Hi everyone :)

My curiosity has stroked me again to ask you all another question : How do you judge impossible levels ?

Personally , things goes like what i said in a part of my Rampant Circles review , here's the part in question ( in italic ) :

when i review impossible levels , i juge the gameplay based on their originality , since i can't play these levels for obvious reasons . But what does that mean ? Basically if a level has very original gameplay it will have a high gameplay score but the less original it is the lower is the gameplay score , then the rest is done like any other levels .

So basically if a level is impossible because of orb and wave spam then it's 0/10 in gameplay , but if it pushes different gamemodes in many extreme ways then it's 10/10 in gameplay

The deco is done like any other levels and the difficulty defaults at 100

That was pretty long but at least now you know everything , what about you ?

You can judge how the gameplay looks (so stuff like the icon moves throughout the level or how the gameplay is laid out). But this isn’t exclusive to just impossible levels, this also applies to the set of possible levels as well. The main difference is that you have no experience completing the level so the mechanical or kinesthetic assessment of the gameplay doesn’t exist (at least for the level as a whole).

I generally treat them the same as any other level that I can't seriously play, but there are a couple points that come up particularly often when judging ILs for me, and are likewise considerations I have when building my own ILs:

1. Does this level use its difficulty well?

Obviously, this is/can be a consideration with any level. Easy gameplay to let the player take in the atmosphere, hard gameplay for intense music, balancing considerations, etc. However I think impossible levels are where use of difficulty is really allowed to shine. Once you've reached beyond the threshold of playability and can stop caring about how something feels to play, you can really go wild. There are a lot of great examples, but Thinking Space (although possible nowadays) packages a lot of what makes for good IL difficulty usage into one level.

2. Is this level fun in practice mode?

This is something that comes up a lot less often, and I'll pretty much never hate something simply for giving me an unfun practice run (you kinda have to be a masochist to enjoy them in the first place, especially to the degree I do), but every so often you'll come across a level that feels extra fun in practice, and it can really elevate something above and beyond, often into my favorite levels. Trial of the Gods (back when it wasn't broken. thanks rob. too lazy to fix though :P), Misanthrope, Exasperation, Through Two Hells (a lot of Akira and Thycket huh).