Rating Curve

With UPlust being as old as it is, it's no surprise to see messy, high-blending grid block designs as is common with most levels from the time period. I don't have much to say about the designs - they're okay, but nothing special for the time and haven't aged very well - and the gameplay is also quite unremarkable, lacking much in the way of flow or sync and just sort of existing to provide the player obstacles.

One thing I do want to hone in on, though, is the city part around halfway through. There's a pretty notable lack of contrast between the foreground and background, which happens for three reasons. Firstly, the background doesn't parallax properly, so the three layers of buildings either don't move at all and coalesce into one blob, or the back layers move too quickly compared to the front layers, which hurts the sense of depth that the parallax is meant to create. Second, the block designs use the same (or very similar) base black colour as the front layer of buildings, and since the block designs aren't outlined this causes them to frequently fade into the background; lightening the base colours of the background buildings would have fixed this. Thirdly, the yellow highlight colours used for the windows in all three layers of the background are exactly the same. If the base colour lightens due to depth, it's logical that the highlight colour would start fading into the background, in this case becoming more of a pinkish tone rather than the strong yellow used.

Despite much of this level not being very noteworthy, I wanted to visualize how a couple simple fixes could serve to elevate one part to a much cleaner and more professional-looking status, regardless of the actual asset quality, with just some colour tricks and understanding of depth perception. I'd recommend this level for Star Rate, and I hope the feedback helps anyone looking to create depth effects in GD.

Ideal has a very interesting visual style, mixing complex, angular designs with quite a unique structuring style and gameplay that is utterly invisible at points. I don't know whether this was intentional, but the foregrounds and backgrounds both comprise of very similar designs and are usually almost the same colour, so there's little separation between the two and they blend together frequently. Darkening the backgrounds further and/or hue shifting them about 45 degrees would have fixed this issue and significantly improved the playability. With that said, the designs themselves are solid, and remind me a lot of SleyGD's older projects. I like the usage of slopes to fill in the corners of most of the designs, and the diamond objects used to create little pillars on the left and right sides of the main structures are also a very aesthetically pleasing touch. The square blocks capped with a small rectangular "roof" of sorts with the tapered edges is a pretty good look, and the wavy designs of the roof do help differentiate from the mostly right-angled interior structure designs, but I would have liked the base colour of the roof to be a bit lighter to help this further.

The main structures are usually connected to another smaller one by way of the aforementioned roof blocks, with the smaller structure generally being a solid 1x2 or 2x2 block rather than the hollow 3x3 one used for the main structures. This is quite a creative use of the multi-layered designs, and in isolation I really like how it's executed here. However, I can't overlook the fact that it does not change at all throughout the entire level (neither do the designs or backgrounds, although the colours do). The whole level is really just one concept done over and over again until the creator was happy with its length. This makes the whole thing feel very monotonous, and I'd probably recommend it for Star Rate because of this, but Ideal is still a solid project from a creator I've never heard of.

BOOBAWAMBA lands itself in a weird spot due to its difficulty contrasting with its visual style in a very odd way. Visually, this level reminds me a lot of Alika by 2003Devin, with flat, angular and mechanical designs comprising mostly of flat outlines and clunky movements. I'm a huge sucker for this aesthetic, and it's pulled off really well in this level in large part due to the highly detailed, moving backgrounds that feel like the inside of a labyrinthine factory. I'm especially a fan of the fact that the background layers are the same as the foreground layers, which further sells the absolute size of the environment.

I can't speak on the gameplay as this level is WAY too hard for me to play, but at least visually it interacts with the memory elements very well. In particular, the parts where the player holds a light are excellent due to the heavy use of decoration above the player. The huge, shadowy structures offset the light's added visibility and make the parts feel surprisingly claustrophobic. The structures are also sometimes layered in a way where they are only visible outside of the main beam of light, which is a very nice memory tactic and keeps the player on their toes, only catching glimpses of some of the level's dangers.

