Zany level with fairly unique memory gameplay and theming. Love the inspiration taken from Radiohead in designing the decorations and picking colors.

Kidsmoke does something really interesting that I have seen no other level do before, nor have I seen anyone talk about.

I remember first seeing this level on Viprin's channel 5 years ago. It is on the surface level a very goofy "horror" themed level - the art is very crudely shaped and the colours are very bold and in your face, almost like if it was a cartoon. I always kinda scoffed at the level because of this. However, something compelled me to come back to it a few years later and play it. The level just seems so... odd, in a way that made me want to play it again.

When I was playing the level in practice mode, trying to learn it, I noticed that I was playing the level differently to how I approached every single other level in the game. Usually you either look at the icon or at the space right in front of the icon - this is obvious, because these two strategies help you pay attention to the fine movements of the icon, or to the gameplay coming up so you can position the icon correctly. You don't usually think about this aspect of the playing process.

In Kidsmoke, each part is uniquely built in a way that encourages the player to approach it differently. There are two types of ways it achieves this - the first is with chokepoints. Kidsmoke's gameplay is generally very easy with a few difficult clicks here and there. This initially sounds like a problem, but this combined with the usually limited vision means you really anticipate the clicks in a way unlike I have ever experienced.

...This is hard to put into words, so I'll give examples - in the second ship, the chokepoint is the one block gap after the red orb. After about a thousand attempts at the level, I noticed that when playing that ship part I had my eyes glued to the specific part of the screen I had to manoeuvre my ship into - the place that is obscured by what I'll call "the horrible face thing". The same goes for the four hard clicks in the following ball part and the offscreen blue orb in the following cube part - they are incredibly easy sections with one incredibly chokeable point that is obscured by T3 overlays (or the bottom of the screen) - and so when I was playing those parts I felt my eyes flicking back and forth across the screen to wherever the next hard part was. This made playing the level feel so unbelievably unique, even though the gameplay is not that unconventional.

The second way it achieves this is with the "fading blocks" gimmick. This is seen in the iconic wave part, as well as the mini ship part. The gimmick here is that the real gameplay is shown and immediately fades out, replaced by fake gameplay. The idea is that you quickly assess the part, memorize where the real gameplay is and then ignore the fake gameplay. This, like with the chokepoints, required me to flash my eyes across the screen, encouraging a really unique style of play. I also found myself visually blurring out the fake gameplay, which created a really interesting effect:

I previously mentioned that I had scoffed at the level for looking so low quality. However, when actually playing the level, the fact that you are flashing your eyes across the screen makes you not pay attention to the art much. This is where the strength of Kidsmoke's visual design really steps in. Whilst its art is crude, its ideas are still there, and when you're blurring them out, it might as well be hyperrealism. With this realisation, the wave part looks really good, and the images of the monsters dancing in the darkness makes it one of my favourite parts in all of GD.

Kidsmoke is really one of those levels where you have to play it rather than watch it. I highly recommend you do a practice run of the level before giving judgement on the level, because it really shines in the actual playing experience. It is truly enough to turn a somewhat decent level into one of my favourite levels in the entire game.