I think this will forever be the best level I've worked on and it's somewhat frustrating considering the reception.

It should be noted right on the start that working on this was hell. Not immediately, but once the reality of how much needs to be done in how little time set in, all the fun evaporated, to be replaced with long grindy sessions of putting this thig together, upwards of 8h a day sometimes. Obviously burnout set in quick, I think more so for me than durian (which shows in the parts around the middle a bit). Was it worth it? Hard to say. I do think this turned out amazing, but at the same time as it was entry for the NCS Gauntlet concept, how can I not be disappointed, we all know how it went. Not to be tooting my own horn, but I think it easily deserved at least a top 20 placement, but oh well.

Anyway, gameplay. It suffered a bit due to difficulty requirements and the whole idea behind the level. We kinda agreed with durian that we cannot outdo the top creators on sheer technical skill and execution, but we can on ideas, creativity, uniqueness. This unfortunately met harsh reality during playtesting and to make it fit the rules it had to be plastered all over with click indicators and a lot of idiot-proofing (there are multiple parts that have played inputs disabled in-between clicks). End result is, I think, still great gameplay that's extremely satisfying, but not what it could've been. Still, for the difficulty, it's crazy how many gimmicks managed to fit in, especially the multipath part.

Visually, this is sort of a continuation of Jumper Copy in a way, it's a similar tile-based approach to creating, just pushed a lot further. In general ideas pushed to the logical extreme is sort of a theme here. I do think durian's parts are the better ones here, I think mine aren't too far off either and working sequentially on the parts (passing the level once a part was done) made it more cohesive and better than if it was done in parallel, especially since a lot of parts reuse assets from other ones, most notably the last one, being a glitchy amalgamation of all the other parts. Again, the effort here went not into outdoing the other creators participating creatively, hence if you look at it, most of the designs and effects aren't anything crazy, all the energy went into, well, the energy of the level. Colours, movements (there's like 2500+ groups used in the level and 100s of gradient triggers), effects, in general making the level as alive and dynamic as possible. I do think it's a huge success on that front. Is it perfect, no, absolutely not, there's a bunch of parts that could've been better, notably the multipath wave has so uhhhh questionable design work, as does my part before it (last ones before multipath ball). Considering the time limit however, I think it's as good as it was ever going to be. In fact, it is better than I would've thought was possible.

In the end, I would consider this level an incredible success on every front besides the contest it was entered in, which admittedly sours things a lot. It is also very likely the last this high effort project I was involved in in this game. All the burnout, frustration and just, it doesn't feel worth it for what you get in return. Maybe that's self-centered, but frankly I don't care. I just hope this doesn't fall into obscurity with time