Super Puzzled Cat Nightmare Mode: Deadly Nightmare, Enlightenment

The final stretch of challenges the game offers. It's been a long and arduous journey, it's finally over... but not quite. It's not fully 100% per se, but it's pretty close. Close enough for me for the while.
The buzzsaws in Deadly nightmare may seem daunting at first, but you get used to their paths after a while. If it's particularly difficult, it's important to be consistent in your approach to them; there's loads of resting spots(may require intermittent jumping against a wall, but not anything too hard) before and after to make focusing on timing easier.
The jumping off of the disappearing blocks gives you enough time to time your double jump for about a whole cycle of the buzzsaw to cling on its ledge. There's an alternate way to pass the first teleporter part, which is probably the more intuitive one. For if clinging to one disappearing block per pass doesn't afford enough leeway and there won't be enough for the next.
I'm sacrificing the extra teleporter for speed. The level gives one more teleporter than necessary to complete everything about the level. It'd also make a certain part of it a funny twist. This is the only level that I recall where you can collect a certain something and also finish the level.
And no challenge ghost??? It's not even a reload-gimmick level.
I've edited out all the reloads in enlightenment. Very conveniently, reloads only restart to the current segment, so each backdrop is its own checkpoint (but leaving the level means restarting from the very beginning). Additionally, the segments with twins in them are even safer. If one dies, you live to reload with the other. Some segments straight up don't have dangers unless you're looking for trouble.
I feel like I played sloppily compared to my other unsuccessful attempts, but the most important part of playing nightmare mode is to not die.
Curious to what happens after touching all signs, but probably nothing special.
Ideally, a double jump before bumping into the springs to get the most vertical leeway to jump into the next. Falling before bumping means having to fall during the whole period of horizontal travel that you don't want to interrupt, which isn't good for verticality. It's possible to regain that height by immediately jumping into the same spring, but it's pretty risky with no practice. It's much safer to jump to kill your momentum and land safely below to try again. Just don't land in the water or spikes.
I struggle a bit at the end(claw) because it's my first time there. Slightly embarrassing for how simple it is. Actually the second time I arrived at the last room. The first time around, I noticed the decor and pattern and thought the rest of the segment had the rest of deadly nightmare as a prerequisite for skill practice, and went on to beat that one instead. Nope, that's the only shared pattern whoopsies.
The ninth room is evil, no rest to start with. Amazing charm. Took two deaths to get the spacing right (the first died immediately standing still too long).
I show at the very end my stats page and item shop unlocks.
Malice death count of 666, truly malice incarnate. For whatever reason, I've always read it as MAlice. MariAli.
The 134% yarn completion is bugged, confirmed and later patched by dev. The rest of the ending has been edited out.
I'm not one to bother super optimizing clear times, just enough attempts to beat the challenge ghost. Should still be decently fast total time stats. The final playtime and death count are definitely padded by me trying out dumb stuff. I'm pretty sure I have attained everything except for anything missing in the item shop. I have encountered three endings, 31/32 steam achievements (missing the fresh speedrun one). And my black yarn count is forever tarnished because something.
Edit: I have since gotten it all: four endings, 32/32 and every item in both shops (on separate save files for now).
Favorite level in the game has to be limbo.
It's the most open-ended puzzle that's simply presented, makes you consider what items can clear a room and what items can be brought from a room, how to manage inventory to transfer those items between the rooms effectively. When those aren't enough, you're brought to think more ways to clear rooms with items you haven't had previously and preserving different items from them, more efficient conservation of gauge items, anything to accumulate more resources. You also need to think ahead and theorize what item combinations can be your victory condition, and route out a way to collect any of those while respecting the inventory constraint. It's just very satisfying overall.
Recorded on Jan 19, 2025.
0:00 Deadly Nightmare
0:53 Enlightenment I
1:15 Enlightenment II
1:33 Enlightenment III
1:42 Enlightenment IV
1:58 Enlightenment V
2:11 Enlightenment VI
2:34 Enlightenment VII
2:50 Enlightenment VIII
3:08 Enlightenment IX
3:28 Enlightenment X
4:22 Stats, Shop, completion progress