Junior Member · she/her
Holy SHIT what did I just beat.
LILITH057a is possibly one of the most insane levels I’ve ever seen and beaten in this game. Ever. This level is completely incomprehensible at times, where the entire screen is obscured in rainbow colored text. The gimmick of this level is that almost all the decoration in this entire level is just a font. That’s it. It’s just a font used as decoration, and I fucking LOVE IT.
The drop on this level is genuinely cathartic to me and I had so much fun beating this. It felt like a puzzle figuring out all the gameplay and it was just so insane that I loved every second of it. Unfortunately it was very laggy so I had to get the LDM, but surprisingly it didn’t retract from the feeling at all. This level is exactly what I imagine when I hear a FREE.99 song, just complete fucking chaos, but such organized chaos that you still know where to go. I don’t know what it is about this level that’s so appealing to me, but I love it so much.
There’s a couple people in the comments talking about the gameplay and how it’s essentially unplayable, but I had basically no issues with it. It just took a bit of time to learn where some of the orbs and structures were, and the rest was relatively simple! It took me about 40 attempts and I had so much fun on every single one of those attempts :D
I don’t think this could get rated though, solely because of how laggy full detail is and it feels a bit too insane for a rate. However, that doesn’t change that this is now up there in my favorite unrated levels of all time. I’ve been LOOKING for a level like this and I’m so excited to replay this over and over again.
An experience that takes you through the mind of the creator and crushes you to your very core.
I would be hesitant to call high expectations a level, as it seems to go against every idea of being one. There is no winning in this level, you will always die no matter what you try. No matter how hard you try and escape, the walls will always close in onto you and crush you. The world will always go against you and never succumb to your wishes, that’s what this level portrays itself to you as. A level with no winning. A life with no end goal.
I think that’s what PAHC was thinking when they made high expectations. It’s not a level meant to be played, it’s a showcase of the inner workings of their mind. A dark, raging chasm of expectations that crush you no matter what. There’s no way to escape these expectations, there’s no way to suddenly find a way out that wasn’t already there, there’s no way to complete this.
Except death.
high expectations showcases PAHC’s mind at this point. Their most popular level SAVE AS had been released a year ago, and was still their most popular by far. Every new level they released always came with some people disappointed that it wasn’t the next SAVE AS. There’s no way that wouldn’t weigh on somebody’s mind, every level they released that they put effort into, always came with that same couple of people disappointed it wasn’t the masterpiece they had all hoped for.
That’s what this level represents, a constant surge of expectations, crushing this creator from the outside no matter what they tried to make. It signifies the lowest portion of their life, a time where perhaps all they could see as an escape from these expectations, is death. A silent end to the ravaging red around them. If these expectations will crush them to their death in the future, what’s the purpose of living through this hell just to see it happen?
A death in this level makes the level go silent, everything stops moving. It doesn’t matter where you die, whether you jump and hit the walls before they crush you, or sit there as it inevitably crushes you to death on its own. It’s a trap where you’re the victim, with no possible way of winning.
high expectations is haunting. It is an experience which shows a creator breaking from all the expectations surrounding them, putting you in their place as the walls crush you to death as it is to them. It is a showcase of everything difficult PAHC was going through at this point in time, and should be treated as such.
I’m glad they’re still here with us. They are an amazing creator and I’m glad they were able to move past this as an individual. This level serves as a reminder of how overbearing life can get, and is a showcase that even when you’re falling into the darkest pits of your mind, there will always be a way out to the surface.
I would give no rating if I could, but since I'm forced I'll give it an 8 for the visuals.
Knot by Santiachu is a level I first became aware of due to my friend @abso beating it. She beat it on mobile and I needed to edit the video for her, and little did I realize how much I would LOVE this simple little memory level. Knot is about a minute long and is relatively simple in retrospect, in both gameplay and decoration.
The first thing you might notice when watching Knot is the structuring. This level has the very unique idea of repeating structures. This might not sound very interesting, but EVERYTHING repeats in this level. This level consists of the same structure, orbs and all repeating over and over again, but every structure requires you to do something different to get around it. It's a super interesting take on memory gameplay which I absolutely adore.
