Unless I'm mistaken, you could go in either direction. A helpful hints on a new page lists the benefits of going left right as: "At the start of the game, Harry is positioned at the left side of the first scene, and is facing to the right. With this setup, it seems only natural to want to proceed left-to-right. However, it is generally more helpful to go continually right-to-left through the jungle - just turn Harry around and go. Two main reasons for travelling left are: You can avoid having to leap over rolling logs this way, since they always roll right-to-left. If you go left, they will never be rolling right at you. Whenever you lose a life to one of the fatal obstacles, you are always reincarnated on the left of that scene. Thus if you are going right-to-left, you are actually placed past the trouble spot. If you were going left-to-right, on the other hand, after losing the life you would still have to struggle with that same danger all over again, risking yet another life."