Rating Curve

It's great to see qalli so confidently break the creative mould she's set for herself with her previous levels - Find The Answer is an incredibly unique, very ambitious level that makes use of some genuinely amazing gimmicks. The dual offset mechanic is front and center in many parts, being the first mainstream use of this gimmick in a level, and it works in the level's favour really well. It's both fun to watch and play, and it works surprisingly well with the more chaotic parts of the song that it's used with. Even in spite of this, though, every part's gameplay manages to maintain a pretty solid identity for itself, having some sort of defining characteristic that does wonders in making the level more memorable. Additionally, the deco is very consistent and cohesive, using tons of glitchy effects and unconventional structuring that match the song and gameplay excellently, and help tie everything together.

Unfortunately, I think this level's biggest downfall lies largely with said gimmicks. While almost all of the ideas behind this level are great, the execution often feels undercooked, rushed or just careless. The decoration is pretty good, but it really doesn't do anything with a lot of its more unique aspects (most notably the slanted wave sections). The same can be said for the gameplay to a lesser degree, it feels highly unpolished. The end result of all this is a level that feels stretched very thin, lacking in song representation and much substance beyond its gimmicks, and one that leaves me feeling pretty underwhelmed despite its very high highs.

With that said, qalli is a highly skilled creator that is very good at taking good core concepts and iterating on them until they are effectively free of major flaws, so I think that will come into play regarding Find The Answer too. I would personally give this level a feature, and I look forward to seeing where qalli takes her creativity going forward.

Script is a really interesting level that makes use of a lot of effects that didn't see much widespread use until much later in 1.9. There's some flowing, horizontal pulses (mainly in the UFO about halfway through) reminiscent of creators like Funnygame and Ggb0y that would make use of them later on, and plenty of colour pulsing to make the code scattered around the level appear more glitchy. There's quite a lot of polish for the time, especially considering how new this method of using pulses was. The theming throughout the level is strong and consistent, and there's a solid amount of song representation done using a variety of glitchy pulses which works really nicely with the theme.

One thing that does show this level's age is the part to part flow. Aside from the overarching theme, there's plenty of very sudden changes with no suggestion from the song or gameplay (namely the flappy bird section). This is something that nowadays I find quite endearing and nostalgic, but it's definitely improvable and a sore spot with the level's overall cohesion. Speaking of the gameplay, it's quite basic and freeform, lacking much structure or player guidance. This is a double edged sword, as it allows more room for the set piece effects and backgrounds to shine, but doesn't really serve much purpose in the sense that it doesn't allow for any creative freedom in much of the structuring.

Script is a blast from the past from a creator I'm unfamiliar with, and it's great to see people innovating during a time of heavy editor limitations compared to what we have today. I'd personally love to see this featured, and will be checking out some of Gamer's other works.

I'm very familiar with YraX as a creator, so it's nice to see her taking steps to expand her usual style and push outside of her comfort zone. HumaNs II has so many neat ideas spread across its runtime, and while not all of them work, the variety in itself is a great thing to see and I'm always glad to see creators experiment. Each part has its own distinct theme, and commits to it more or less fully through the use of full-screen backgrounds (like the volcano, black hole and lava caverns around halfway through) which give the level a good sense of depth that helps to immerse the player in the level's world. I particularly love the last part, as the designs here are simple enough to let the background shine, yet match the disco setting nicely with their rainbow highlights and metallic details such that they still very much hold their own.

Considering all this, my major criticism is likely fairly obvious - there is no overarching connection between the parts. No major shifts in the song necessitating a huge shift in the theme, no real design parallels of any sort to draw between them, and even the gameplay style tends to change pretty drastically depending on the structuring required for the part (most noticeable with the last two parts). I don't particularly like this approach since it makes the level feel more like a collage or a megacollab than a single, cohesive product, where in my opinion the biggest advantage a creator has when making a project solo is fully realising a specific idea or theme they center the level around, in their own style and to their own taste. I'd have liked to see some sort of part-to-part progression, or something in the transitions that would warrant the drastic changes in theme, like a TV switching channels or flipping through the pages of a book. There's a ton of technical editor skill here, but I'd still recommend it for Feature because of the lack of overall cohesion.

This level is ridiculous, eccentric and crazy in a very good way. The song used in HUMAN PILLS is loud, abrasive and chaotic, with highly compressed vocals and instruments that make the whole thing feel highly aggressive, and this is translated to the visuals really nicely through the effects, colour choices and gameplay used. Each part tends to have one very noticeable "centerpiece" effect representing a major element of the song, like the glitching in the first part representing the loud, bitcrushed synth in the song, or the different glitching variant in the spider at 0:55 used on the percussion. The colour filter in the spider at 0:18 is interesting because it completely covers bits of the screen in these highly saturated streaks of rainbow, but the enter/exit effects are done in such a way that it feels quite natural and it actually highlights a lot of the part's structuring since the structures often take on a sort of gritty, glitching outline within the effect. The gameplay contributes to this too throughout the level, as all of the intense parts use some sort of high-CPS wave, spider, cube or UFO gameplay with tons of orbs and portals; it's generally synced quite nicely which helps accentuate the level's song representation, and the copious usage of orbs and portals makes it feel chaotic and constantly shifting in tune with the song's energy.

