Rating Curve

QuazeryIceCube is one of the most interesting creators in the scene right now, and one that understands the basics of the game very well, in the sense that he knows exactly when to use certain objects and when not to. He has cited Dorabae as his main inspiration, which doesn't surprise me: his style feels like a modern Dorabae who has learnt and perfected the new triggers and features that she hadn't experience in her creating career. Enough of an introduction, let's dive into the level.

Hollow starts off with an open robot section with very basic structuring: a bunch of 1x1 blocks scattered across the screen, with seemingly no pattern. This, however, makes for some really interesting memory gameplay that becomes more complex as the level progresses. The song keeps adding instrumentation slowly, and so does the level: first it's scrolling purple blocks that serve as a long platform, then it starts adding pulsing mini blocks, blue for random pulses and orange for the beat ones. Naturally, going through this part requires some learning, and I like that it has more than one path you can take: the whole idea of the gameplay is just "avoid the blocks", and you have to figure out whether it's best for you to go up or down.

The decoration in this part is pretty minimal and monochrome, but it has some hue changes, pulses and area tint triggers to spice it up. The background is just a simple checkboard, but it's hardly visible outside the blocks, while you can see the lines clearly inside of them, creating a pretty good illusion.

We move on to a ship part that doesn't change up much decoration wise. The colors turn blue and pink, as opposed to the main green in the first part, but it keeps the whole aesthetic that it was built earlier. This part introduces a new gameplay mechanic: toggling blocks. In sync to the song, the blue blocks disappear and are replaced by the pink ones, which have a completely different structure, and it loops itself that way. I find this part to be the blandest of the whole level, because it doesn't really live up to the whole potential of the song: there are some neat drums that could've been used for some pulsing, and there is also the instrumentation from the first part that doesn't play any role here. Despite this, it still builds up to the next section well, which introduces gameplay to the vocals.

I absolutely adore how they're used here: the ta-da-da-da bits are synced to the short robot jump sections, which remove the blue/pink aesthetic for a bit. I really like the small details in this, like the portals slightly floating around and the white stripes that light up as you go near them. My favorite thing, however, is the representation of the "It is hollow" vocals. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but I love the resemblance between the word "hollow" and the big walls you have to get through, because you need to find a "hollow" block to pass them.

The drop and final part comes out of nowhere, and it's definitely the highlight of the level. There are blocks and portals of every color scattered across this section, just as if the level had exploded and made that whole mess. This part is iconic mainly for its gameplay: there are so many ways to get through it and two people will not take the same route for it. I love open world parts, and this one is no exception.

The part is spiced up using quick pulses and a very neat background. It's made of rotating stars that follow each other's movement slowly, which is very reminscent of Wulzy's "Come Back To Earth". It definitely must've served as an inspiration. I like the squiggly rows of yellow parts too, they look neat. The level ends with two vertical bars closing up, giving the sense that you escapes just in time and through the right place.

Overall, a very neat level by Quaze and unfortunately still unrated in game. I absolutely adore his style and I think he deserves to hold the label of this generation's Dorabae.