Remember back when I came up with the "Return Worlds", a list of ideas for spinoffs of each world's mechanics?  Well, I'm doing something like that again, but more esoteric this time.

In I Wanna Lockpick, the mechanics came first and the world themes were derived based on those, or at least I'd assume that's how it works. But what if I went the other way around? This is a re-mapping of IWL, changing up what the mechanics are so that the mechanics in each world are based directly on the name and background of that world.

Doorhaven is staying the same - its theme, so much as it has one, is doors. Also, we need a good base point to iterate on, and if I changed Doorhaven it'd be a completely different game!

Rainy Vista's first mechanic is Buckets, made from the rain pouring outside. Buckets are filled with a colored water, and are collected like Keys are (Orange Buckets, Purple Buckets, White Buckets, etc.). You may use up one Bucket on a door to recolor the door that color. There's also a new color, "Rusted"; a Rusted door's requirements are simply ignored, as the door is too rusted to block you. This makes Rusted Buckets the TMC equivalent of Master Keys.
I think of Rainy Vista as either a hotel or a vacation home, so Rainy Vista's second mechanic is Scanners, like the digital card locks on hotel doors these days. A Scanner is like a door, but it doesn't spend anything when you open it. Buckets do not work on Scanners.

The Infrastructure's first mechanic is Blueprint, an effect that can be applied to Keys, Doors, or Scanners. In order to open a Blueprint Door or Scanner, you need to match its specifications exactly, i.e. if it's a 3 Purple Door then you need to have exactly 3 Purple Keys, not just at least 3. Of course, 0 is a valid number here, so Blank Doors from canon IWL are rolled into this mechanic in IWL:TMC. Blueprint Keys are the same as Canon IWL's Exact Keys.
The Infrastructure's second mechanic is Mechanical Doors, doors that open and re-close via gears inside them. When you open a Mechanical Door, it becomes intangible and can be passed through, but once you're no longer touching it, it re-closes. There are also Mechanical Scanners, which are Scanners that re-close once you're no longer touching them (which is basically the same as a Gate from canon IWL...)

Starlit Temple's first mechanic, of course, is the Star effect, for both Keys and Doors. For Keys, this means introducing Star Keys and Unstar Keys three worlds earlier than canon. For Doors, a Starred Door is immune to Buckets, as the Star protects it from being changed.
Starlit Temple's second mechanic is Sacrifice Doors, which make you sacrifice all of your keys of that color to the gods (...or to whatever this temple worships) - they're the same thing as the canon Blast Doors, just rebranded for this theming context.

Haunted Attic's first mechanic is Messes that were never cleaned up because the attic is where you stuff all that stuff. A Mess has multiple key pickups within it, but you only get to choose one to take, after which the mess collapses and disappears.
Haunted Attic's second mechanic is the Spirits that haunt it. Spirits are collectible items like Keys, but they have a requirement like Doors/Scanners do, and you'll pass through them without collecting them if you don't meet their requirement. When you do collect a Spirit, it will then haunt Lily, and continue to do so as long as you continue to meet its requirement. Once you no longer meet the requirement, the spirit leaves. For the time being, the only use being haunted by a spirit has is that scanners can check for Spirits - they can check your total number of Spirits, or they can check for whether a specific Spirit is haunting you (perhaps each Spirit in a level has an ID number or something). Doors cannot spend Spirits, though

Negative Garden's first mechanic is still negative numbers, since Negative is in the name and theme.
Negative Garden's second mechanic is Seeds. Seeds are, like Buckets, a usable item, but they're used on Key pickups instead of Doors. When you use a Seed on a Key pickup, it now has 1 seed attached to it - you may attach more seeds to it if you want to. When a Key pickup is collected, if it has any seeds attached to it, one of those seeds is planted and blossoms into a new copy of the key pickup - in other words, Seeds are like Negative Master Keys but for Key pickups instead of doors. Negative seeds, then, are like positive Master Keys, removing attatched seeds if a key pickup has any, and making the key pickup rot away and disappear if it does not. (I'm not sure if negative copies are a thing here...). Seeds may also be used on Messes, in which case the mess only collapses after its seeds have been used up, but Keys taken from the Mess do not replenish, so you have to choose from what remains, meaning Seeds essentially let you choose multiple Keys from one Mess. If a Mess runs out of Keys entirely but still has remaining Seeds, it collapses early. A Key pickup can have the Star property to make it immune to Seeds (this is not the same as it being a Star Key, those are different things!)