Despite this, there's a few aspects of this level that I think miss the mark. Regarding the gameplay, I find that there's tons of gamemode changes in spots that don't really make sense - sometimes parts use a single gamemode for the whole part, while others switch between 2 or 3 at random with no indication from the song. More consistency in either direction (more or less gamemode changes) would have helped solidify this level's ideas and made the gameplay movements feel more strongly attached to the song. I also find the theming to be a bit inconsistent, as some parts lean heavily on more "edgy" visuals (namely the eyes, fingers and blood in the second half) while others stick to a more GD-like, bright, rainbowy effect-based approach. There's really no attempt to connect the two main thematic ideas in the level, as they just swap from one to the other at the midway point, so incorporating elements of both styles into the middle parts or having a distinct transition on a major shift in the song would have helped tie the two ideas together.

This is definitely a strange level, and it struggles somewhat to figure out its own visual identity, but the energy and effect work are excellent. Paired with an intense song and fun, fast-paced gameplay, I'd recommend this level for Feature and look forward to more from Tinraz.

GBS does a great job representing its song through both its gameplay and effects. This is a mostly wave-based level, and the gameplay is nothing revolutionary or unique, but it does do a great job of syncing with the song through both movement and clicks, my favourite example being the spam sections during the quick, fast paced synth breaks during the drop.

As we've come to expect from creators like Jenkins, this level's visuals are mainly centered around clean designs, intricate structuring and flashy effects. It's quite reminiscent of Neutra, and most of my praise and criticism for the drop section is the same - I love the designs and the structuring, and the flashing is great for providing energy and song representation, but ultimately it ends up feeling a bit flat and shallow. There's not much variation throughout this part, and because it's so bright everything begins to blend together quite quickly, making repeated watches monotonous. I'd highly recommend toning down the flashes and focus on providing energy to the part in other ways; movement, quick transitions, different decoration in different structures, and new colours would all be better for this purpose in my opinion.

However, the first and last parts take a completely different visual approach, with the first having really unique masking and other tech-inspired effects that act as a supporting piece to the structuring and block decoration rather than just a flashy overlay, and the last part being dark with quick pulses to the music and a gritty, flickering atmosphere. I think both of these parts provide some very much-needed variation to the level, and both do a great job of matching up with the song in a similar way that Jenkins' part does due to the colour scheme and block designs sharing many similarities. My only real nitpick is that the structuring in the ending is very boring and limits the block designs quite heavily. I would have loved to see usage of more intricate shapes the way Jenkins did in order to spice up the designs and fill more of the part's negative space.

I like GBS quite a lot, and its flaws are relatively easy to overlook as none of them are particularly egregious. I would love to see creators looking to make these types of levels focus on finding more unique methods to add energy and foreground effects than just making them flashy. I would personally recommend this for Epic.

Cage Girl, surprisingly, reminds me really strongly of Skywalker14's atmospheric experiment levels, in the sense that it takes one specific image or environment and iterates on it repeatedly for the length of a whole level. Cage Girl does this with the album cover of Census Designated, from which its song is taken, and I think this is a great choice. This song feels like a tone/mood setter for the rest of the album, and works really well with the massive, empty field with a lone foreboding house in the background due to the distant, reverb-soaked guitars and crooning vocals giving a sense of loneliness and anxiety. The slight variations throughout like colour pulsing, beams of light and the section inside the building are all nice atmospheric touches and all tie strongly in with specific elements of the song (such as certain guitar notes with the pulses or the rising noise near the end with the bright particles and glow). I appreciate the fact that Cage Girl doesn't hold back from just adding and adding onto one concept throughout its length, as the song does the same thing.

With that said, the lyrics being tangible assets within the level really break the immersion for me. They don't feel connected to any other element, and I would have loved to see elements from within the level used to represent Jane Remover's vocals rather than just the lyrics themselves being placed haphazardly. For a level so strongly focused on one specific element - the worldbuilding and progression - this sticks out like a sore thumb and would be better either removed or made into an option at the beginning of the level. Additionally, I think some of the shader effects are a bit overboard and serve to artificially make the level feel "dreamy", particularly the blur in the second half. However, Cage Girl still does very well at what it sets out to do and I would send it for Epic.

Future Station is a futuristic ice/tech themed design level with some excellent theming and designs. The structuring is pretty simple throughout, mostly being rectangular with a few sloped corners, but I don't mind this as it allows the blocks to be made up of mostly straight lines with harsh corners, making for strong metallic theming when combined with the silver and blue colours with dark highlights. This is also one of few levels I've seen use these more complex high-tech default backgrounds introduced along with 2.2 well, as they add another layer of depth to the part and provide some extra variation in colour while keeping similar designs. The level is very cohesive throughout, and there's some nice progression introduced with the hanging vines and orange tubes later on that helps to keep things interesting.