The gameplay isn't the only interesting part about Knot, the other part I love with all my heart is the colors. There are four total parts in Knot, and every single one has its own color associated with it. The first green, then blue, then purple, then pink. Despite only being one color, the pulsing does a great job at spicing up the part with all sorts of shades of it. The backgrounds are all different opacities as well, which give a shiny sense to them. The backgrounds are also super interesting. They consist of a giant area of fake spikes which all move in different ways. Up and down in the first part, moving very abruptly like a factory almost. Both horizontally and vertically in the second part to create this super cool overlay in the background which almost feels hypnotic at times. Completely still in the third part, where a very cool shine effect glosses over it as low opacity pinwheels shine on the sides. Finally, the last part consists of these rotating blocks. As you can see, it's all very simple. But simplicity is what Knot does best.
My favorite part of this level is probably the second part. The extremely pretty shade of blue works wonders with the vertically moving orbs, and really just stays in your head after a while. Knot is an extremely unique level both decoration and gameplay wise and I absolutely plan to beat it one day. However, there's one more thing Knot does best.
Intimidation.
The contrast between the extremely memory based gameplay and the very upbeat and bright visuals is something that ABSOLUTELY sticks in someone's head. A lot of the gameplay being moving, invisible at times, changing every second, it creates a sense of dread as to how somebody could possibly learn it. However, when you do, it is extremely satisfying. It plays like a movie almost when you're able to execute every little input needed in this level, and is just a joy on the eyes and the mind.
dropdead by Quitora is the first ever "gimmick" layout I saw, and that's probably a common sentiment for many others. About six years ago, Mulpan posted a video showcasing dropdead, and that's where many people learned about these types of levels. Including me! I absolutely LOVE this level with all my heart, it introduced me to one of my favorite music artists (Frums) and just has an insane amount of rewatchability.
Up until I first watched this video, I never really knew about the layout scene. I had seen Sh4rky's Overtime layout and that's about it, so imagine how absolutely shocked I was watching THIS for the first time. dropdead is a layout to the song of the same name, and showcases many gimmicks involving the wave and different speeds.
One very cool thing about this layout, is that you are never at the normal speed. You're never at one of the in-game speeds I should say, you're always either slower than 0.5x speed or faster than 4x speed. It's incredibly fitting for the song and makes for some incredibly unique gameplay for the time. I remember watching the first part for the first time and instantly opening GD on my iPad to try and make slow gameplay like that for myself, of course failing instantly and going back to the video. However, it always stuck with me in the end. This level uses speed to its advantage though, staying slow in all the slow parts, and going EXTREMELY FAST during the fast parts. That might feel obvious, but the way dropdead does it feels just right and I think Quitora got everything down perfectly. The fast parts feel almost humanly impossible on first watch and feels like you're traveling at mach 10. (Just like the song!)
While the varying speed is very cool, the main gimmick of the level involves these fake waves. At multiple points there will be fake built in waves to the level to aid the gameplay or visuals. The first time you might notice this is about 30 seconds in, when two mini waves fly across the screen and create a little corridor for your mini cube to go through. It's incredibly smooth especially for a level from SIX YEARS AGO. The other wave gimmick is a very cool spider-esque wave, where you hold to teleport up onto a platform and let go to transfer to a bottom platform. It makes these very interesting looking square wave, and I'm pretty sure it was inspired by the arcs in Arcaea.
The level ends with a final dash orb where you go through the entire level backwards at incredible speeds and turn into 5 mini waves. This part looks INSANELY cool for early 2.1 and I remember watching it and having my jaw DROP at how something like this could be possible. Obviously, with new abilities in 2.2 and even a lot more knowhow in the editor in 2.1, something like this might be very easy to create. However, back during this time, layouts like this were essentially unheard of in the mainstream. It definitely inspired a lot more gimmick layouts like it and I'm very happy that it did that. :)
Death.
