The winner of the Space Gauntlet Contest, Abducted chooses to go in a completely different direction than most of the other entries, opting for a bright, fun artstyle and a comic book theme instead of the usual blurple realistic planet art that was omnipresent in this contest. Unfortunately, Abducted's reputation (especially on here and Twitter) is now inextricably shackled to the fact that it won the contest and its grand prize of $1K, doomed to forever be compared to the levels that didn't win. It's a little goofy, sure, and I understand why people mortally terrified of anything "cringe" may turn up their noses at a level that unashamedly has fun like this does. These were my thoughts as I saw this level for the first time on the results premiere.

Then, I played the level.

In Geometry Dash, the video game, not YouTube the video hosting platform.

Well, I don't know if "played" is the right word here. I guess I experienced this level. This level has basically no gameplay to speak of. Many of the parts are auto, or are so coddling in their design they may as well be. It seems antithetical to what Geometry Dash is as a game. Abducted doesn't have the balls to be a full-blown 1 star auto, or to have engaging gameplay where there are consequences for when you click and when you don't. It exists somewhere in the middle, where there are extended sections where you find out that you don't have to click at all, and like 3 random clicks that jump at you out of nowhere. There isn't much of an indication of when the auto starts and ends. Abducted is far from the only victim of this mind virus that seemingly affects anything easier than a 4-star, but it is a particularly nasty case.