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experiment is one of the first classic levels to have proper non-linear progression. experiment is a puzzle level reminiscent of an escape room simulator, with gameplay that loops infinitely until the player finds a way to escape a loop and move on. This concept is ingenious and takes advantage of the natural repetitiveness of the song very nicely, and the looping effect is seamless in every single part. I particularly appreciate how there are no fakes or important invisible objects; the player is given everything they need to proceed, laid out in front of them in a gameplay loop lasting no more than a few seconds, which makes the level more intuitive for the player despite the novel concept. Despite this, the methods of escape are fairly complex and force the player to work to understand them, from cracking a password by hitting orb types in a specific order in a maze to taking a dash orb way up into the ceiling. The level doesn't give the player anything more than absolutely necessary, but the solutions to them are fair and simple enough to find quickly if the player is lucky or attentive enough, making for an engaging and very replayable experience.
My favourite part of the level, however, comes when the song breaks out of its mantra of repetitive loops and expands fully into a synth-based, high energy section, which is where the level's style completely shifts and briefly does away with the puzzles. This feels like a genuine reward for making it through, and it feels so refreshing to play more traditional gameplay. It's not out of place due to the way the song shifts, and it does visually carry over some of the mechanical elements of the previous parts (mainly in the backgrounds), which I like, but even aside from this the chaotic, glitchy mess of crazy effects and flashing colours looks incredible and is one of the most visually stunning parts I've ever played. My only real criticism is that this level lacks progression. Although this is likely intentional, it's difficult for the player to tell when they're approaching the end of the level until they get there. Some presence of the glitching effects, flashing RGB colours or even the hand drawn lineart would have been neat foreshadowing of the level's climax that would've made for clearer progression.
I'm not sure I'll ever quite forgive experiment for how hard its ending trolled me, but I HIGHLY recommend playing through this level for yourself rather than watching a video if it sounds interesting to you. It's one of the most unique and captivating experiences I've ever had with a GD level, due to the challenging but fair nature of the puzzles and the explosive ending that feels oh so rewarding to experience the first time. I would give this level legendary personally due to the lack of clear progression throughout the puzzle sections, but this is still an incredible showing from everyone involved.
When making an art-focused level, the thing I prioritise the most is a sense of depth and worldbuilding. If you're building something to emulate a wide, sweeping landscape, it's important to make the background feel far more distant from the player, and naturally draw the eye to the foreground through use of contrasting colours or some other thematic element to make the player feel like they're "in front" of the background. The first two parts of Calm do not do this at all, unfortunately, as every layer tends to blend together as everything is very bright, and there is no attempt to make the backgrounds appear farther away with methods like darkening them or adding shadow to the foreground. There's also no use of a parallax here to make the background move slower, which further narrows the divide between the foreground and background and ends with everything looking very out of place and unnatural.
The following part is a complete departure in style, which feels very disconnected from the rest of the level due to not having any sort of focus on art despite it being well made all around. Thankfully, the following parts are much more connected to the first and use a similar colour scheme and focus on landscapes, and they also fix the major issues I mentioned with depth perception, contrast and parallaxing by making the foreground far more detailed than the background and naturally introducing highlights and shadows into the designs (particularly visible in the metallic structures starting at 0:52). These parts are generally good, with a good balance of designs, solid colours and a very strong theme, with good song representation through flashes, invert gradient effects and movements. However, the first half of the level is so far removed that they feel like two completely different projects, and the difference in quality leads me to not recommend it to be rated. This still shows a lot of promise, though, and I'd like to see more from these creators in the future.
For what would be Supernooby's first rate, Enlightenment is remarkably solid in most areas. The strong yellow and grey colour scheme is good, and there's good use of blending throughout all parts to make many of the designs feel like rays of light. I like the usage of clouds and wind throughout the level to give the impression that the level is high off the ground, particularly the structures at 0:26 since the clouds also serve to provide some variation in the block designs, and the spinning ring of clouds in the following part since it feels like a raging vortex, which matches nicely with the song's climax. The block designs at the beginning do feel quite out of place, and are much more in line with a traditional design-based level than the approach taken in the rest of Enlightenment, so I'd like to see a bit more cohesion here in having all the designs share a more consistent thematic element to tie everything together.
My two main issues both revolve around the gameplay. There are many sections with forced skip prevention, such as the wave at 0:18, ship at 0:25 and cube at 0:41 all having invisible objects stopping the player from skipping orbs or pads, which is highly unintuitive and is not how I would like to see skip prevention done. I'd have liked Supernooby to either rework the gameplay to get rid of the skips, or integrate them into the existing gameplay such that no forced skip prevention is necessary. Additionally, the section beginning at 0:33 has very strong inspiration from Congregation in the layered box block designs, usage of slopes and timing/orb-based fast gameplay, so I'd like to see some acknowledgement of this either within the level's credits or in the description/comments of the level considering the inspiration is very apparent and affects most of the part. However, this is still a solid level regardless and an excellent showing for a creator with no rates; I would recommend this for Feature.