Death is something that everyone, every living thing will one day experience. Some are taught to fear it, some are taught to accept it, some see it as a gateway to another world, but death will hit us all the same time. It's an unknown that nobody can be prepared for. Life, is the exact opposite of it. A time where someone is alive and can experience anything, a place with feelings, thoughts, expressions, and actions that make use of their life.
Death by AleeXhey and Zeptrus doesn't feel like death. It doesn't feel like the end of a life, on the contrary, it feels like life itself. Death feels like a celebration for what life is, a place of emotions, feelings, everything that makes someone alive. From its 9 minute runtime, it goes through what I would call a life. It starts off slow and slowly builds up, eventually hitting its peak, full of colors and expression, everything is spinning, the world is rotating, its bright and colorful compared to every other part before it. It's a complete contrast to the dark and single colored parts from before, while they became bright at times, they never became as bright as here. It continues growing, and growing, more colors, more spinning, the world gets faster, everything starts to flash...
Until it all cuts to black.
It starts again, the dark, single colors. They're back, a soft piano fills the void as you traverse a slowly pulsing world. All the way to the end. This doesn't seem like life, a world where it starts gloomy, becomes bright and happy, and ends gloomy? That doesn't seem right at all, why would I be happy in the middle of my life?
I think it represents the mind during Death. Death is a horrible thing to happen to anyone, and it will affect everyone around them. I said before that I felt like Death doesn't feel like death, or the end of a life, I think it feels like life itself. I think it represents the celebration of life after a death has happened. Death represents all the memories, it always starts out sad, thinking about what once was and why it suddenly stopped. The memories are still happy, but you can't help but feel like they've all been darkened. However, you can't help but admit that it calms you down. Thinking about past memories with that person, remembering all the happy memories that you took for granted. It calms you in a way, you start to tear up, you wish it could have stayed forever.
But it can't. It never will. Everyone must accept that, and I think that's what Death is about. The acceptance of death during a life. It represents memories, tainted by the present, but slowly building up as you begin to accept what has occurred. The world starts to glow brighter and you remember the world as they were, and you look back with a smile. You still wish it hadn't of happened, some taintedness will always slip through the cracks, but you can live. You can survive. You can live to protect everyone else, and yourself. You can live with Death.
Even if there are times when you think you can't do something, when you feel like everything is hopeless. Remember these memories, remember how they made you feel, and enter a world that you can truly feel alive through. Even through Death.
Eventually these happy memories might fade, you might fight for them, fight for them to stay, but memories won't always stay. There's so many memories to have for such a little space in your mind. Write them down, give them a place to stay for your brain to always have a spot for them. Life might get gloomy after these points, after the happy memories fade, there will be gloom that will overrun you. What will happen to me when death hits? Will I never be able to feel these happy memories again? Can I never look back on this world and help the people I love most at their most vulnerable?
...
What if that's what they're doing for you right now?
Beware!
Cuidado!
Factory by Saturos182 is a level that has become very renowned in many ways, mostly due to it's difficulty rating. Factory is currently rated as 6 stars when it should most likely be demon due to it's very 2.0 styled gameplay which is full of moving objects and overall unsightreadable gameplay, in combination with its very strict timings.
While this level is very hated on for its misrating, I think this level is fucking AWESOME. The vibes this level gives off are absolutely unseen in other levels and gives off such a raw atmosphere that other levels don't. The level, obviously, takes place in a factory, and involves you entering and escaping from said factory. You must dodge all the moving buzzsaws, jump across unstable platforms, move across conveyers, jump over acid pits, it has everything you want in a factory.
This level has AURA if nothing else. While the decoration for its time isn't the best per se, I think this absolutely deserved a feature solely for its creative ideas. It feels like an actual platformer level from a real platforming game, where you go through different rooms of a factory and jump across pits using hung up platforms from the ceiling! There's so many little details in this level that I absolutely love, such as the hanging robots, the laboratory filled with monsters that the scientist has created surrounded by flasks of unknown liquids, I especially love the staircase tunnels that you go through to get to higher areas!
