This was simultaneously an incredibly relaxing game and an incredibly unnerving game -- which sounds like an oxymoron but I swear it's true!!! 🤣
OK why relaxing? Well, I think I just... sat there... and stared for a while at the spinning vortex... I especially liked the second-level speed. Paired with the wind noise, just sitting there, I almost felt like I could feel the wind whipping past my face as I listened to the sound and watched the spinning vortex. It was strangely calming LOL
BUT ALSO UNNERVING BECAUSE IT REMINDED ME OF TORNADOES LMAO. I have a weird love-hate relationship with tornadoes where I love them but I'm absolutely terrified of them, and the spinning vortex here very much reminded me of what it might be like if I was flying in the middle of a tornado hahahaha.
The two feelings juxtaposed in my mind made for quite the compelling experience!!! And what a unique way to use the assets?? The spinning vortex background, especially the way it speeds up. What a unique way to make it so instantly immersive with just a single background!
I also LOVED the writing! The use of the descriptions, the weight and rhythm they all had, and the almost,,, mmm very visceral feeling they had to them, so centered around sensations especially. It was incredibly lovely, and I enjoyed testing out all the different options so I could read the descriptions for each one. I also appreciated how I could say I wasn't ready to see the end yet so it would take me back and I could keep choosing other ones without having to completely restart LOL That was a nice touch -- and also just added to the surrealness of the experience in that you can choose to just... keep... falling... you could keep falling forever even... (this part gave me weird flashbacks to the Doom Slide or whatever it was called in the old Goosebumps book about the amusement park where you'd just keep sliding forever hahaha).
And then when you finally do click to end it, that THUD and the red screen made me jump just a bit LOL Perhaps because I'd gotten so accustomed to the same vortex, the same wind sound, over and over again, so when the change did come, it was that much more effective. I love how afterwards then we're just like... WELL! That was an accomplishment to not die! Time to climb back up. Because somehow falling is nothing new to us. Just like we can click to keep falling in the game, the character keeps falling and finding themselves back in this spiraling tunnel again and again.
Anyway, just really lovely stuff. I quite enjoyed my fall down the vortex!!! 🤭💕