This game really is amazing. I haven't moved on to the newer version yet, as I foolishly thought I would do so once I succeeded in this one, but even in the current version I'm in, the game is just so incredible and amazingly expansive. I think this may well be my most played game on the entirety of itch.io, with my logged playtime from death screenshots being upward of 57 hours with 24 casualties so far, but I've still not even made it past the fourth layer lmao.
There are so many items, so many different locations to find and interact with, a million different mechanics to learn, but the absolute best part of it all is definitely the astounding immersion in pain and suffering. The shit you experience here hits you to your core. The throbbing pain effects fuzzying confusion effects and greying depression effects all fit in to the game so incredibly well. You aren't just watching a character be in pain, shock, or confusion, it feels like you’re the one experiencing it yourself. Combined with the fact that other than recipies, nothing saves between runs, and you end up completely and utterly focused on everything happening in the game for hours on end. I mean, I'll never forget when I first played the game. I played for hours on end, and within the first hour, I realized my eyes were watering up a ton, but I couldn't figure out why. Eventually, I figured out it was because I WASN'T BLINKING. You learn to deal with the crazy situations you end up in slowly, but honestly I still find myself reaching those levels of focus even now, depending on the situation.
The music is absolutely amazing. If the dev composed this themselves, then it is unbelievably impressive, because even just the environmental tracks I've heard so far are all just so good, with each one also just flowing with compositional creativity. Not to mention the mood setting "music" for when things are going to fucking shit, which really just sets the tone so well while keeping perfect immersion. The art and style of the game is great. The pixel art looks good, the huds are all clean, and there is just nothing about it that would make me complain.
I could honestly write so much more and I wanna finish it so bad, but I unfortunately got like zero time for myself right now, got too much work and little opportunities to engage in the long play sessions. Super excited to get back to it eventually though, especially when there's even more of this amazing content to see.