The Labyrinth is probably similar in concept to what it is in canon IWL, just a really big puzzle using the mechanics up to this point.

See the replies for the continuation.

Mooncloud Lake is a thematically rich world, so it's getting three mechanics instead of two. Its main mechanic goes with the "moon" part: Phases. A door can have multiple "phases", and there are collectible items called Moonstones that, when collected, cause all doors that have phases to move to their next phase. For example, if a door's phases are Red 3, Blue 5, and Purple -1, then it starts as a Red 3 Door, becomes a Blue 5 Door when a Moonstone is collected, becomes a Purple -1 Door when another Moonstone is collected, returns to being a Red 3 Door when a third Moonstone is collected, and repeat. Keys and Scanners may also have phases as such, but Keys, Doors, and Scanners cannot transform into each other in Phases - an object with Phases will still always consistently be one of those three. Moonstones don't go in your inventory when collected, they just cause their phase change and disappear. Moonstones may have a number (to increment Phases by multiple, or go backwards if negative), and if Blueprint then they set all Doors to whatever Phase they'd be in if that many Moonstones had been collected so far. Star and Unstar Moonstones exist, so while Moonstones are Starred, Phases cannot change.
Its secondary mechanic, going with the "lake" part, is Filters. These are like doors, but their costs are not in Keys. The primary type are Water Filters, which cost Buckets of certain colors. There can also be Seed Filters, Spirit Filters that cost specific Spirits, or Spirit Filters that just have a number of Spirits to spend (in this case you may choose which of your Spirits to lose). Filters, of course, are themselves immune to Buckets. Scanners were already able to scan for non-key items as their requirements (and already have been doing so for Spirits), though perhaps they haven't started doing so for Buckets and Seeds until now. (Yes, Filters can be Mechanical)
The last mechanic in Mooncloud Lake is more of a side mechanic: Clouds, to go with (of course) the "cloud" part. A level can now consist of multiple "elevations", where each elevation is basically a separate room. When you're touching a cloud, you can choose to use it, but you don't have to. White clouds take you up in elevation when used, and dark clouds take you down in elevation when used (clouds have numbers next to them that tell you how far up or down they go. Clouds do not disappear when used, so they can be reused if you return to their elevation. Objects only take up one elevation, though it's possible (but rare) for an object to take up the same position on multiple elevations at once. Since this is meant to be a side mechanic for now, in this world clouds always come in white-dark pairs, so the mechanic doesn't do anything yet other than essentially add a third spacial dimension to levels (with specific "ladder" points, the cloud pairs, to travel up and down the Z-axis in discrete steps).

Etchstone Cliff's first mechanic is Etches, stone-etching tools that are another collectable item. If you have a nonzero amount of Etches, you can spend all of them at once to etch their number into a door or filter, changing that door's lock number to match the amount of Etches you had. There can be multiple colors of Etches - these colors have nothing to do with the colors of doors, and they all act identically (sprite-wise it's probably just their handles that change), it's just that Etches of different colors are stored separately in your inventory, thus they're used up separately, so you can be carrying multiple potential numbers. Filters may cost Etches. Starred Doors are immune to Etches.
For the "cliff" part of the world, the elevation mechanics that were introduced in Mooncloud Lake are fully realized here: now the clouds don't always come in pairs, so your way down isn't always the same as your way up. There are also Collapsing Clouds, which are like regular Clouds but they disappear after being used once.

