I started this game thinking I would be entertained by it, but was disappointed in that. I expected a story with some sense of linearity, one that I could play for a certain amount of time, reach an end or conclusion, and then be satisfied that I had taken in all the content. I don't dislike the game; it is a massive twisting labyrinth full of interesting stuff. I just wasn't ready for what it was. I tried to force the game into my pre-conceived mold by looking at walkthroughs to find all of the Effects. But that's not how the game is meant to be played.In the end, I'm glad I had some experience with the game, even if I didn't play it right (which I don't think I would have the patience for), and many of these images were extremely interesting and will stay with me for a long time. This is a prime example of ... avent gard? Yes, this is a piece of art.At the same time, I don't get what the big deal is. There is quite a bit of bloat in it. A prime example is one of the first worlds that you will probably enter - the forest world. It's literally a ton of copy-pasted trees that look like they were pulled from the front page of RPG maker or whatever. And it's infinitely looping. Very clearly looks like an amateur loaded up RPG maker randomly put a bunch of trees everywhere and then hit the "loop" check box. There is a significant amount of content in this "game" that wastes the users time like this. They could have made the world slightly smaller and more compact, and there still would have been a ton of cool things to explore. I just don't see why they chose to dampen the experience when there is so much cool stuff to see.Whatever the reason, it doesn't seem to hurt its reception . . . A lot of rave for this game seems to be nostalgic (it came out in 2004), and newcomers like I might not understand what it meant to people in the time that it came out.One other minor annoyance I had is the inability to move diagonally, which makes navigating a few tunnels to be extremely irritating and "gamey."If you're like me and want to experience everything this game has to offer, good luck. I'm not going to take the time to wander aimlessly through a lot of repetition. Even if you locate all of the Effects (the only clear goal in the game), you still won't have seen a few things. The best way may be to, after an initial blind run-around, just "spoil" the rest and read up on what others have found. Or, before you do that, watch someone else wander around cluelessly, so you don't have to waste any effort. There are a lot of novel, art ideas and symbolism that are very much worthy of analysis and discussion. The anonymity and possible death of the creator elevates all of it to an even higher plane, as if we are actually exploring the dreams of a real person.This game is an amazing work of art that is challenging at times to fully experience.