What holds this level back for me is the lack of contrast. The actual non-default background assets are almost the same colour and style as the block designs, which creates some chaos where the two elements blend together and muddy up many of the earlier parts. This could be solved by either blurring the backgrounds slightly, darkening them, or taking a different approach with more negative space to help differentiate the cluttered, high-density block designs more. I also felt the gameplay was very basic and did not allow for much creative freedom, as most parts just have a big empty section in the middle where most of the gameplay takes place bordered by almost solid walls of metallic blocks.

Overall, Future Station is a very "cool" (get it) level with excellent theming and designs, but ultimately it's held back by a lack of contrast that contributes to poor readability and balancing throughout the level as well as mediocre gameplay. I would recommend this for Feature and look forward to seeing Icewither's future works.

Rivers of Nazareth immediately stands out for its strong Arabic cultural theming and central camera position, both of which are quite unique for GD levels as of current. The choice to make the camera centered is an interesting one, as it inevitably makes it more difficult for the player to react to the level's gameplay (made more prevalent since this is an Extreme Demon), and this does contribute negatively to the gameplay, but I'll touch on this later. In terms of the visuals, I really like AudieoVisual's choice to add the TV static shader to the glow, it gives it a wavy, gritty appearance similar to heat waves reflecting off a hot surface, which is perfect for the level's theming, although I wish a chromatic glitch or similar shader was used to further accentuate this effect. I also think the frequent inclusion of Arabic symbols like the Nazar amulet in the dual and the death screen are nice touches that help add to the overall theming, and show a lot of attention to detail to include elements of Arabic culture into the level.

However, the gameplay is really where this level falters. It's not balanced very well, with 9-40 being significantly more difficult than the rest of the level and the final ship being inconsistent due to off-sync orb timings and some awkward gaps. Making a level this difficult use frequent click-sync is usually a gamble because it's really impossible to ensure the level syncs on every platform for every click, and unfortunately it is the case with Rivers of Nazareth that the sync is not consistent. Additionally, the aforementioned center aligned camera decreases readability and gives the player less time to react to the level's gameplay, making it even more difficult despite the aligning of the death effect with the center of the level being a nice touch. I also wish the level was less bright, because the blending glow combined with the bright white backgrounds tends to wash out a lot of the detail when playing the level and makes most of the parts look a bit muddy.

I'm generally a big fan of AudieoVisual's high-energy, effect-based style that he has been developing over the last couple years, and visually this level delivers on most fronts. More tasteful usage of dimmer colours in the background would have done miles towards sharpening the level's designs and giving the level as a whole more visual definition, and more playtesting and balancing work is very much needed to improve the level's playing experience. I would like to see AudieoVisual work on these in the future, because aside from this Rivers of Nazareth is a fantastic level and one I'd recommend for Epic.

seas are sleeping has one very strong element that it executes very well, being its worldbuilding. The fact that the vertical transitions between parts are seamless and every element above and below the player appears to always exist makes the player feel as if the level is far larger than it truly is, and that it contains a world existent outside the player's influence. The hand-drawn, line art aesthetic makes the level feel more like a retro indie game in many ways, and as this is a genre of games where exploration and worldbuilding tend to be significantly more prevalent, this is something I find to give the level a lot of depth and replayability. The decoration is overall very simple - the structures have minimal design work, the backgrounds (namely the fish in the ocean and stars in the sky) are really only rough approximations of their real counterparts, but I don't mind this because the entire level is built around this abstract approach to building a world. The use of colours to imitate depth, with the fish background in particular having the smaller, further back fish fade to more of a bluish hue from the ocean they reside in, really sell the size and depth of the level's environments despite the lack of any notable effects or detailed designs/backgrounds to support this. Unfortunately, this does end up feeling more like a sketch or a rough draft due to this, as I feel nearly every element could do with some additions to help guide the player around and to truly immerse them into the world (namely the structure connectors leading off into nothing, as the single thin lines feel off compared to the large, blocky structures they support). Regardless of this, though, seas are sleeping is a charming level with a very endearing art style and very solid world building. I would recommend this for Feature and look forward to seeing what Divro creates in the future.

Paper Rings is a very polished product in the realm of more traditional design levels. I'm a big fan of the incorporation of rainbow elements to help the gameplay stand out, particularly towards the midsection (namely the wave where the sliding platforms are coloured). It helps provide some much needed contrast between the player-interactible gameplay portions and the rest of the deco. The same can be said for the rings around the orbs towards the beginning, and the block highlights towards the end. The designs themselves are fairly standard, somewhat reminiscent of creators like Namtar and Destriv, but the great usage of colour and the clean pulse and effect work done to highlight the song's percussion helps uplift the level quite nicely. The gameplay is also synced and balanced well, and for the difficulty of around easy-medium demon it feels very fun and forgiving towards the player while still having enough timings and learny sections to provide a nice challenge. With that said, due to this level's style and lack of any real noteworthy element that isn't something outside of the tried-and-true traditional design style, this level does end up falling into a place where it blends together quite a bit with the rest of the levels in its style, and even some of Gusearth's own levels. This is a testament to Paper Rings being quite solid in all aspects, but I would like to see Gusearth experiment more with design styles, structuring and effects going forward, placing more emphasis on elements other than the designs. I'd personally recommend this for Feature.