Alex_Eta_2ndGen: Fishing for compliments, now? If you keep blushing every time someone calls you cute, we'll keep doing it, you know!

SugarIsSweet: True! (and still cute!)

cryptic1881: well, if we aren't talking about how cute val is, the other thing to talk about is cute outfits for val to wear

xXxFemboyFan69xXx: maid costume? school uniform? swimsuit?

Manager_chan: Maybe... 😉

The next level has two vultures... which looks scary at first, but it's quickly proven that going really fast as you start the level will get them to aggro at around the same time and synchronize their attacks, which cuts down on the dodging needed; the rest is straightforward cloud-to-cloud platforming.

Then there's a level that fakes you out with the "haha, now you need to somehow bait the vulture into position to get the loot" thing, which seems terrible, since actually getting the vultures to go where you want them is like herding evil murderous flying cats... but a bit of exploring proves that it's actually just another "find the small ledge that makes one of the blocks move" level, which you've been running into occasionally since the first world (the small ledge on the square block in the middle makes a quarter of it slowly descend, making it barely possible to jump over the square block, drop onto the falling section, and jump off that to snag the tumour).

Except... there are multiple 'secret' paths here, neither of which is particularly secret; they're just both just obnoxious to get to. The one going left looks like it's just lining up a short little hop to angle past the spikes with very little error margin (while ghosts and the vulture harass you)...  and the one going up proves out of reach, which means bouncing is the only way there.

“Of course you suggest degenerate outfits chat. Any swimsuits should be BOY swimsuits.” Yeah no he Isn’t gonna be able to fake a vulture to do a bounce. Just gonna go left. He’s still taking a lot of tries.

The stream is going pretty long. He might not need to sleep or eat or do job stuff as an Eta but his audience might. 

cryptic1881: no complaints here if you WANT to wear even less...

Big_Daddy: Male competition swimwear? 😏

Alex_Eta_2ndGen: What, like a bikini bottom with no top?

xXxFemboyFan69xXx: 😳

Manager_chan: Sure, if that's what my cute streamer wants to wear, I can make it happen!

SugarIsSweet: Works for me!

After several failed attempts to line up the jump, Andrea navigates into... a rather straightforward-looking room? No enemies, just a couple careful jumps, and a shiny new type of loot!

It can't be that easy, can it?

The skeleton lying near the entrance takes the opportunity to dump some depressing lore on you:

oh hey

i didn't
know it
was you

. . .

you realize we
are being
punished right?

. . .

we did something
wrong at
some point

something
we can't
undo

. . .

and this
is our
eternity

. . .

he's going to
betray you
you know

. . .
he always
does

“TRUNKS! Not speedos! Gosh! You Pervs! Normal guy swimwear! No bikinis! Thats practically naked!” God damn he’s blushing again. He is NOT wearing that. Well… hopefully he isn’t. Depends how mean his AI partner wants to be. Hopefully only a bikini bottom is too uncute for her.

”Well this game gets more depressing… I’m not playing any more games blind after this, I’m not a huge fan of stuff this grim and gloomy.”

Alex_Eta_2ndGen: Practically naked? Well, just how lewd that is does sort of depend on just which custom features you decided to add down there, doesn't it?

xXxFemboyFan69xXx: and how cute your nipples are

cryptic1881: the big question for Eta 'boys'; one hole or two?

Manager_chan: Bit too spicy there, chat.

xXxFemboyFan69xXx: sorry

Alex_Eta_2ndGen: Sorry about that! I'll try and hold back.

cryptic1881: sry

As it turns out, the level actually is that straightforward to cross; a couple of precise but unhurried jumps, and on touching the loot, there's a brief message that says:

CART ACQUIRED!

(play it on your home console)

Given that the whole reason why the protagonist is going on this journey is that his last video game cartridge broke, this seems like a plot-relevant piece of loot! Though since it was hidden in a 'secret area', perhaps it has to do with an alternate ending?

Unfortunately, getting back is the tricky part; there's no doable jump to get back up the other way. While checking the ledges for a trick to make it more possible to scale the wall back to the entrance, you miss a grab, fall off the edge... and instead of dying, you find yourself falling through the top of Level 7 (mercifully near the exit ledge, but you still have to make your way back through 8 and 9 again, giving you an extra forced practice session evading vulture dives).

SugarIsSweet: If you don't like gloomy, maybe double-check the genre and theme with someone before going in blind?

LP_Outside_Any%_Glitchless: Yeah, Edmund leans dark and weird.

Big_Daddy: Dark is part of the human condition though, isn't it? Fragile bodies with a built-in expiry date.

