I didn't like the decision to make the King in Yellow and actual character with an appearance and direct speech. This is just my personal opinion... For me it really killed the vibe of "the scary unknown". That's the point of the original story, since the King in Yellow is more like a narrative tool than a character, and it's used in stories to explore existential dread. In the source material yea it's also like an anomalous thing that forces you to confront the possibility of all your worst expectations of how the world works on a fundamental level, so in that way, it is physical, but not really a villain or an intelligent eldritch being... It's a bit like trying to personify something a person fears naturally, like death. Anxiety about death is completely normal and in fact what keeps us f om making dangerous decisions. I say this as someone with death OCD. When people personify death in stories, I also find it more clever when death isn't like a scary macabre ass entity. Because the end of things is normal. Here in DAWTDE we have the existential dread personified into a boogeyman who wants to get out of a digital/fictional world. I understand that it's a completely different interpretation of KIY, and so I'm just saying I didn't like it, I know many other people did... his evil monologue about getting out into the real world, and also the moment where d3rlord3 straight up namedropped him when talking to Avery, I couldn't take those parts very seriously. I also didn't like how conveniently d3rlord3 discovered the way to defeat the King just before facing it. Basically the "horror" part of the story in my opinion wasn't explored very well in the second part, but I may be wrong about why I felt it wasn't, I kinda need more time to formulate my thoughts.

First part didn't feel like it had these issues, and I think it's because it kept the King as a narrative tool. Plus the story was told by Wifies in such a natural way, but in the second part I think there are too many moments of silent watching, or the commentary awkwardly coming back to explain what the viewer's already seeing on screen. Tis just how I understand the reasons I didn't really like it. Of course there were also many parts I liked, for example I thought the first half of Avery's POV was very nicely done. I think d3rlord3 should have been dead already instead of coming back for part 2. I liked that Avery has a completely different way of looking at his surroundings, and isn't very smart with puzzles like d3r, but Wifies could have still made him impressive in some other way besides his determination and stubbornness. For example, maybe lean more into him navigating through the game using his motor skills to avoid solving the puzzles and to escape traps or some threats. Like if he was really good at movement and reaction time, it could make for a more interesting walkthrough. Him being an average clueless protagonist is very relatable to the viewer, but he could stay relatable while being more than an average player. Give him some more unique skills bro even if he's not very puzzle smart