Lockpick Library's first mechanic is Logical Scanners, which means Scanners' conditions can now include multiple "locks" with AND, OR, and NOT statements. (In the "themes inspire mechanics" context, this comes from the fact that in a library you read whole books instead of single statements). Blueprint applies to individual "locks" rather than the Scanner as a whole. Spirits have Scanner-like conditions, so their conditions can also be these logical statements now.
Combo Doors fit with Lockpick Library's theme perfectly, so if I was going to add them at all I'd keep them here, but they're not really needed - Doors aren't as important in this game as they are in canon IWL, generally Keys and Scanners are more important here. But without Bicolor/Combo Blast Sacrifice Doors, how will Theme-Mechanic Converse pull off the more math-y things that canon IWL does? Well, this library has some math textbooks in it too, which means Operator Keys are introduced this world. For those who don't remember Operator Keys from the museum, they allow Keys to do math things other than adding or subtracting constants (or setting Key counts to a particular value), such as multiplying your Orange Key count by 3, or adding your Cyan count to your Purple count.

Mechanical Nexus's primary mechanic, based on the "Nexus" part of being where all the doors are made, is Dispensers. Dispensers have an ordered list of objects within them (these may be any object - Keys, Doors, Buckets, Scanners, Messes, Spirits, Seeds, Moonstones, Filters, Clouds, Etches, Shelves, other Dispensers, etc., and they need not all be the same type). When the level starts, each Dispenser dispenses its first object into the level. The Dispenser then remains inactive until the object it dispensed is collected, destroyed, etc. (the object needs to no longer be present), then it waits until Lily is no longer in its range nearby it (different Dispensers can have different ranges), at which point it dispenses its next object, and repeat. Normally a Dispenser disappears once its object list is exhausted, but some Dispensers then have a second cycle of objects that repeats infinitely after its first list is exhausted.
Mechanical Nexus's side mechanic, based on the "Mechanical" part, is Gears, a collectable item used to mess with Mechanical Doors/Scanners/Filters. A positive Gear. A positive Gear may be spent on a non-Mechanical, openable object like a Door, Scanner, or Filter when you open it to cause that object to close back up after you cross it, as if it was Mechanical. It doesn't actually become Mechanical, though, it just re-closes the one time. A negative Gear may be spent on any Mechanical object to interfere with the gears in its mechanisms, grinding it to a halt and thus making it no longer Mechanical. You have to be able to open the object in question to use a Gear on it, so using a Gear on a Mechanical object therefore opens it permanently (for Doors and Filters it still spends its spending that one time, it just doesn't reform afterwards). Filters may cost Gears, but this does not make them immune to Gears (but Starred objects are immune to Gears).

The Miracle Tower's first mechanic, to go with the "miracle" part, is Spiritual Blessings and Curses, an expansion of the Spirits mechanic: Spirits can now have a "blessing" (an effect they cause when you collect them) and a "curse" (an effect they cause when they leave). Usually these effects are just giving you some amount of keys or other item (positive or negative), though there might be other effects they could cause, such as incrementing Phases or applying the effect of an Operator Key. Also, the condition for a Spirit being collectable can now be different from the condition that you have to meet for it to stick around once you have it. If you meet its collection requirement when you collect it but not its staying requirement, it immediately leaves when you collect it, giving you both its Blessing and its Curse immediately. A Spirit can also have a third effect, a "Summoning" (these can do the same things that Blessings and Curses can), and there's a new pickup type called Spirit Boards (like an Ouija Board), which when collected cause all Spirits currently haunting Lily to trigger their Summoning effect.
The "tower" part warrants a further expansion of the elevation mechanics: it's now possible for objects to stretch across multiple elevations at once (so a door could take up the same position across multiple elevations, and if you destroy it on one elevation it's destroyed on all of them), and "your elevation changes by a particular amount" is a possible Spiritual Blessing/Curse/Summoning.

With Buckets and Etches in play, Chromatic Monolith probably has a good bit of door editing involved, making it somewhat of a mix of the canon Chromatic Monolith and the canon Bridge to New Memories: Scanners are probably the things you need to get past to make progress, and you edit and recolor doors to make the right setups to let you get past them.