The last quarter of this level is an absolute joy to me, because while you've been relatively slow throughout the entire level, you now suddenly speed up after you accidentally triggered an alarm and now must escape as fast as possible. Traversing through high and low across platforms, avoiding saws, avoiding acid pits filled with monsters most likely created from the laboratory before, pits of fire with said monsters, all before you finally escape into the snowy mountains, away from the hells that surrounded you in that factory.
However, my favorite part by far about this level and series as a whole is the LORE. There's actual lore to this yes. I don't know too much about it so I won't go into detail as I don't want to give any misinformation, but this factory was apparently the last robot factory made by the late Isaac Wayne. Wayne was a genius engineer who sadly passed in 1910 shortly after finishing his factory, however, the common belief is that he is still alive, somewhere.
In another level known as Factory Secrets, we get more information on this supposed Wayne. It seems that Wayne has been working with an army of some kind, and has some kind of enemies that he was looking out for. Another weird thing noticed in one of the factory rooms is that he has a room... dedicated to himself? Not just an office, but a room to study him. Isaac Wayne. This is a very odd room to have, a room to study yourself in your own factory? Wayne was a genius after all, he might have just wanted to understand how his own mind works, how the brain works in general, too many unknowns to give a concrete answer.
That's about all I can say with sincerity as I'm not exactly sure of the rest, but I absolutely LOVE when creators give lore with their levels. It shows how much effort the creator put into it and it really shows here. Even if the gameplay is too hard for a 6 star, I think the theming and creativity of this alone should've at least given it it a feature. I love this level and I genuinely hope more people can learn about it :)
Shaped by Elnoobiexd is a level themed around the ADOFAI chart for the song Options by Frums. It's a relatively simple level where most of the blocks are black and white and different effects fill the background. It's a pretty cool level! However, I do feel it takes too much from the chart video at times and the gameplay can be very off the mark.
Shaped does very well to create an atmosphere, the constantly moving backgrounds and obstacles, the occasional moving windows, the very free form UFO and ship gameplay, the level does a lot well! My personal favorite part of the level is the very first opening sequence, which involves you sitting there as these black glow lines slowly enter onto the screen to create a checkerboard pattern. It's super cool and FULLY brought me into the level when I first played it.
The moving circle background seen in the first part and later in the second half is very well adapted from the chart video, it's super well made and I feel it fits very well with the level since it's supposed to be inspired from it! There's also the background in the middle which consists of these moving squares with this wavy shader over it, it's supposed to represent the application windows from the charts but instead they just became squares. I'm not sure if this is the creator trying to make it something original or they just weren't sure how to do it. Either way, I like it a lot :)
However, I do feel a lot more could be done with these backgrounds, the chart video for example has these really cool stretched out rotating + signs. Obviously, I don't think it should be taken exactly from the video, but I think some more could be done with the backgrounds to keep the attention of the player, maybe a couple more shaders to make each background have some variety!
One detail I really like is the usage of rainbow blocks from 60% onwards throughout the level, this is completely unseen in both the chart video and the original MV and I think it fits super well with the aesthetic of the level and the song! They're very slow moving and I just think that they fit very well.
Unfortunately, this level's gameplay drags my rating on this level down a ton. It feels very unplaytested at points and contains lots of very odd gameplay choices. While I personally have always loved unique and different gameplay, even if other people would consider it "bad", I think this level just needs another run through. The duals in particular stand out to me, they contain very odd and weird setups at times, like orbs forcing you to microclick and becoming very inconsistent, or the Hexagon Force-esque ship dual which seems to barely function. The duals also just feel very unbalanced from the rest of the gameplay, with every other part seeming like 6 stars at most while these are very learny and require a practice run.
All the other gameplay parts I'm fine with for the most part though! There's one part in the middle where there's a black glow covering up the side of the screen which DOES make it hard to play at times because of the rotated camera, but it can be dealt with. I think either swapping the glow on that side to the other side or shortening how much it affects your view can be very helpful.
