I'm going to add "holonomy" to my daily vocabulary.

Yeah the volume view is a bit too strict. Instead of being a top down projection of the track it's just strictly the current height level so most of the track is invisible. You're forced to use outline-only display, and the fact you can't zoom out except at the ball doesn't help.

@@cymno I completely agree that there are certain marked improvements that could be made, but as it stands, I really think it's a solid set of tools. It's just that on the more involved courses, you really have to use ALL of the tools, and start building up the map in your head, and not just relying on the tools to spit out the answer by themselves. I found on the later courses, it helped a lot to have the Volume Line as part of my internal understanding, switching back and forth between Volume Mode and Upright Mode... It got to the point where I could look at the ghosts and *see* where all the curves were meeting up without Volume Mode having to be on the screen at all times, and where I could predict what the upright view would wind up looking like before I left Volume Mode because of the Volume Line. Every single one of the tools you're given is necessary - Turn the ghosts on and off, make them more and less transparent, bounce back and forth between the various modes, rotate in all directions with every key, and watch how the transitions work - They're animated so well, even that detail is a huge help when you're still cramming all of this into your brain. The ONE thing I changed and never looked back on - The default compass was terrible, at least for me. I switched to the airplane style pretty fast, I couldn't read the normal one at all or get anything useful out of it. I wanted to know what direction I was currently looking in, what was to my left and right - I felt like the default compass straight up couldn't give me that information in a way I could parse. Again, I can't stress enough that I agree the tools are rudimentary and could be improved, but they are, in my opinion, sufficient. That comes with the large asterisk that the game is the size it is for a reason - It takes a while to REALLY wrap your head around it. It BECOMES intuitive, but it absolutely doesn't start out that way. You have to twist your brain into some rather creative knots, but the result is rather beautiful, I think. It was well worth the effort for me, personally.

In Climbing Over It I remembered that "down" was toward me. I thought of it like electric potential, though I guess I forgot to mention that. Yeah, I never looked at the up/down compass 😆