Rubbish. Crap. Shit. Those are not words I would use to describe this entry, because right at first glance it's clear that what's at play here is love for the videogame genre, with a bit of perfection sprinkled on top.

It was once said that insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results. This piece manages to subvert common wisdom by presenting us with different parameters, and as such a different outlook in life, every time we try.

This turns out to be a valuable lesson. In modern culture we are only now coming to accept those truths, but what this allegory in the form of JavaScript code teaches us is that we not only have to accept failure, but we have to learn for it. For learning from our missteps is becoming better versions of ourselves. Like the phoenix that starts life anew, our unnamed little rodent protagonist lives to see another day - successfully, this time.

Why does he go on? We don't know. We don't know. But the message is simple: you can too. You have to go on. We all do. Thanks, little blue rodent.

Great graphics, great gameplay. Art and music are surprisingly good. Performance is great, much better than all other HTML entries I've seen (especially in Chrome). Looks like a perfectly finished game to me, great work for a compo. Go team redmars, can't wait to see what you guys come up with next!

If I could give you money to make this into a "real" game I would. Amazing.

Amazing game, music is so impressing. And with some help I realize that if you have gills, you will die without water :)

Great level design - the progression makes perfect sense. I like the idea of evolving by dying. Great graphics, too!

Just love this game!

Great take on the theme and of death in videogames. Makes the gameplay really interesting and both life and death are required to complete the level. Really impressed.

Great work, guys. Best game I've seen yet!

Main sprite is great!

Didn't quite get it, I think. Is it possible to complete the levels without dying...?

Nice game anyway! :)

Wow, very impressive for an HTML5 game. Great work on the assets (music, animation, pixel art). Great job on this one -

Very nicely done. High quality work for such short time. Only thing I ran into was sometimes my buttstomp wouldn't work. But I could have been doing something wrong.

@VAMflax: no, it is not possible to complete the levels without dying, that's the whole point :) I think it takes around 30-40 deaths minimum to beat all the levels. (I'm curious how low people can get...)

@RARoadkill: Do you mean the buttstomp wasn't breaking tiles? The tile collision in that case is a little buggy, I'll have to spend some more time on it.

Magnificent entry. You guys made a wonderful game.

Plenty of praise already, so here are some improvement suggestions:
* It's a bit puzzling how a death sometimes gives you a means of preventing the death (fall damage, drowning, turtles) and sometimes it just gives you the abilities of your killer (spikes, saws). A bit more consistency would be nice here.
* Colour-coding the "You can" and "You can't" messages would be good to help you see exactly what's been switched on and off.
* The game has a REALLY slow start. I feared that it was just going to be a game where you unlock double-jump once per level. It'd be great if you got to trigger 2 or more evolutions right off the first level.
* I laughed when I realised that the "You have gills" power prevents you from breathing air. But maybe it should be a bit more obvious (word it like "you have gills instead of lungs"), because for awhile there I thought it was a bug.
* Finally, I feel the name is a bit too naff, but that's just me.

This would make a great indie game if you continued working on it and made the screen filled with evolutions haha :P I like how the name parodies Dance Dance Revolution.

Really couldn't figure out level 3 with all the trees - am I supposed to jump to the platform the turtle falls off of?

@Ragzouken: (semi-spoiler) yes, you need double jump to finish that level. Check the high places :)

@L: Those are some good points, thanks. We thought of the color coding but didn't have time to implement it, and as for the death->ability mappings, we didn't just want to have you be immediately able to pass an obstacle after you die once to it. Consistency would have been good but we intentionally tried to go for elements that would make for good gameplay.

Here, take all my stars. All of them. Damn good job!

Great game indeed, I liked the musics that were retro and not annoying for a LD game, and the graphics consistency+it ran perfectly on my webbrowser.
A really great experience, and it feels like a complete game already. Only things I didn't like : first time I did a double jump but in the pit, so I didn't die, and couldn't figure a restart key, and I found the game a bit too slow-paced.

Really nice game! Awesome playng around evolution theme! Music and visuals look good too! Well Done!

Ah great to see another MelonJS game. Wonderful graphics & music!

Lovely!

I won with 45 deaths! The music is nice. My favorite part is the unexpected ways the abilities resemble the things that killed you.

Really great! Graphics, controls, sound, gameplay, all solid. Plus it plays to the theme well - I really like the mechanic of gaining abilities from your failings. Fantastic entry.

Critiquing this as if it were a full game, developed over months instead of a weekend (because, frankly it's hard to find fault with it given the time constraints): I think that the evolution concept is too repetitive. I know that I have to get hit to get the shield. I know that I have to fall to get double jump. The first couple times, cool, but it seems too repetitive.

Intro, start menu and music were my favorites! Very polished game. Nice job!

Brilliant game. Unexpected game mechanics, lots of varied maps, top-notch animation, good music -we have a winner here!

Can I have the soundtrack? :)

Wow, great concept, great music, great graphics. Great job, guys.

@fhoenig: Check the links up top, right next to the source.

Very good looking game. The fox is cute. The music is also good. The abilities you get are surprising as well. I'm in awe.

The concept is nice, levels are great, and there is even replay value. Really a great game.
I liked the sonic reference when the character is underwater for too long.
By the way thank you so much to put the soundtrack in DL, musics are beautiful.

What everyone else said. Great job.

Music is excellent, the powers are really fun. The level design could be a bit more interesting, I suppose, but I really enjoyed the game, nice work!!

The music is great and the art is really cute. I found it a bit boring to play, though. Most of the puzzles were easy to figure out, but tedious to execute since you have to kill yourself over and over to get the abilities you need.

Wow, this is an amazing amount of awesome in a short time.

Amazing sound. But I'm not really fan with having to die and do the same thing each time :-(

That was fantastic!

This was a really good game, very well polished and developed in all aspects. It's really an incredible amount of work for 72 hours.

My only criticism is that the level design seemed to lack a bit of creativity. Go here, get this ability, go there, get that ability, etc. Some more variation would be nice.

Also lol. One time I went to go get the bomb and the shield saved me from it. That was pretty funny :D

One of the most polished entries.