Part 2 is about metapuzzles, and I'm sticking to that. But what the metapuzzles are is changing, because Salvage Points don't really make sense - Doors (and Filters) aren't important enough in this progression, and Scanners have been more important but there'd be no use in Salvaging them. The connections between the themes and what's being introduced is unfortunately a little looser here, but hopefully I've towed the line between theme adherence and Part 2 meta progression well enough.

Autumn Woods introduces two new objects.
Clearing Clouds, clouds that take you to a "clearing" in the forest, are sort of a mix between a Cloud and a level entrance: they take you to another elevation while retaining your coordinates like a Cloud does, but they reset your inventory and reset any changes to the level's doors, pickups, etc. (hereafter I'll refer to that collective as the "architecture" of the level) like a level entrance does. They don't take you to a separate level, though - backspacing or reaching the goal will still take you back to whatever level you were in before this level, not just to the previous elevation. Although they're not really separate levels, this still kinda acts like you're transitioning between separate levels but with your location intact.
Alcove Entrances (which, as the name implies, are entrances into forest alcoves) are level entrances that do not reset your inventory or reset the architecture, meaning the level outside and the level inside sort of act as parts of the same level. You can still backspace out of the alcove level to return to the outside level, but since the entrance didn't reset your inventory or reset architecture, neither does exiting, so changes you made to both levels are retained when you switch between the two (but if you go through a regular level entrance at some point then both are reset). This is a level entrance, not a cloud, so when you enter an alcove you go to the start of that level, position is not retained.

Frozen Palace ups the ante with more cloud and level entrance variants. Some candidates I think could work here (though I don't think all of them are included) include:
Fog Clouds, clouds that are too foggy from the snowy air to see through, are like regular clouds, except you get lost when crossing through them and thus they put you at the start of the room they take you to instead of retaining location. Each elevation room has its own start location, and the start locations aren't necessarily in the same position as the other elevations. Fog Clouds, like regular clouds, may be repeatable or collapsing.
Windy Clouds show visions of another place, but the icy wind is strong and can push you out before you get to be there for long. These are like regular clouds, except they update your backspace chain as if they're a level entrance, so when you backspace or reach the goal, you'll be sent to the elevation you were on before going through the Windy Cloud rather than going all the way back to the previous level (you could then backspace again from there to go back to the previous level, of course - it's only hubs that outright can't be backspaced out of). Since entering the Windy Cloud did not reset your inventory or the architecture, neither does backspacing out of it. These may also be either repeatable or collapsing.
Landslide Entrances are level entrances that you're "stuck" in once you enter, and they're sort of the opposite of Windy Clouds: they're standard level entrances (reset your inventory and the architecture, and do not retain location), but they do not update your backspace chain, so they can't be exited back to the level you came from, backspacing out of them will return you to the level before that.
Collapsing Alcoves are like Alcove entrances, except they're one-time use, so when you exit the alcove the entrance is gone. They do reappear if you then enter another entrance that does reset architecture, though.
Tunnel Entrances, level entrances that in this world are themed as tunnels through caves, are like regular level entrances, except position is retained. These can also be thought of as "Clearing Clouds that enter a separate level, meaning they update your backspace chain".

Sunshade Castle is where the truth of the objects introduced in the first two Chapters is revealed: elevation and levels are the same thing. Every room in the game is actually part of one giant elevation stack, and all of these cloud and level entrance variants are different instances of the same general object - from this point on, the term "entrance" refers to this archetype as a whole. Entrances come in many different types, with the following possible attributes: 

