Oh yeah, I totally agree that my theoretical “maybe the first level is too slow and might lose people” is directly disproved by the fact that… well, I kept playing. Thinking back to 04 again, you’re right that not actually a lot got introduced, but maybe I’m thinking of all the little things too. Like for example, how you can jump three blocks but three blocks + spikes is too high for a normal fox. I felt completely betrayed and also I think it’s excellent game design.
Maybe the reason why I feel like it introduced more was because all those tiny things were just revealed by signs in the first few levels? I dunno, the tonal shift of the signs just going away is great, but also I dunno. I have a feeling that a lot of this critique can be attributed to the bias of “well this is what the first world is like, therefore this is what the entire game would be like” which is very clearly not true, but also kinda true. I dunno. Thank you for making the demo, and good luck on the rest of the game <3