Other than that, I love the atmosphere this level gives off and I feel with a bit more originality and a couple tweaks to both balancing and playability, this level could be a really cool experience that I would see myself coming back to! :D
(TW: I will be going into some very sensitive topics in this review. Please be cautious if you are sensitive to anything regarding SH and/or suicide.)
I first learned about Bridget a couple years ago when I saw someone on Twitter complaining about one of her levels. I can’t recall which level exactly, but I remember watching it and being very confused. I’ve never been one for negativity exactly, I like to see the light in levels like this and see what makes them so “bad”. When I first saw this level, I instantly fell in love with the style. It was a very simple level, nothing too special, but it was one of those creations where you could just tell that the creator had a lot of fun making the level.
I decided to look at her profile and saw that almost all of her levels were like this, little worlds she crafted from her mind. They were always super fun, super entertaining, like a little adventure you could explore! I loved her way of creating so much that I actually beat every single one of her levels at one point, and I wish I could relive that experience again. Every level felt like a little snippet of a dream, or whatever was going on in her head, and it was an extremely fulfilling experience.
When this was all going on, I also realized she was on Twitter! I followed her and eventually she followed me back, which I was extremely excited about, mostly because my account wasn’t as big at the time. We interacted a couple times in Twitter messages and replies and she was always extremely nice, complimenting my level opinions, showing me new levels, and overall just had a really positive aura which I always strived to have.
During this time, I was also extremely confused about my gender identity and how I really felt about myself. Living in Texas, my family obviously isn’t the most supportive with stuff like this, so I always felt kind of awkward thinking like this. Eventually, I came out as trans on my Twitter, which made me feel really happy. I actually remember her commenting on my coming out post and making me tear up LOL, she was extremely supportive and reminded me that I should be who I want to be and not what other people want to be.
Her levels were also extremely inspirational to me during this time, showing me that levels could be whatever you wanted. Sadly, I never was able to release any levels during this time due to my perfectionist attitude regarding my levels, but she was always my main inspiration when I was building. Just to have fun and try new things!
…
Here’s some context for why I’m reviewing this level in particular. This is where the warning will come into play, it’ll all make sense at the end.
About 2 years ago, I was having an extremely tough time in life. My parents had found my Twitter account and saw that I was portraying myself as trans. They had a meltdown and took everything away until I stopped getting “brainwashed” by the left. It was very hard to deal with, they told me many things that I wish I hadn't heard, and made me feel very little about myself. They forced me to deactivate every social media account I had and told me to message anyone that I told I was trans that “I was going through a phase and I don’t feel like that anymore.” I had to send this to everyone, including my IRL friends who didn’t KNOW I was trans, simply because they thought I had told them as well and they didn’t believe me. This essentially isolated me from my friend group at the time, and I wasn’t able to connect online since I had no access to that anymore.
My mind eventually came to the conclusion that this was my fault, and that it was my fault in the first place that everything ended up like this. So, I decided to punish myself. I won’t go into more detail regarding this as you can most likely imagine what started happening. This went on for a couple of months, until my parents unfortunately found out. This caused another meltdown and some shit happened which I will not repeat. This, unfortunately, caused me to spiral further at this point. I luckily had access to the internet during this point in time (I had found a way to sneak it and convince my parents), but that didn’t really help the big picture at this rate.
At this point, I had planned to kill myself. My father always had a gun locked away in the safe of his room that he had told me the password to in case of an intruder. I had decided that some night in the far future, I would use that to take my own life. It felt freeing, in a way. A way out. Some place I could go if things had gotten too hard. I started to feel better about life, knowing I had a way out. I decided to open GD and scroll through the awarded tab, wanting to see what levels were out. I saw a new level named “Tree World” by Bridget, it was an auto level and I wanted to see what it was like since it had been a bit since I had played a Bridget level. It was very simple in retrospect. Just a level showcasing a bunch of different styled trees with varying effects appearing in the background, changing every once in while over an empty background. Ending off with a tree by a bunch of extremely cool creators, all in different styles.