• When it comes to reusing the entrance, there are three possibilities: Once (the entrance disappears after being used once, gone until the next time the architecture is cleared), Repeatable (the entrance does not disappear after being used), and Clear (the entrance "clears" (resets) the architecture when used, which automatically means it's repeatable since any Once entrances return when the architecture is cleared anyway. Once and Repeatable entrances do not clear the architecture, only Clear entrances do.).
• Two possibilities for what happens to your inventory (your counts of keys and other collectable items): Keep or Lose. (An interesting note: the Spirits haunting Lily are reset on architecture clear, not on inventory loss. Architecture clears are also what reset Phases.)
• Four possibilities for how backspacing works: None (the backspace chain is not updated, so backspacing out of the room will send you back further than the previous room - it'll send you back to whatever room you were in before your most recent non-None entrance), Free (updates the backspace chain, and backspacing out will not reset your inventory), Expensive (updates the backspace chain, and backspacing out will reset your inventory), and Hub (completely resets the backspace chain, so you can't backspace out of the new room at all). Reaching the goal performs the same thing as a backspace. A backspace will cause an architecture clear if and only if any Clear entrance is un-crossed in the process of the backtrack (i.e. the most recent Free or Expensive entrance was a Clear entrance, or any entrance between then and your current room was a Clear entrance).
• Two possibilities for position: Jump (it acts like a cloud, retaining your position) and Transport (it acts like a level entrance, sending you to the starting position of that room).

That's a total of 48 possibilities for entrance types. The ones that may have appeared so far are CLET (standard level entrances), CLHT (standard world/hub entrances, and this is the kind of entrance that the Warp Rod causes), RKNJ (regular clouds), OKNJ (collapsing clouds), CLNJ (clearing clouds), RKFT (alcove entrances), RKNT (fog clouds), OKNT (collapsing fog clouds), RKFJ (windy clouds), OKFJ (collapsing windy clouds), CLNT (landslide entrances), OKFT (collapsing alcoves), and CLEJ (tunnel entrances). These have all had special sprites, but from this point on there's probably a more standard sprite used for entrances in general that looks like a mix between a cloud and a level entrance, with colored quadrants to indicate what its four attributes are. The most basic ones like standard clouds and level entrances probably still use their special sprites, but from Sunshade Castle on, the ones introduced in the first two Chapters probably just use the standard entrance sprite, to help with the shift in thinking about how they work, not as special objects but as part of a greater archetype.
In addition to any of the entrances on the Frozen Palace candidate list that didn't make it in there, entrance types that might first show up in Sunshade Castle may include the following:

• CKNJ: These are like clearing clouds, but you keep your inventory when you go through them.
• OLNJ and RLNJ: These are like standard clouds, but you lose your inventory when you go through them.
• CKNT: Similar to fog clouds, but architecture is reset, so it feels more like you're going between two separate levels but keeping your keys (and not updating the backspace chain, so the two are still part of the same puzzle)
• CKET: I call these "delivery" entrances. You keep your inventory when you go in, but lose it when you backspace out, so with these you'd collect keys in the outside level, then enter the delivery entrance to use those keys within.
• CLFT: "Starter" entrances, which are the opposite of delivery entrances: you lose your inventory when you enter, but not when you exit.
• OKET and RKET: Delivery entrances that don't reset architecture, making them "drop-off" entrances: go partway through the outer level, drop off your inventory in the inner level, then pick up where you left off on the outer level with a fresh inventory.
• OLFT and RLFT: Starter entrances that don't reset architecture, making them "restock" entrances: go partway through the outer level, ditch your inventory and get a new one in the inner level, then pick up where you left off on the outer level with your restocked inventory.

Those last four bullet point examples can have their Ts replaced with Ls to make location matter. Those last two bullet point examples probably don't show up until The Dream Labyrinth but I figured I'd mention them in my list of notable ones anyway.
If elevation and levels are the same thing, then what's going on with doors and other objects that take up multiple elevations? The other thing Sunshade Castle reveals is Shadows: the same object can exist in multiple locations at once (these are called "shadows" of that object), and collecting/destroying it anywhere will remove all of its shadows. Objects that take up multiple elevations are actually objects with multiple shadows in the same position at different elevations, but now shadows don't have to be in the same position or on consecutive elevations, they can be scattered around different places and rooms. Shadows, like everything else in a level, are restored when the architecture clears. There's no "primary object" that the rest are shadows of, all shadows of an object are on equal footing.