With that said, to me this level just doesn't feel like a top demon. The defining quality of a lot of the hardest levels in the game is how intimidating they are; whether from raw difficulty like Tidal Wave, intimidating music and visuals of death or otherwise deadly hazards like Slaughterhouse and Arcturus, or pure claustrophobia like qoUEO or Menace. For me, this is a huge part of what makes these brutally difficult levels work, as the choice to make a level so hard as to be permanently unbeatable for 99.9% of the player base should have some intrinsic justification to make it stand as something that intimidates the hell out of anyone brave enough to try to beat it.

Some shreds of this are present in BOOBAWAMBA, with the shifting, claustrophobic factory sections definitely bringing out that sense of intimidation for me. The parts that hide their raw difficulty, however, do the exact opposite of this by completely obfuscating their difficulty, with no real support from the visuals (which tend to just be fog or ominous shadow) or the song. This is mostly apparent in the second half, where the gameplay is barely visible and the song is quite calm. There's a big disconnect between this level's difficulty and how hard it "feels" intuitively, at least for me, and while I can't speak on how this translates to its actual difficulty, it leaves the level feeling disconnected from its own vision.

There's tons of potential for difficult memory levels to succeed - just look at how LIMBO is viewed today or how KILLBOT was viewed upon its verification. It's all about synchronising all of the level's elements to really invest the player or viewer into the level and its difficulty. BOOBAWAMBA does a lot of things right, but really fails at this one crucial point, and I hope in the future somebody does succeed at it.

More than anything, this level confuses me. GloomIX is part Clubstep remake and part 1.9 "hell level" with more modernised designs, and just keeps throwing curveballs at the viewer during its runtime.

I honestly appreciate this level's willingness to just, do shit. It's a surprisingly well put together level considering how all over the place it is; I like how the designs in the first part progress from flat slopes with metal highlights to the flat block memory cube maze with metal highlights, and I also like the usage of sawblades for structure corner deco consistently throughout the level, it helps give GloomIX a bit more visual identity. With that said, though, this level's style and details are constantly shifting; the drop sections sort of remind me of Clubstep Nightmares by Zobros, except red, and then there's a random Nine Circles section thrown in, and then a 1.6-styled cube maze, and at the end there's a giant Winnipeg Jets logo in the middle of the screen out of nowhere. It genuinely feels like a fever dream at times because of how little sense a lot of the twists and turns in the level make, but I have to admit that each individual part does look decent, and the unexpected twists make the level pretty damn memorable.

With that said, I wish this level picked a clearer direction in regards to how authentic it is to a certain era of 1.9. The "era" of GD that each part is most reminiscent of is probably the most inconsistent thing about the entire level, as it jumps around between late 1.9 (beginning), early 1.9 (late midsection), 1.6 (middle memory cube), 1.8 (beginning of the drop) and even some 2.0/2.1 near the ending. Picking a specific time period and focusing on it would likely have made the approach taken to the visuals feel a lot more cohesive, even if the actual parts were as incohesive as they currently are, because at least all the visual decisions taken would make more sense for a specific time period. Considering this was built with the 1.9 editor, something like an early-mid 1.9 megacollab might have hit the mark best, and allowed the creators the most freedom in terms of the fever-dream-esque approach taken with this level.

Regardless, GloomIX is quite a funny level, and one that I find pretty memorable despite the glaring flaws. I would really like to see more attention to detail in regards to authenticity, and more care taken to match parts to the time period they're roughly modelled after. I'd recommend this for Star Rate.

Slasher has a lot of clean, classic 2.1 design elements reminiscent of creators like Tongii and MrSpaghetti. This is quite a populated field of levels, so let's see what Slasher does to sell itself as something to be played.

Firstly, I'm a big fan of each part having one specific "set piece" element. The pulsing static effect in the coloured highlight blocks in the first part, and the large rotating gears in the second part are synced nicely and give each part a nice visual anchor for the player's eye to follow. They also help each part stand out from the next, as most of the structuring and air deco are built around these elements, most noticeable with the platforms wrapping around the aforementioned gears, helping them stand out further.