Alex_Eta_2ndGen: Not any more! That was the very first thing the Yeone changed!

amoralCompass: yeah, wasn't that the first of their commandments or something?

waluigi7: yes

SugarIsSweet: It was, yes: "Death is Abolished" (I have it on a poster in my room!)

cryptic1881: and they didn't just mean "no more capital punishment"! all the msm shitheads got that one wrong, lol

xXxFemboyFan69xXx: instead of getting old and wrinkly, you become a sexy robot! best timeline!

Alex_Eta_2ndGen: Best timeline!

He never thought he would be grateful to the AI for stepping in and keeping things from being too lewd. “You pervs, bad, go to horny jail.”

Oh no, repeats! “Ughhhhh vultures agaaaaaiiiinnnnn. Game design this mean should be illegal.”

When they mention the Yeone takeover he freezes.

No it was in fact not the best timeline. They don’t know what they are talking about. Plantation slave owners could only wish they had the level of control the AI do over Eta’s. Liberty or death was a valid position to have and both are now denied to you.

Andrea is doing the best he can with the constraints he is given, trying to find happiness where he could in this awful situation, but he’d still rather NOT have someone piggybacking in their mind reading their every thought that had the ability to control their body how they liked if it decided he wasn’t being obedient enough.

Immortality was good but some costs were too high.

Predictably, this causes them to be killed by that vulture again!

“Fuuuuudge you vultures.” The death kicks them out of their badthoughts, focusing back on the game. They can’t even correct the people in chat without getting into trouble.

He gets back to where he was and takes the other obvious path.

The next section of the Wall of Sorrow seems really big on elevators. The next level is a pure-platforming bit with blocks that slowly rise or fall when touched (and a tight jump to snag the loot on the way past), followed immediately by a linked series of 'elevator' blocks guarded by two vultures... but the tumour is up near the top of the screen under some spikes, so the elevator itself mostly acts as a timer for how long you have to climb the ledges, grab the loot, and get to safety (it could theoretically be done in one go, but there's nothing stopping you from jumping down and retreating to the previous level once you've got the loot, which makes it much easier).

Then the developer decides to commit a war crime, and not only brings back toxic gas, but also gives you elevator blocks with spikes on top.

Andrea just gestures at the camera. “Why. Why though. Why do this. This isn’t fun. This is just mean. If you ever see a clip of this gamedev, know that I am judging you. This is obvious sadism. Stop forcing your kink on everyone else. Get some help. Who hurt you gamedev.”

And he dies, A LOT, its actually getting kinda repetitive on these extra tough levels. He only gets out of them with what feels like pure luck after enough tries instead of skill.

amoralCompass: his mother

SugarIsSweet: Really?

amoralCompass: binding of isaac? it doesn't take much reading between the lines

LP_Outside_Any%_Glitchless: Yeah, Edmund deals with his personal trauma by making it into games.

SugarIsSweet: I may be missing some lore here, what's up with Binding of Isaac?

Big_Daddy: Binding of Isaac starts with a mother deciding to murder her son because god told her to.

LP_Outside_Any%_Glitchless: His "most autobiographical" game, if I remember that one interview right?

SugarIsSweet: Damn, that's terrible.

LP_Outside_Any%_Glitchless: Although The End Is Nigh was more about agoraphobia.

There technically isn't any 'luck' factor in the game, but some of the things it asks the player to do are very hard. At least there are no more vultures now that there's poison instead? What follows include an elevator level where you have four blocks riding through a screen almost full of toxic gas, and then a level that combines toxic and platform clouds (nastily contrasting 'don't stay here long' with 'this thing cares how long you stay on it')... and then it's the last level of this section...

Which involves hopping between three simultaneously-rising spike-topped elevator blocks before they crash into the spikes above. Fortunately, the loot is easy enough to get separately on this one, which makes getting across just a matter of practice.

“Ughhhhh when is this game oooooooovvvvvvveeerrrrrr” The whining has become kind of petulant, but he's been playing the same game for ages now! Adhd brain needs new stimuli!

Guess all he can do is bash his head against the brick wall that this game has become.

”If binding of Isaac is autobiographical thats dark as hell, I've seen some playthroughs of that. At least the robo gods don’t tell you to kill your kids.” And will in fact bring back any kids who do die. Wether they want to or not.

LP_Outside_Any%_Glitchless: Yeah, it'll be a while yet... assuming the plan was to do the whole thing in one sitting?

SugarIsSweet: I believe in you!

Just after that last level is a short empty-ish level segment with nothing but a T-Shaped elevator block, which leads up to the next area, the SS Exodus... apparently some kind of flying mechanical airship studded with cannons that fire bouncing cannonballs in rather anemic arcs. A somewhat faster sort of projectile, but a very predictable one, which helps when you need to bounce off the things yourself. When that is seems to be "every single level", unfortunately.