I don’t know what it was about this level, but for some reason when I played this, I burst out crying. I’m still not exactly sure why to this day, but I think I was just very emotionally sensitive at the time and this level hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized how much art meant to me, how much my friends meant to me, how much this simple game meant to me, they might have been stupid reasons, but they worked. I took a few deep breaths and planned the future with myself. I tried to plan every day from then on, avoiding any lectures and letting myself breathe online when needed. It’s definitely very hard getting yourself out of a rut like that, but I knew I had to. I had to keep living in spite of my parents, in spite of everyone who hated people like me for simply being who I wanted. Bridget went through tons of difficult times, much more than me, and she always came out positively despite constant backlash from everyone.
Flash forward to today, and I am living to my fullest. I never did end up taking my own life, and thank god for that. I’ve met so many incredible people, I’ve had so much fun playing and talking with people, I present myself as who I want to be and I’m happy about it. However, the news that hit today absolutely broke me. Bridget was an incredible creator and person and was one of main inspirations in almost everything. I am absolutely heartbroken and I hope all of her loved ones are doing well after the news. Bridget was an inspiration to many creators, including me, and her impact on this community will never be unrecognized. In a way, she genuinely saved my life, albeit unintentionally.
Fly High Bridget 🕊️
I said before in a previous review that cement by heatherhayes is what essentially radicalized me to the "left-wing" side of this game. I realized tha abstract gameplay and decoration could actually be super interesting, and something doesn't have to fit to standards to be good in someone's eyes. However I feel I slightly overexaggerated that level's impact in that review. cement definitely showed me to look further into levels like this, but I still hadn't seen any that especially stuck out to me at the time.
One day, about 3 years ago give or take, I was browsing Twitter because I was bored. However, something caught my eye. It was a very controversial tweet talking about a level named Raw picture and how cool it was. The replies were a mixed bag talking about how "How is this rated" and "This is the coolest thing ever wtf". This instantly interested me, and I decided to open Geometry Dash and play it for myself. It was by a creator I had never heard of before, twigxcabaret. It was 6 stars and was only star rated, it used a Cacola song, and the comments seemed to be about as mixed as the tweet's replies. I shrugged it off and decided to play the level. What I didn't expect, is that by the end of this level I would be tearing up and my view on creating genuinely forever changed.
Raw picture is a 3 minute long experience that takes your mind places you could've never expected. It feels like a nice, relaxing dream, a place where you can sit back and reminisce on past memories. A place of wonder, a place to be yourself, a place with no judgment. A place of free will.
Nothing in this level feels set in stone, in fact it feels all over the place in almost every part. Nothing feels cohesive, first you're in a free fly maze and now you're in a ship part with lasers spinning at the speed of light? There doesn't seem to be a theme for this level at first, it just looks like object spam and strange ideas all slapped together just because. However, I feel it is so much more than that. Raw picture wants you to hold on to your memories, hold on to the good parts of life, hold on to everyone close to you. Look back on those past times, even if it feels like life is falling apart, even if it feels like nothing makes sense, even if it feels like the world is breaking down with you inside it. Hold on. Hold on to what you have. Live through your memories, live how you want to live, create new memories that you can look back on in the future. You have free will in this world, when life gets hard, just keep holding on.
Now, the level itself. The first 1:12 of the level takes place as an entry point. It takes you from a simple and well put together world, to a place where everything feels disconnected. It feels like entering your mind, a place with no cohesion, all your thoughts scattered around in a place out of reach. You must navigate through these thoughts, make your way into the deep parts of your mind and remember what you're here. The colors in this beginning section are extremely pretty, cycling through what seems to be a rainbow very slowly. The way they're used makes it feel like you're being engrossed in the level, literally surrounding you at points. The structuring being extremely barebones and completely disconnected at points, at some points you might not even be sure where to go. However, it continues to build despite that. Going from simple spike jumps with objects flying above you at varying speeds, to structures that build on themselves, from blocks, to lines, to slopes, it gets more convoluted as you enter deeper into the level. The decoration follows a similar idea, starting out as colored layout blocks with glow to make them pop, as more clouds, spikes, saws, portals, structures turn to buildings, objects spread across the editor as if a kid wanted to have his part in this area, drawn out wind flashes by you as you make your way deeper. It is an incredible beginning and a perfect precursor for what's to come later on.