The level's energy is solid overall too. The upbeat, fast-paced song is conveyed through a mix of bright background flashes in the predrop, and adds in moving glow bars, blur and moving objects in the drop for further intensity. While I find the blur is used too heavily and stands out as not being implemented particularly well, the other elements do a nice job at conveying the song's energy.

Unfortunately, all of these are very basic and have been done again and again in other levels. MrSpaghetti in particular tends to use many of these (often grouped together) in his own levels. They definitely do work, but I'd like to see more innovation from bluey0shi in their designs and how they express the song. I've always loved how levels like Mechanical Showdown by Tongii approach energy - quite minimal pulsing, and most of the energy carrying is done through gameplay difficulty, gamemode selection (asymmetrical dual as the "finale"), moving structures and rising complexity in structuring and interior designs as the level progresses. Other creators like Namtar and Nasgubb frequently execute/have executed this sort of "design progression" with great success in the past, and I find it to be a much more effective form of song expression because of how it intertwines each element of the level with the song's rising and falling intensity through feeling (increased complexity relating to increased energy, etc), instead of forcing it through pulses and fast movements.

Slasher isn't a bad level by any means, but it leaves a lot to be desired. I would recommend it for Star Rate and hope to see improvements from bluey0shi going forward.

resistance by theresistance comes from an age of 1.9 levels where many creators didn't really have much of an idea using the editor, and in many ways it shows in this level. Even for the time, there's a pretty noticeable lack of any real form of cohesion: no theming, messy gameplay that feels like it barely works, and a pretty noticeable lack of any "designs" in the traditional sense, even for an early 1.9 level. It's something that I understand holds a certain appeal and charm for a lot of players, especially older ones, and I hold quite a bit of respect for the level because of that (especially due to the hilariously low 5 star rating when I feel it should be an 8 or 9 star), but I can't really say it's for me.

Despite this, however, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that there are actually some pretty cool parts. Namely, the pulsing effect around halfway through that makes the decoration feel like it's following the player's forwards momentum is pretty neat considering that although this level doesn't quite predate ones like Nine Circles that revolutionised this type of effect, those levels weren't anywhere near as widespread and popular as they are today. Additionally, resistance gives me the impression that theresistance was totally unafraid to experiment and push their own creating abilities a bit, not just because of that effect, but also in the pretty sharp increase in overall quality as the level goes on. The ending actually feels relatively coherent and reasonably well made for the time, so huge props to the creator for their improvement over the course of the level.

resistance is a unique, obscure level from a creator I've never heard of, but it's a charming and compelling glimpse into a bygone era of Geometry Dash creating. We never get levels like this anymore, and while that's definitely for a reason, it's always nice to take a look back at a slice of older, less experienced creators in a much more limited era of the game.

For a first ever project by fauxlite, a new creator, grasspiano is fantastic. This is a pretty conceptual level highly based around nature, but I like how it executes this theme using mainly default blocks and sharper, more contrasting shades of greens. It's quite an unconventional style that helps make the level a bit more memorable. I also quite like the wacky structuring - I believe structuring has a pretty significant impact on the overall design of a level or part of a level, and the surrealist, unique structuring many of grasspiano's parts have does well to accentuate the theming and style of the level.

Of course, this level has some pretty glaring issues, which is to be expected of an early project. grasspiano is quite all over the place visually, yet does not vary much from part to part. My biggest piece of feedback is to take an overarching concept for a level, and figure out how to evolve it over the course of the level's runtime rather than sticking to a narrower idea of the theme like grasspiano does (one excellent example of this is Interlude by wiktord). Additionally, the gameplay isn't really integrated into the level at all and feels pretty disconnected, which breaks the level's immersion. I would recommend investing more time into things like air decoration and miscellaneous elements to connect the structuring to the rest of the level, as well as orb/portal deco that's thematically sound.

Once again, I think grasspiano is a fantastic first project and shows a lot of potential. In a vacuum, it's an okay level, and one I would recommend for a star rate, but fauxlite has tons of potential and I really look forward to seeing their future projects as they grow and improve.