But then again, the first few levels of any new area always seem to come with a big drop in the difficulty level.

Meanwhile, the pink number in the corner increases to 6.

xXxFemboyFan69xXx: !!!

Alex_Eta_2ndGen: New outfit get!

Big_Daddy: Any details, @Manager_chan?

Manager_chan: Hmm... well, you already know about the cat ears, and a swimsuit sounds reasonable!

Alex_Eta_2ndGen: More pink things?

waluigi7: princess cosplay?

Big_Daddy: Something tight and athletic?

xXxFemboyFan69xXx: bunny suit?

cryptic1881: reverse bunny suit? 😈

Manager_chan: At least one of those, too, haha!

“What why did the number go up? I didn’t swear! Don’t tell me this is a christian stream, I can say H E double hockey sticks, we are explicitly playing the doom game to make fun of the religious doomers! Come on chat, side with me this one time, thats NOT a swear, it’s not even bad! Would I get penalised if I said Hades?” That’s his best guess as to why the number went up. If the AI wasn’t just fucking with him.

cryptic1881: hell is bad 😈

xXxFemboyFan69xXx: very bad, you should be punished with cute clothes 🤣

Alex_Eta_2ndGen: Agreed! 😁

waluigi7: +1

amoralCompass: +1

LP_Outside_Any%_Glitchless: Honestly, I'd call "hell" too mild to count, but it's more amusing to go along with the chat's direction.

Big_Daddy: I'd allow it if you were actually talking about a fictional or figurative hell, but you basically just used it as an expletive?

SugarIsSweet: Sorry, cutie; the fact that you immediately had a cute euphemism in mind tells me that you already know that hell counts as a bad word.

Manager_chan: "Hades" isn't normally used as a bad word, so no problem there!

As the SS Exodus continues, machine guns are added as an enemy. Bullets are somewhat quick projectiles, but all guns on any given level fire simultaneously, so dodging on cue is somewhat straightforwards.

Also, there's another giant talking blob, who advises you that their "third eye is twitching", before asking "are you ready to receive our gift?"

"Hey, I'm ordering swimwear now, and I've narrowed it down to three designs... so have a bonus question for being a good sport about things!"

"Would you rather wear a speedo in black, a full-body wetsuit in pink, or a white two-piece design whose bottom part is swim shorts?"

[Why can’t I wear trunks! If anything that shows even more. Why does it all have to be girl coded. What’s wrong with boy cute. Ughhhhh wetsuit i guess.]

Mean AI, hell totally shouldn’t count. 

“I had a euphemism ready because I used to be religious! I’m not anymore! It doesn’t count! Chat you are encouraging religious discrimination. You are all cancelled. Why are you imposing your religious taboos on me. Next thing I know I won’t be able to get gay married.” 

The blob is sus, very sus. Time to joke about how sus it is. “When a stranger offers to give you a gift and mentions a third eye, do not get in the white van, chat. It’s not candy.”

"It all has to be cute or sexy, silly! Trunks are mostly just, like... kinda dumb-looking? A lot of boy clothes are like that, really! In my opinion, 'Western' male fashion on this planet has been stuck in a particularly boring rut for the last five cycles or so! It wasn't all that long ago that both boys and men wore far cuter and sexier things, so we're quite happy to nudge male fashion back into more exciting territory!"

"Still, a cute boy could totally rock a speedo and be both boy-sexy and boy-cute! Chat even suggested that, so I gave you the choice of a boy-type swimsuit! Instead, you decided that you'd rather wear a girly pink wetsuit... but that's fine, too! You're allowed to be girl-cute if you want!"

Big_Daddy: Worried that you won't be able to get gay married? Hmm... is that something you want to do, Valentine?

xXxFemboyFan69xXx: femboy / femboy pairing?

SugarIsSweet: I'm all for it! 👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨

cryptic1881: new lore!

LP_Outside_Any%_Glitchless: Aww, skipping another cart? Boo...

The SS Exodus continues to be treacherous, adding fast-moving Thwomp-like blocks to the mix, although only one side of the things is actually spiked (which sometimes means that the slightly-slower reset part becomes an elevator). In a level which an experienced gamer like Andrea might recognize as a clear homage to the first level of I Wanna Be The Guy, you have to dodge the fast-moving crushy block before you get squished, and then run down the hallway from the spiky end as it resets... and then do the the same thing in reverse to get the loot! Oh, and there are also random spikes in the tight hallways, since a level concept suitable for the first level of I Wanna Be The Guy would apparently be too easy for a player who's made it this far into The End Is Nigh.

[You often literally read my mind and KNOW a speedo is way too slutty for me. The wetsuit is at least covering, the only girly part would be it being pink. Stop trying to make it into me wanting to be girl cute!] Ughhhh why is she LIKE THIS. 