You then enter your childhood memories, a free flying place where you can choose wherever you'd like to go. Cute drawings fill the blinding white background, a railroad sign you saw once that always stuck in your head, that one thunder cloud hung up in the theater that you always wondered how they got it up there. You're allowed to explore anywhere and everywhere. This part is probably my favorite part in any level in this game, it is incredibly well executed and the connection with the song makes it feel like I'm living through my past self.
Look back. You look back on your past with happiness, entering an almost stand-still state as you look back on the happiest moments of your life with a soft smile. I feel that's what the next part represents. It's a simple ship part that makes you feel like you're treading through the memory, trying to stay there as long as possible. The blinding white of the background continues but the art is gone, you are left with these extremely fast and colorful lasers that seem to rotate at random and varying speeds as the song feels to be flying with you. This part is what made me start tearing up, I'm not sure why I did when I first watched it I'll be honest, I hadn't made any connections with the level at this point. I just think the raw atmosphere of the level combined with this beautifully progressed song just hit something in me that made me look back. It's beautiful how such a simple part with such simple effects, can strike an individual with such ferocity.
Eventually, the memory ends. You're sent back down to the ground, as all the memories fly above you, out of your reach once more. Slowly fading out of what once was, into the present. The level slowly fades to black as you continue to jump over these same spikes, over and over again. Maybe you can look back on these times once more, but now you must focus on the present. Make memories you can look back on in the future, when you can replay this level you can think of those once more.
This review might be corny, it might miss the whole point of the level, I might be completely wrong. However, this is how I interpreted it, and is why I love this level so much. twigxcabaret are able to perfect what makes Geometry Dash a storytelling medium, a place you can express whatever you like and have others experience it just the same. If you've read this far, thank you for reading. I'm not the best writer, and I very well know that, but this level means an incredible amount to me and I hope I've put into well enough words why that is.
Thank you.
Over again by PAHC is a level I first found out about because my friend @abso was stuck at a part in the level. I was curious, so I opened the level and tried to get where they were as soon as possible. What I didn’t expect was an entire journey through old levels, decrypting different codes, and understanding the true intentions behind a narrator.
This level starts with a simple code that you have to figure out. However, there are no clues to be seen. Everything you try just flashes the screen red. Eventually, a voice near the bottom of the screen gives you a suggestion. Maybe you should try a more original line of thought. Maybe there’s more information outside the level?
Let’s call this character the narrator. They will be your guide through this carefully crafted journey through their levels, finding every little piece of the puzzle to finally complete it. Hey, it’s just like an ARG! The narrator brings you through many of their old levels, telling you stories about what caused the creation of them, how they were feeling, all little details to get you attached to these little levels. Eventually it ends with some sort of next step, another level to try out usually, to find the next part of the code.
You head through auto levels, old minigame levels, their first level ever, their first full level. A whole experience of levels, all to find the code. The levels are cool and all, and it’s nice learning about them, but what are you here for in the end? You continue progressing through the level, in awe at how much detail was put into this puzzle. How well made this puzzle is. How they make you go through their old levels to look for a code.
Eventually after all of these puzzles and searching, you end up in a recreation of their level Strange Conversation made within the original level. Strange Conversation is an insanely cool story type level, where you make choices to progress the story in different ways. Choosing to redirect the story when need be. In this recreation, you decide not to redirect. Let’s see how the story plays out after all? But then, it loops. Again, and again. You decide to try and redirect, but instead, you leave the cafe. You get teleported to this strange out of bounds area it seems, as the narrator then starts… berating you? For sequence breaking their level? But you had no other choice? They start getting angrier and angrier for your lack of care put into their old levels.
