Take a main character who moves painfully slowly, add an environment with no significant obstacles or interactivity and what you've got on your hands is one hell of a boring game. It's like Knytt with all the fun removed. I've played more interesting things on the Atari 2600, or made with the original Klik n' Play.
Dear GOD why are these games popular? I like strategy games, but there's no strategy here. It's just boring - for this to have any chance of not boring me to death, you'd at least have to include a way to speed it up.
This is great. Anyway, I can't be the only one who took "Moon snail will eat you for lunch, turn back" as a challenge. I've come just short of beating him with 64% items... I wonder what the least you can win with would be?
You know, I've been on this website since the beginning, but I still don't understand it. How is a game as transparently flawed as this one so popular? Why does every comment pointing out its obvious, crippling flaws get voted down? Really, what does this paper-thin experience have to offer? Clicking "mana cave" over and over just to get in a position where you can get started? And the battles themselves are nearly devoid of strategy; you just do the same thing over and over. Again, I may never understand this website.
This is a impressively well-put together game, but the abhorrence of subjugating an entire country and getting them hooked on drugs in order to create a favorable "trade" makes me sick to my stomach. And then when some in China tried to do something about the drug that was destroying their population, the gunboats came...
I think I should clarify my last comment - the root of the problem is that the pixels are set up like a classic gaming reward/risk system, but you're actually punished for getting them, as the upgrades you get come nowhere close to having as much of an impact as the increased difficulty. Instead of being your reward, the pixels are more your enemy than the enemies.
The top comment is right - the best strategy is to not move, ignore the shiny pixels, and not play the game as intended. To me this says "poorly-thought out game".