For a creator whose selling point is generally song sync and representation, it's pretty baffling how badly RippLeZ does at that. The gameplay almost feels like it was made to a different song in the midsection, with the clicks, speed changes and gamemode portals just not lining up with any discernible element of the song with any consistency. EndLevel and Failure's structuring styles don't really help the issue either, as they are generally blocky and leave either too much or too little empty space around the gameplay to provide visual "balance" between the block decoration and the rest of the parts. In the first half, this issue is exacerbated by the near total lack of any background or effect work in many of the parts (save for 0:13 - 0:22, which is a really nice change of pace that helps bring some much needed variation to this section).

On a positive note, the ending almost completely solves both major issues I mentioned. The part feels very open, but this time more focus is placed on the spinning, sparkling starry background and the structures feel more like they're floating, which helps tie the part together nicely with a strong space theme alongside the song's climax. However, this spike in quality leaves the whole level feeling inconsistent, almost like a megacollab would with the lack of part-to-part cohesion other than structuring style and colour scheme. EndLevel has very much improved and refined his style since RippLeZ, so it's nice to take a look back and see one of his older works and how he's evolved, but ultimately this level is unrefined and lacking in many critical aspects. The main improvement I would make is varying the structuring across the parts while making the designs and effect work more consistent, and providing some sort of overarching theme to tie everything together. I would recommend this for Star Rate.

From Below is a very unsettling level with a very unsettling song, and one with a lot of cool concepts and ideas thrown together in a bit of a ragtag manner. Every part has a pretty defined identity stemming from consistently placing emphasis on a couple specific design/background/effect elements; the first cube has eyes, missing texture blocks and red cracked tree-like objects, the following spider has celeste dream blocks and pillars in the background that look like they're rotating, and the final part has eyes which stare at the player as well as bright, flashing glow covering the foreground. I really wish more of this level was tied together; the general colour scheme from part to part is similar, sharing rainbow elements with a base blue/purple/pink tone, but nothing else really stays consistent. Each part takes a completely different visual approach to structuring style, level of detail and style of detail, as well as where to put the focus onto its "set pieces" such as the aforementioned dream blocks or eyes. As is, each part feels far too disconnected from the ones surrounding it, which is made more jarring because the song does not change much throughout the level, especially enough to warrant the sorts of stylistic shifts present. However, I do like a lot of the concepts in each individual part and I think they each look good in isolation due to what I mentioned previously, so I would recommend it for Feature.

I hold a lot of appreciation for the things other people can create in short amounts of time, with levels like TRIPPY TRIPPY by Wulzy always fascinating me with how they must have optimised everything about their conceptualising and building process to build so quickly. Speedbuild Monday is a pretty decent showing from RhymerGD considering this, nothing particularly stands out about it but it's quite well polished and doesn't feel like it was rushed. The designs, air deco, structuring and effects are all pretty standard, heavily leaning into glow-design styles that were most prevalent in the first few years of 2.1. The glow bar effects on the orbs and some of the song's synths as well as the rotating 2.1 particles used to fill up space definitely show their age, and in my opinion are pretty underwhelming methods of representing a song and filling space. I don't feel there's anything particularly powerful in the song to warrant the bright bars of glow, so something a little bit subtler like a glowy emblem surrounding the player or hue-shifted pulses would have worked better to accentuate the soft synths of the song. The rotating particles are wholly unnecessary and only serve to add more visual clutter to the level, so I'd recommend using the 2.2 particle editor to create some sort of background "white noise" or add some floating embers or particles in their place to achieve a similar effect.

Other than this, there's not much to comment on as everything is part of a very tried-and-true style. The structuring and designs are ok, making use of multiple rectangles and some black glow to create the illusion of multiple rectangular structures stacked on top of each other; this isn't bad, but it's something I've seen done in many, many levels and I'd like to see a more unique take on this with different structure shapes. The colours are also very standard, mostly purple and blue with minimal notable pulsing. Because of this, I'd only recommend this level for Star Rate, but it's still impressive to see something of this caliber made so quickly by a creator I've never heard of. Nice work!