By this point, the player is most likely very confused. The narrator they had been following every exact detail from, is now talking about how they did something wrong? Did you? Were you supposed to play the original Strange Conversation? No, nothing there. Were you supposed to let it loop over and over again? Nothing seems to be changing. Maybe. Just maybe. The narrator isn’t as trustworthy as you once thought. Maybe they aren’t your guiding light throughout this level. Maybe they are a person with feelings, and motives.
Maybe the narrator isn’t a good person?
The narrator told you before leaving to take any of 4 paths, all leading you to different old levels from them with separate parts of a code. After a while, you eventually retrieve all four parts and gain new information for how the code system really works. It took a while, but it was fun finding the codes in each level. That Go You one took a while though… maybe it should’ve been shorter so you didn’t have to play it as long.
You enter the new code, expecting to finally beat the level. However, you are greeted with a simple ‘Access Denied’, and an email to report to if you feel a mistake has been made. I mean, you sat here this whole time exploring all these different levels for codes, and now it’s not right? You decide to email the address given, and get a very strange response.
The email tells you a story of a creator named ‘Babelism’. They’re a normal player, making challenges that they find really fun and enjoyed making them a ton. Five of them, to be specific. They finally decide to make a full level, possibly even rateworthy! But they aren’t proud of it. There’s flaws everywhere, ideas that they could’ve implemented that they couldn’t figure out, it looks basic compared to other levels. If this level got rated, is this all they would be known for? Would people still enjoy their other challenges, knowing this level was cool and got rated? Would they even check out their other levels? Or will they forever be known for that one cool level they made.
You go and open up the ‘Babelism’ account and play through their challenges. Getting different pieces of the code at the end of each one, maybe even giving them a like to show that you enjoyed them! You can tell they enjoyed making them, and you had fun playing them too.
Once you obtain every part of the code, you return back to the original level, entering this new update to the code you just received. However, when you enter it, the narrator returns and starts getting angry at you again? They’re angry that you took your time on every level that ‘Babelism’ created and didn’t give their levels the time of day! At this point the player is most likely very confused once again, how were you supposed to know what the narrator wanted from you? You simply followed everything they asked of you, they got mad at you for spamming one job on Go You, but that’s what they told you to do?
Maybe this narrator isn’t that good of a person after all, maybe they don’t know what they’re talking about and can’t expect the world from you. Maybe this narrator is being selfish and shouldn’t expect you to be able to read minds. Maybe, just maybe. This narrator is a representation of someone years ago.
But then you realize, you played through all of Babelism’s levels because you knew what was happening. You played them because you knew they had fun making those challenges, and that they weren’t proud of their full level. You enjoyed giving them support on what they made. What do you know about the narrator? Do you know how they were feeling when they made all those levels you played? Did you get a detailed email describing exactly what happened with each level? Do you know exactly what the narrator wants of you? Do you think you could ever fit their idea of how to enjoy ‘their’ level?
No, you can’t. You can’t read minds, nobody can. You can’t figure out what the narrator is thinking, you can’t figure out how they want you to look at and view their level. You can’t figure out why they are so angry at you. You’ll never be able to understand, because you can only know what you’re told. You were lucky with ‘Babelism’, you knew everything about them. You could see them in your mind while playing, and you knew exactly what they felt like when they released that full level they weren’t proud of.
Is the narrator in the right? Have you been enjoying their levels wrong? But no, if they wanted something they should have told you to do something, not brought you through a convoluted puzzle simply focusing on finding codes. But, can you know what this narrator is thinking? Maybe there was a reason for this, and you’re in the wrong? But maybe you’re also in the right, maybe this narrator will never get their fill and will constantly spout about how nobody will understand that level. Maybe there are signs from the beginning of who this narrator is, maybe you should go on play those older levels again. Maybe you should replay this level and see if anything could change? Maybe you could finally understand who this narrator is, and their true intentions?
Maybe you have to play everything Over Again.
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sorry about this gang