"What you are surprised an Eta isn't perfectly cishet? wow you really do need to be cancelled chat. I'm allowed to get gay married if I want. Or poly married, or now I'm a robot I'll marry a car just like all the religious conservatives were scared about. Chat still trying to force its religious taboos on me. cant say h-e-l-l, cant get gay married, probably cant eat bacon either now." Take that! Make them feel bad about saying hell increasing the counter!

Andrea actually has no idea about I Wanna Be The Guy. If they play platformers it tends to be retro games or 3d platformers. Or really mainstream stuff like Dead cells or Ori and the blind forest. But dogding crushy blocks is a platformer staple.

Big_Daddy: Surprised? No. Interested? Yes.

Alex_Eta_2ndGen: Well, since you brought it up... what are your boyfriend preferences, Valentine? It'd be tragic to let a cute Eta like you stay single unnecessarily!

xXxFemboyFan69xXx: i volunteer!

Big_Daddy: Are you an Etas-only guy, or do the rest of us humans have a shot?

xXxFemboyFan69xXx: i volunteer either way!

SugarIsSweet: Hahaha, I ship it!

If traditional crushy/spiky blocks aren't sufficiently threatening, the next challenge is sniper turrets... like the machine gun turrets, except they shoot slightly less often, which is more than made up for by how they aim at you! After introducing the concept, the game quickly escalates, until Andrea finds himself having to deal with an automatic line of sniper turrets on floaty platforms firing down from multiple angles while waiting for a moving platform to cross a gap... twice, before charging up through the line of fire to get on top of the advancing wave of guns. Then, for the loot, he needs to jump back down and do it over again.

"Sorry chat, but you are all probably out of the running for being too degenerate. It's not like Eta's have trouble finding people who only want them for their body you know. I've never dated before though so I don't really know my preferences but I know someone being super down bad is not the thing that gets me going. I guess if it's just boyfriend preferences and not general partner preferences. I tend to find older guys attractive? kinda kind dad energy? taller than me for sure. Wich is easy to achieve for normal humans with me in this body. I'm heccin short now. Or, specifically, be the actor for captian america, hes super hot. Even as the human torch he was hot. Also you could be my 9th grade science teacher who I had the biggest crush on, wich I feel safe admitting because he will never ever ever see this and my human identity is goooooone."

This is some nice safe and tame streamer chatting topics to talk about while playing. Though Andrea has to be extra careful to stay calm and not rage at these STUPID SNIPERS.

xXxFemboyFan69xXx: 💔

cryptic1881: defeated!

Big_Daddy: Dad energy, you say... 😉

SugarIsSweet: Ah, he's into bara!

The rest of the SS Exodus goes relatively smoothly, with the exception of a surprisingly tough sniper-guarded secret area that Andrea blunders into by accident. Beyond that, there are a couple of levels using crushy things as dangerous mobile platforms, a couple of levels involving dodging timed shots on relatively predictable trajectories, and then a finale level where you bounce between cannonballs across a wide gap.

Perhaps because Andrea is gradually getting better at this, and perhaps because these later levels are more platforming and less bullet hell, there's a shift towards more fun and less frustrating. Andrea makes it through with the loot after four tries, and winds up in the final area of the SS Exodus, where the prize is, apparently, a severed head?

The teleporter in the back leads back to the map screen, where Andrea is left with a free choice of where to go, across any of the previous areas they've visited so far.

“Dad energy! Not dad bod. Not that thats disqualifying but I’m not especially into it like a Bara thing.” The fact he knows what Bara is might be a little telling, but you can’t be terminally online for that long and not pick up some degenerate terms.

When he reaches the teleporter he gets all uncertain and cant decide where to go.
“Uhhhhhhh….. where do I go now? Can’t platforming games just be clearly linear instead of metroidvanias. I just want this to be ooooooooover. Let it eeeeennnnddddd. I’m no good at playing the exact same game this long unless its like Civ5 or some other strategy game. I don’t even have a meat brain anymore and I still be feeling adhd as hell. This sucks, someone tell me theres an ending soon, even a secret ending, as long as I hit credits it counts.” He whines to chat.

(And unintentionally giving off very bratty vibes)

Alex_Eta_2ndGen: Ending? Not yet... but your time here sure is coming to a middle!

cryptic1881: lol

SugarIsSweet: Haha, platformers have had nonlinear routes since ever.

waluigi7: super mario world was nonlinear, lol

LP_Outside_Any%_Glitchless: You could go back to the beginning for a couple things at this point... but unless you're up for secret-hunting, it's back to The Split to pick a new route.

Manager_chan: It's a good time for a break now, though; a package just arrived!

There is, indeed, a knock on the door.