S3rios remarks in their review of Black Blizzard that Geometry Dash's core designs lack an atmosphere, existing "in a non-space, one without spirit or ambiance". This review is quite old at this point, yet ever since I read it, the core thesis that S3rios uses to justify their love for Black Blizzard as a subversion of a purported minimal space of pure platforming has been ceaselessly bouncing around in my mind. At first glance, it seems plainly incorrect: just look at the main levels, and compare them to Geometry Dash's predecessor, The Impossible Game. There's clearly an aesthetic to Geometry Dash, a unique visual style that gradually evolved over the updates before taking a nosedive into boorish imitations of already existing styles in 2.0. Before that, however, the game consisted of an odd, mechanical-looking environment; industrial, yet clean; clearly metallic in nature, yet completely incomparable to anything in real life.

This was, and to an extent, still is, my stance on the matter. Intuitively, it just seemed wrong to claim that Geometry Dash was a truly minimal space, because if that was the case, then it should have looked no different from The Impossible Game. Furthermore, there would be no need for different types of blocks, because they act the same regardless. What's making me waver from my previously resolute belief then? This level.

on a dark night uses the 1.0 blocks to create imagery of houses, streets, bridges, starry skies, utility poles and miscellaneous, organic structures. On the face of it, this seems to completely invalidate my argument. If the 1.0 objects do have a mechanical aesthetic, why can their likeness be morphed and manipulated to such a drastic extent, where the actual look of the blocks is utterly unimportant (this aspect is further exacerbated by the zoomed out camera present throughout most of the level) when compared with the larger structures they form? This level could have been made in the usual "art level" style, where objects are stacked on top of each other in such a way that they cease to be Geometry Dash objects, and become new assets entirely; for all that, the 1.0 objects serve largely the same purpose here, being the mere specks of paint that constitute a larger picture, the actual object.

In the end, I believe that on a dark night manages to reveal a dual purpose for 1.0 objects, and in general, any object that shares a similar visual style: they are the sum of their parts, a modular assemblage of rectangles that form geometric structures, the foundation of Geometry Dash's identity, but also vehicles of metaphor, semi-abstract representations with only a tenuous link to reality. The design style, which, I posit, also includes the 1.0 style, and therefore this level, embraces this ambiguity, creating structures that veer towards the moderately mechanical, while also being whatever else the observer might want them to be.