make the game world feel alive, and finding and talking to all of them was definitely the best part of the game for me. The stalker interaction and the camera “powerup” were absolutely hilarious, and some of my other favorites were the witch and the construct (definitely a very relatable NPC…).
Overall, definitely a top contender for me among the entries I've reviewed so far. A very polished and atmospheric game that captures that dreamlike vibe perfectly, and a great idea and interpretation of the theme (and I’m 100% not being biased saying that)!