"Pyke & Zook" indie game playthrough

Head's up for full-screen flashing whenever enemies are defeated.
A game by Nicholas "AerowingGames" Wolfe, released August 2008. Download it here: www.yygarchive...
A quirky little keyboard and mouse-controlled 2D platformer, ostensibly using puzzle-solving as the source of its challenge. Pyke can run, jump, and pick up keys, but otherwise relies on the spirit "gaurdian" Zook to blast away enemies and otherwise interact with the environment: triggering switches, activating traps, or blowing him into the air with a gust of wind.
Unfortunately, clarity is not its strong suit. The graphics are all-original and extremely hard to make out, between deducing terrain from backgrounds, or even what's relevant or tangible. The levels are often huge, rife in texture or detail that reacts to Zook's Force mode, but has absolutely no bearing on anything. When you're squinting to make out anything or figure out what you can even do, having distractions doesn't help...!
Zook will instantly warp to wherever you click on-screen, but is slower to catch up if you click and hold the button; this is a nuisance when trying to swat enemies, though combat is kind of an unnecessary inclusion, to be honest. The first boss is easily the most bothersome, if just because Zook can't hover over it to drain its health as easily as the others -- that and dying will reset the entire fight, unlike the final boss, where falling down a pit actually respawns the health pickup!
My biggest hurdles were any time I had to interact with the ice totems; you have to click it to spawn snowflakes, and then click the snowflakes to launch them at their appropriate block. Just holding the mouse button for both interactions doesn't seem to work, and I had to review my footage to figure out how I even solved it...!
Still, it's a quirky little game with interesting ideas, and feels in-line with contemporary WiiWare releases like LostWinds or NyxQuest, mixing traditional 2D platforming with pointer commands. The lack of save or password functionality is a bit of a nuisance, even if there's no risk of a game over, but it's nice seeing efforts to make a platformer with more ways of engaging with its worlds.