Rating Curve

The second kudabe level I've seen; first one being Angel Demon. Maleficent depicts a rather continuous journey instead of the episodic encounters that happen throughout Angel Demon. The same amount of technical proficiency appears here; it's very clearly defined as taking place in a dark forest with fairy-tale setpieces. Wandering around this forest you never feel a sense of any looming danger, a sense of detachment present between you and that witch's castle in the distance. Not really a linear storyline present here so not sure what's up with the endscreen text. What it does worse than Angel Demon is the fact that its kinda just the player sauntering around with not really a strong feeling of wonder or something. Still looks great regardless (7.5)

Great level name

(7.5)

Sufficiently tongue-in-cheek spin on an amateur's level criticism

Will mainly focus on the parts that could be improved about this level since many have taken my words directly out of my mouth

The muted colours are pretty decent but it strays more and more as it goes on, becoming very noticeable by the end that less work was put into the planning overall. Structuring is a double edged sword since its super clear cut and the floating maze (haha yoreid) structures, and the blue cube part especially feel discombobulated without any supporting pillars or whatnot. It could be argued that this decision was made to ensure consistency however there is air deco in the form of squares in some of the parts which couldve been used to fill space instead of leaving it as dead air. The wave is one of the weakest parts of the level as makes a complete left field using the basic tilesets of the game instead of these super intricat pipe-like structures that attract me to this level in the first place. However overall i think the structuring is not the issue in this level its more of the occasional noticeable lack of middleground deco

My score being this high despite all the issues I've brought up should be an indicator about how unique this level is visually. For one the song is pretty much built to instill unease and the level heavily capitalises on this to elevate the experience as a difficult-to-describe ambient disquietude

(7.5)

This type of usage of zoomed out camera controls is one of the only uses of zoom-out cameras that I really think is exceptional. Gives a wide scope of view to the player while also minimising the decently thick block outlines so they take up less space on the screen visually, allowing you to better appreciate the scale. Goime 500 does this and this is extremely similar application-wise. Am obviously not skilled enough to play this but the gameplay tunneling through the world and being grid-like diminutivises the presence of the player; paired with the camera zoom the player almost looks like a rat or a mole traversing through this elegant world's tunnels. The force block gimmick looks absolutely bizarre and adds a pretty needed sense of unfamiliarity to the level