the negative mentality that so many new gd creators have towards the creating process, their own work, and the reception they feel their work should get is probably the deepest-cutting and most widespread issue in the community, yet also one that’s notoriously difficult to talk about. it’s impossible to really pinpoint it on one particular cause or come up with a concrete solution, but geometry dash's overreliance on its creator point system to platform levels and determine a creator's worth is certainly an influence and can be really damaging to get caught up in for several reasons. as for the creator themselves, it's dangerously easy for rates to become the sole goal and motivation for creating, thus streamlining the process and depriving someone of any personal enjoyment they’d normally get out of creating and releasing their own levels. on the player side, this indirectly creates the result of people not meaningfully engaging with their levels because of them not really being meaningful in the first place, and consequently on a wider scale most players not being equipped to truly engage with levels that do have meaningful things to put forward due to lack of practice and lack of meaningful levels platformed in the community. there is no specific person or "side" at fault here, it's mostly just an unfortunate consequence of the game being structured the way it is and inadvertently creating this negative chain of influence that won't stop feeding into itself. it’s a nasty one to break out of but i think it’s necessary for the process of creating levels to be actually fulfilling regardless of reception.

over again tackles this mentality head on with one of the most interesting self-analyses i’ve seen in the game or anywhere else, through a portrayal of the mentality so convincing several of the top comments on the level are misinterpreting it as genuine. obviously it’s important for a project like this to distinguish itself from what it’s imitating (and the level certainly does do that with its overacting, which i saw as a flaw at first but now appreciate having finished it) but i think the level’s ability to nail the portrayal so accurately can only be attributed to the creator having dealt with something similar; this along with pahc’s decision to include his other levels in the puzzle makes the project deeply personal, and this is what i believe to be the source of the level’s strength. the image of the self-important, never satisfied creator is masterfully put together because of the sincerity in its presentation, as it’s not overly critical and doesn’t feel like it’s trying to create some larger narrative. it’s simply an honest look at the mind of someone stuck in this negative headspace, which is far more powerful as an essay project than something like whyme, which so frequently insists on its own importance as a message. there is one part in particular that really perfects the portrayal and that’s when the narrator’s dissatisfaction hits its peak at the very end of the level. after a good thirty minutes of attempts to get the player to “engage” with their work (a term that seems intentionally ambiguous, something the narrator continuously changes the definition of), the narrator decides to close with the most fitting end possible, simply refusing to allow the player to further interact with the level and giving them the rewards. the frustration is taken out on You, who the narrator believes is completely uncaring regardless of how much effort was actually put into figuring out the puzzle. this final exchange raises the question of just how self-inflicted these insecurities really are, and certainly makes it clear how misplaced the frustration is.

the most intriguing thing about this entire project to me is that despite the enormous effort put into this portrayal of a creator who is so passionate about how people engage with their levels, to the point of self-obsession, the level itself is incredibly easy to refuse to engage with. anyone who gets too frustrated at the idea of having to solve anything in order to beat it can just look up a tutorial and grab the codes within minutes. the 9 moons this level rewards, likely the main reason most players would even open it, can either be achieved by playing the level the right way or after 60 seconds of searching on youtube. not once does the level acknowledge this and there seems to be little in place to prevent it, and i think this, despite being completely unrelated to the level itself, is what pulls everything together; it is undeniable proof of growth. the once-toxic narrator in over again has grown and knows now that these projects are for the people who Will engage with them, that those who take the easy way out -- both in regards to this level and anything else -- weren't going to in the first place anyway. there will always be people who won’t approach your work in good faith, it’s an inevitability when you’re releasing art, especially art that’s so singular. there will always be people who know you for That One Thing and don’t bother to look into anything else, regardless of how you view your work. there will always be people that like the bad ones and ignore the ones you like more. your work comes to life exclusively for the people who will really, truly get something out of it in their own ways and that is okay. it’s even necessary. it's beautiful, really