1:31 am as I write this... oops.

okay but seriously now, it should be illegal how goated all of these entries are. as of writing this, and I cannot stress this enough:

• Out of Place by djudjeito

• Alien Dream Emulator by kira9999

• Final Orbit by bli

• Redshift by arb

• Echo Delta by Serponge

• COSMIC CRUSH by Kazey

• MISSION ICARUS by Darwin

• Calamity by AbstractDark

• Hyperspace by James

all of the aforementioned levels dropped in a literal span of an hour, I'd assume. right before the form closed.

at this literal point, I just don't know who'd win at all because of so much utmost peak across the whole board. from Hideout by BrainETR to Starmalade by GOOBER194, to Abducted by vegtam, to Jova by Debihan, to Mission S by TwanDa- you get the idea.
I have little to no idea how the contest will go, but ranking 20 entries accurately including honorary mentions because they fell off short might be a challenge, considering that the special mentions are mostly legendary levels.

it was a... rather surreal experience to see all of these levels drop and find them in the recent tab of all places, feels like Christmas.

what do yall think?

finally peak 2.2 entries! Aperture was my favourite personally

genuinely surreal ngl. I wasn't there for them dropping all of a sudden but I watched a good few of them this morning and they're all amazing. Find it really interesting how most of them are XL too

if I had to choose aperture and hideout are my favorites but almost everything is so good and tbh anything could pass hideout atp (though hideout is still amazing I love how different it feels)

Don't forget Spacetime Continuum by Desticy

I think most of them fall victim to the exact same folly that only a few people in our society seem to have realized: space, in all fairness, is actually incredibly boring. Sure, there are a few neat objects in the universe, but all the stars, planets, nebulae, pulsars and black holes round to zero in the unfathomably vast expanses of literal nothing that blanket them. I actually made a level that pokes fun at this belief, but to put it in words: most of the Space Gauntlet submissions make a spectacle of space, treating it as a mere veneer for whatever glitzy sci-fi nonsense they can stuff in there. You also have levels like 'space i guess' that attempt to rectify the retinal, and most importantly, unrealistic nature of Space Gauntlet levels by throwing in some vapid, uninspired "philosophy", itself being none the wiser. 'Planispheres' by Flash is definitely the best level to come out of the contest, because it focuses more on the history of astronomy, which, for most of human history, consisted of just looking up at the sky and tracking what can be seen with the naked eye. That's real space, not the fabrications that all other space-themed levels unwittingly present, fueled by false color astrophotography and science fiction.

my favorite space gauntlet entry was vam by flaaroni but he forgot to submit it. aside from that i like out of place a lot