I had a funny first experience with this game. I immediately went down, faceplanted, and got to the invisible area. I went the normal route and fell maybe 5 times before I noticed this abomination to the left:
Naturally, I got obsessed. I spent over an hour just tapping out different directions and trying to gauge my height along floating eyes in the distance. I got 80% up the path but fell. It was sickening, literal head rush sick. I had to uninstall, just delete it from the face of my computer. I think I had a nightmare about it that night.
I came to my senses 2 days later, when I write this. I love Yume Nikki and this is too great a game to ignore just because I played it wrong. So I played and explored normally for a while and enjoyed myself, but later I had the strangest urge to try it again. I loved Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, so it makes sense. I found I was way faster at it than the other day. It's the joy of accumulating skill but in the strangest way in this case. I fell a few times early, fell again at the same spot 80% up, realized what I was doing wrong there, and I did it. I god damn did it. I was so proud. I would do it just for the challenge but I did think the reward at the top was worth it too.
This game holds little worlds. Its environment design, sound design, and placement are so encapsulating and vivid in ideas and feelings beyond the sum of the parts. Scary and mysterious and calming and nostalgic. I loved every minute I played.