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[superflat]

This really is a powerful and beautiful piece of work.  And I'm a pretty harsh critic of art games for the most part - while I love what they stand for, I don't automatically like them, as many end up being like teenage poetry!

Particularly like the use of overlapping soundtracks.

[Kunal]

Beautiful. I think the frustrating jumping controls can be forgiven.

The only quibble I'd have is that you sometimes just ran into the gem for a level and as a result left the rest of the area unexplored.

[Melly]

This is amazing.

[SPOILER]

At the left-most level, the one of the (I think) green teleporter, at first I thought I was underground, with light filtering from the top. Then I thought that they'd play a trick and I was at the clouds or something. When I was about to collect the gem, I saw what it really was, and I stood there for maybe 30 seconds just staring. It's very rare when I feel this way.

[/SPOILER]

I love it.

[moi]

I must be really good at games... I don't remember any of the jumps to be hard at all.

[Radix]

It's probably something which would be easier for inexperienced gamers so I wouldn't crow too much.

[team_q]

inconsistent =/= hard.

[alspal]

pretty decent experience.

I must be really good at games... I don't remember any of the jumps to be hard at all.

[googoogjoob]

I really like this game it's awesome. It was too short though and the ending was generically ambiguous.

The music from the snow world is maddeningly familiar but I cannot place where I have heard it before. SOMEONE HERE MUST KNOW WHAT IT IS.

EDIT: okay i looked and the music is from incompetech that's why it's familiar

[Melly]

Where can I find all the music?

[JLJac]

Amazing!

[Sam]

Where can I find all the music?

Incompetech.com

At the moment there's a news post on the front page that lists the tracks used by this game.

It's a wonderful site where one guy makes available for free (with a very liberal license) a huge collection of music that he has made for various projects.  You can also hire him to make music specifically for your project.

The fact that his site exists and he seems to not be starving to death makes me very happy.

The Tiny Worlds game also made me very happy!  For what it's worth, I found the jumping fine.  Probably they should have freed the player from the "pixel" grid though, as obviously many people didn't like it.  Add in some gentle collision response to nudge the player down narrow passages, and it should work out.

[DantronLesotho]

I played this game two more times after I played it once. I thought it was excellent; a beautiful mix of exploration on a tiny yet epic scale. I'm a sucker for story though, and would have preferred one that is more than 7 words, heh. Still loved it though.

Also, the meteor/big bang world was awesome.

I want a sequel! 

[Quicksand-T]

This is a really nice game, and its interesting how everyone seems to interpret it differently. The best part is how your perceptions slowly change as you explore, like the game is telling you a story but without exposition; it really uses the gaming medium to tell the story.

Anyone know of other work by the same author?

[B. van Stokkum]

This is amazing.

[SPOILER]

At the left-most level, the one of the (I think) green teleporter, at first I thought I was underground, with light filtering from the top. Then I thought that they'd play a trick and I was at the clouds or something. When I was about to collect the gem, I saw what it really was, and I stood there for maybe 30 seconds just staring. It's very rare when I feel this way.

[/SPOILER]

I love it.

I must be dumb... I couldn't figure out what I was looking at in this one

[MisterX]

The best part is how your perceptions slowly change as you explore, like the game is telling you a story but without exposition; it really uses the gaming medium to tell the story.

I thought that exactly this part was lacking. Or, rather, that the author could've made more of that cool feature.
For example I liked that in the city level you first only see glamorous skyscrapers and fountains, until you see that river of green waste-stuff and find out that it flows right into the ground-water. But, in the other half of the level you aren't really told anything new. And, apart from that "space" level I didn't notice any other level being really impressive like that.
I think it would have been pretty cool if the game really told such a little story in each level, and once you explored them all you understand the big picture and why the hub world looks the way it does. I think there are a lot of possibilities.

Still, one that topic, I liked that all levels turn out to be somewhat spherical. When you get to the exit and explored the whole level, it's like you're looking into a snow globe

[DantronLesotho]

From what I could gather, the city theme was the pollution running into the water, like you mentioned. But then there's the rocks breaking up, maybe from a nuclear explosion? And on the planet with the nukes, it's like they caused nuclear winter and there were no more people left.

But the weird shell/egg thing? Got me.

[LazyWaffle]

Nice game, but what's with all the hype?

[pogo]

I really liked the concept... but It just wasn't enough to hold my interest til the end.

[Quicksand-T]

I think it would have been pretty cool if the game really told such a little story in each level, and once you explored them all you understand the big picture and why the hub world looks the way it does. I think there are a lot of possibilities.

Well, my impression of the overall story was that the hub world was a kind of museum, and each little vignette was a record of events where humanity had given in to their destructive nature. Hence a blown-up planet, a utopia choked by pollution, a world ravaged by nuclear war, and the corpse of an extraterrestrial killed by fearful humans.

In the end the protagonist is too overwhelmed either by guilt at his hand in these events, the futility of life in the face of such horrors, or just the prospect of being alone now that mankind has become extinct. Therefore he decides to end it all by flying into a nearby sun.

The line "there is too much noise" could represent jumbled thoughts of guilt or doubt, or the horrible white noise that fills the lonely spaces in the empty ship.

EDIT- By the way, the newer version of the game has fixed the jumping difficulties people were experiencing.

[ElijahKatz]

It takes the cake for best game with the worst ending