I think there's something to be said about games that wear their inspirations on their sleeves.

It's really easy to look at this adorable little game and say "this looks exactly like mario world (and mario 3 to a lesser extent) if it had a hamster instead of italian," which is straight up true, yeah. There's so many parallels that it's impossible to notice, all the way through the ending credits.

Of course, that's only the surface of this game. At its core, Pompom nails every unique aspect it has. The mechanics are fun and challenging, the variety is incredible, and the music is god-tier. Almost every mechanic is seamlessly displayed to the player at the start of a level, either by actually showing you without your intervention or by giving you an impossible situation that can only be solved with the new mechanic. One short tutorial at the very beginning of the game to show the base gameplay is all that's needed; the rest is conveyed perfectly. No level is too long, every world is cool and unique, and the difficulty level is just about perfect. It's difficult enough for a decent amount of trial-and-error in the later levels, not so difficult that I end up not wanting to play anymore.

All of that is to say, if you took Pompom and divided it into its base aspects (gameplay, graphics, sound, etc), you would be looking at a bunch of aspects that came from original ideas and passions, and a much smaller number of aspects that came from other media, i.e. Mario. Everyone's played at least one game that pretty obviously takes inspiration from another, and this is one of them. Is it an inherently bad thing? I don't think so, personally.

I think anyone can understand just how hard it is to have everything you need to make a good idea into something tangible. You have a piece of art you want to illustrate? Learn how to draw, understand perspective and proportions, get some drawing software or physical materials, and bring it all to fruition in an art style that satisfies your ambition. A short film you want to produce? Get some equipment, learn lighting and framing techniques, write a proper script, edit it, and put it out there where people can experience it. The point is, I think it's super easy to forget how many individual aspects make up a "thing."

So sometimes, you have (IDEA), and by god you want to make (IDEA) into [THING] for other people to experience. But your (IDEA) is just one aspect of the whole. Maybe you're not particularly concerned with the other aspects, as long as they can properly convey (IDEA) to whoever experiences it. Or maybe you have such a fondness for aspects from other stuff you've seen, and you want to borrow them for your [THING].

And it's hard, man. It's hard to be unique enough in every aspect of your creation to make something where people don't waggle a big, swollen, crooked finger at it and say "THATS JUST RIPPING OFF THIS" before experiencing the parts that really make it your own. This is all a very roundabout way of saying that I like to give creators a pass when it comes to stuff like this, especially when the final product they made is so engaging and interesting. If the Mario style is a crutch, then it's one I can appreciate.

Phenomenal game.