As in canon IWL, the Dream Labyrinth is where the meta mechanics stop pulling any remaining punches. Here that process already started in Sunshade Castle, but the Dream Labyrinth certainly ups the ante, with even more entrance types being thrown around and used in more complicated ways, making navigating the entrances itself a major puzzle on each step of the way - which entrances do you use and when? Spirits that change elevation have been absent for the past three Chapters, but there's at least one of those that shows up here, with all the implications that changing elevation now has; these elevation jumps, which in The Miracle Tower were always considered RKNJ jumps, can now be of any of the 48 types (although Once and Repeatable are indistinguishable in the context of a Spirit effect, and if the jump is a Clear jump then once it occurs you lose your Spirits after the jump). This is also where Blueprint Entrances, which set your elevation to a specific value instead of incrementing or decrementing it relative to its current value, start showing up; Blueprint Entrances weren't needed before since each cloud/entrance was on just one layer of elevation, but now with Shadows around, non-Blueprint entrance shadows would take you to different elevations depending on what elevation you were on before. More importantly, Blueprint Clouds couldn't have been shown before now, because the "every room is part of the same elevation stack" means that the exact elevations are weird numbers in the hundreds or thousands (depending on how much protection from shenanigans is needed), so showing them before now would have given away that something weird was going on with elevation.

The "Focal Point moment" at the end of The Dream Labyrinth is a bit different: you find a Spirit with a curiously large elevation jumping Curse, then go to the right place and get the Curse to trigger, and the elevation jump takes you... back to the Great Beyond hub, but with your inventory preserved. This allows you to enter a door there you couldn't previously enter, and from there the game is on: rather than collecting Omega Keys, the post-T4 meta exploration involves jumping around between various rooms across the game, bringing in inventories you shouldn't have and jumping to locations you shouldn't be in, to break levels in new ways and go outside of the level's usual coordinate range to find hidden objects tucked in formerly out-of-bounds areas. Hub entrances (any of the 12 entrance types with H for its backspace type) were previously considered off-limits even in the Dream Labyrinth, but now they play a major role.

The permanent progression things to collect here are "dream sections", but the first few you get don't seem to do anything. However, once you get enough of them, you unlock The Cool Place, which is significantly different here: in IWL:TMC, The Cool Place is a single room/level, but a customizable one. Those dream sections are pieces of a level, i.e. arrangements of key pickups, doors, etc. Secret Lab is unlocked alongside The Cool Place, and from the Secret Lab you may edit which dream sections appear in The Cool Place. Through the rest of the post-T4 meta exploration, there will be some entrances to The Cool Place, so you'll often need to choose your Cool Place layout correctly so you can use it to help get past whatever obstacle is in place back in the area you entered it from. Note that the Secret Lab and the Cool Place are not immediately connected via entrances (both are places you can warp to), so usually you can't edit your Cool Place while in the midst of solving a metapuzzle that requires it.

I'm not sure what the Kina's Heart equivalent is here. That puzzle definitely involves using entrance and Spirit jumping shenanigans to smuggle things into the main hub that aren't supposed to be there, but there are no Master Keys or Brown Keys, so what exactly the puzzle is has to be different. Regardless, Return to Doorhaven exists. Like Doorhaven itself, Return to Doorhaven doesn't have a concrete theme, but I do have to stick to it introducing new non-meta mechanics.

