[1][2] The poem is simultaneously played and read as it takes the form of a quirky, hand-drawn online platform game.
Rather than striving for a high score, the player is "moving, jumping, and falling through an excessive, disjointed, poetic atmosphere".
For instance, the level names are often long and subtitled, but disappear quickly, cheating the reader-player of the "slow reflectiveness that is both possible and encouraged in print-based poetry".
2, the editors introduce the work with this: "By usurping the well-known conventions of video game play, in this case, the run-and-leap paradigm familiar since Donkey Kong, Nelson has found a way to lure the user through his many levels of writing, drawings and old home movies with a simple but effective reward, increased survival.
[15] However, Maria Engberg and Jay David Bolter argue that the game "nevertheless strikes the player/reader as playful, rather than menacing or laden with corporate critique".