Babies Dream of Dead Worlds

2 Being a fetus must suck
BDoDW bewilders me in its purpose alone; I cannot profess to recalling what I dreamt of in the womb, but I can confidently assure you it was nothing close to this.

The game, despite its absurd title, is a conventional platformer, albeit with an interesting mechanic: a gravitational equator, above or below which the player is forcefully attracted. This gives way to the unsurprising yet amusing practice of ‘slingshotting’, using displaced momentum to catapult to impressive heights. Mastery of these unusual physics allow players to traverse obstacles using unconventional methods, though the bland, recycled tiles and empty levels make this entirely a diversion unto itself.

Yet the game seems limited by its mechanic. Each of the three plotlines (in the loosest sense) presents a different mode of gameplay: a race, an obstacle course, and a collect-a-thon. While constant checkpoints make it impossible to ‘fail’ a level, progress is scored and timed, though no leaderboards or indication of achievement (besides NewGrounds badges) are ever presented. Because of this, most of the challenge in the game is self-inflicted, as the general inscrutability of the story makes it hard to care about accomplishing anything.

Indeed, from what I’ve gathered, the titular ‘dead world’, a gradated plane of blocks and pillars inhabited by hideous insectoid mice, is slowly being consumed by “it”, an apparent growth of purple spikes that renders terrain untouchable. It’s frustratingly vague; indentical grey NPCs make mention of a catastrophic ‘condition’, failed ‘research’, or an impending ‘event’, but none of it is expanded upon; even upon completion of all nine levels, there is no closure to the story, leaving it as unintelligible as it began. What’s going on? Why? Who am I? I don’t even…