So, what Return to Doorhaven introduces is Typed Usable Items. "Usable Items" here means Buckets, Seeds, Etches, and Gears, the items that you can use to alter the characteristics of other objects. Normally, Buckets and Etches are "door-type", Seeds are "key-type", and Gears work on any of Doors, Scanners, and Filters. Return to Doorhaven introduces variants of these items that work on other objects: Door-Type Seeds to copy or destroy copies of doors, Key-Type Buckets and Etches to alter the colors and numbers of key pickups, Scanner-Type Buckets and Etches to edit the colors and numbers of specific "locks" within a Scanner statement, Filter-Type Buckets whose colors correspond to non-Key items instead of Key colors, Dispenser-Type Gears whose negatives cause the Dispenser to deactivate on its next dispensing (and deactivated Dispensers that you have to use positive Dispenser-Type Gears on to get them to dispense their next item), "Blocker-Type" Buckets that work on any of Doors, Scanners, or Filters (Blocker type is what Gears are by default), Moonstone-Type Etches that let you alter how many phases a Moonstone increments by, Moonstone-Type Buckets that let you color a Moonstone so it only increments the Phases of things that are currently that color, Spirit-Type Seeds to make a Spirit need to trigger its leaving effect multiple times before it actually leaves, and so on. This also means that just about anything can have the Star property to protect it from the above. Finally, there are "Metabuckets", which come in types instead of colors, and are used on a pickup usable item to change its type to match the type of the Metabucket, so you can convert items of one type into items of another type. There's definitely some kinks to this idea that need to be ironed out here, but I think these item types could work as the Return to Doorhaven mechanic for Theme-Mechanic Converse.

Garden of Dreams's first half introduces the final collectable item, Dream Clouds. Dream Clouds are basically collectable entrances: like a regular entrance they have some number they change your elevation by (or set it to if Blueprint) and are one of the 48 types, but rather than being enterable, a Dream Cloud is collected and added to a special inventory when touched, and you can then access that inventory and choose to use the Dream Cloud whenever and wherever you wish (it's removed from your inventory when used). Your Dream Cloud inventory is reset upon inventory loss. Garden of Dreams's second half, which you need to have beaten Return to Doorhaven to access, throws in Cloud-type versions of the usable items, allowing you to edit what elevation entrances and Dream Clouds go to with Cloud-type Etches (and use Cloud-type Seeds to copy O entrances, etc. I'm not sure what a colored entrance does... maybe Cloud-type buckets change one of an entrance's four properties instead of color?). These mechanics combined make it so that, whereas The Dream Labyrinth was about navigating the maze to find your way between levels, Garden of Dreams is about choosing what levels/elevations/rooms to go to in the right ways using the right entrances and Dream Clouds.

Bridge to New Memories takes place in the sky on clouds, so here it's a final puzzle about Dream Clouds and other entrances, having you use Dream Clouds and Cloud-Type Etches to go back to various points across the game to collect the right keys, items, etc. to meet the requirements at the end.

Lockpick Horizon is still a postgame world so it doesn't technically introduce anything new, but in practice it does: here, you stare into the endless horizon of elevation and leap deep into it, courtesy of Operator Entrances and Operator Dream Clouds, which can do general Operator Key things to your elevation - so there becomes complicated math about getting to the right elevation to get to the next puzzle. I don't understand Kina's Masterpiece well enough to comment on how it works in Theme-Mechanic Converse. Perhaps the postgame ends with an Operator Entrance that divides your elevation by 0, causing an error that takes Lily back to the surface, thus truly ending the experience?

OK, was this all realistic? Definitely not, I stuffed too many mechanics into some of these worlds. If I had to cut back on some of this, I'd remove Messes, somehow move Seeds into a separate world from Negative Garden (perhaps necessitating a rebrand - maybe they could be "copiers" introduced in Lockpick Library?), remove Operator Keys (as sad as it would be to see the more math-y things go… and I guess Lockpick Horizon would just go back to being a standard postgame world without elevation shenanigans), remove "multiple elevation objects"/Shadows, remove Spirit Summonings (or remove Blessings and Curses but keep Summonings), probably remove Gears, and maybe even remove Phases (which would probably necessitate breaking the cloud pair symmetry in Mooncloud Lake so it's actually introducing something meaningful instead of waiting until Etchstone Cliff to do so, and then collapsing clouds are the only part of elevation mechanics that Etchstone Cliff adds). With Part 1 I definitely prioritized "one mechanic per piece of the theme, or two mechanics per world" over keeping the worlds at a realistic size - but that's kind of the point, isn't it?