LAKE ZURICH was the first level of cometface's I ever saw, way back around December 2021, and it's quite incredible to see how far their style has developed since. This level's designs are very rough around the edges, with many cases of large structures with minimal detail or too much negative space (namely the platforms starting from 1:35). The structuring is generally ok, but is quite basic and doesn't really work with the complexity of the shapes many of them take; they tend to end up feeling somewhat incomplete due to the interior details not fitting in very well with the shape of the structure, as well as the lack of interior details in general, and the first part's large ground structures are the best example of this. I would also have greatly appreciated more variation in colour, as LAKE ZURICH mostly sticks to a single, dark shade of blue right up until the final part. Considering how much depth the song's production has, and how much it changes throughout the length of the level, some hue-shifted pulses or complementary highlights to match the vocals or droning synths would have been nice.
With that said, pretty much everything else about this level is excellent, albeit unpolished. The theming is fantastic, and the slow transition from indoor to outdoor elements throughout the length of the level is subtle but executed very nicely. This also lines up with the way the song slowly adds in more and more "light" sounding elements like the synth plucks and guitar notes. The first part having the night sky only visible through the "windows" creates a very nice sense of depth and helps sell the player being in an indoor environment, making the payoff when everything opens up into an expansive nighttime landscape at 1:12 very rewarding. The final part has very nice structuring, with the constellations making for generally quite unique shapes while still having solid thematic and visual synergy with the rest of the part since it is set in space. The floating glow bars reminiscent of the Aurora Borealis help to further this, and they also help fill in some of the excess negative space left between structures.
LAKE ZURICH is a very solid foundation for what would eventually become the "neodesign" style cometface helped spearhead, and it still holds up very well today, almost 4 years later. It has excellent theming, but lacks a lot of polish and execution in terms of its more traditional design and structuring elements that cometface has slowly iterated and improved upon over the last few years.
facade resembles the genre of sunset levels popular in late 1.9 with creators like x8Px, making use of lots of highly detailed, black silhouette art on a simple coloured background. The art mimics a lot of real life, with trees, destroyed buildings and other detritus being a recurring theme throughout, and when combined with the somber song it feels desolate and post-apocalyptic in a way not many other "sunset" type levels did. It's quite a unique atmosphere that immerses the player in this little world that appears to be decaying and falling apart, with debris at odd angles, buildings destroyed and nature everywhere that help further sell this theme to the player. I love this, since it makes the player feel like they've stumbled into some semblance of the world we know, but one that is beyond saving and the player can only watch on.
Unfortunately, this does come at the cost of the gameplay since most of the level being focused on the art neglects any form of traditional gameplay similarly to aforementioned sunset levels of the time period. This removes a huge element tying the player to the level, and in my opinion is something that doesn't work particularly well with this style of level since most of the art is so limited and abstract that it can't properly stand on its own without a more concrete connection to the player in the form of some sort of gameplay. I also wish the starry backgrounds stayed more consistent throughout the level, as well as the dark blue/purple colour scheme changing at odd moments (mostly near the middle with the introduction of green) that somewhat breaks the level's immersion, but regardless, facade is a fascinating level from GMD Condor and one I'd recommend for Star Rate.
deadspace has quite a unique atmosphere to it, with the soft, pulsing synths of the song, quiet visual noise in the background and dark purple tones coming together to form quite a relaxing atmosphere. The name "deadspace" is certainly fitting, as the layered noise and stars in the background bring to mind the vast empty void of deep space, and the colours and subtle pulse work both help support this. I also really like the omnipresent dark tendrils on the vertical screen borders, they give the impression of some encroaching force of darkness that restricts the player to the field of view they have during the level, providing a sensible reason for the lack of vertical movement. Unfortunately, the level severely lacks in terms of its designs, structuring and gameplay design. The designs do not change much, with them mostly being a few set templates that are copied onto structures repeatedly, which sticks out quite badly from the constantly shifting background and ground deco. The designs also do not match the space theme, moreso resembling designs by creators like Vadi or Xolarzz that would be better fit for a more crystalline theming due to their angular details and the (generally) central placement of the bright highlights. This is especially noticeable towards the end, where the stars in the background make the space theme more prominent but the designs continue to shift further away and more towards defined, pillar-based structures and crystalline details. For this reason, I'd recommend this level for Star Rate, but there's plenty of potential for an excellent level here if only the designs and structures meshed better with the space theme.
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.
evenfall is a fantastic example of simple ideas done right. The unusual choice to use a somber, flowing alt rock song ends up working very well in the level's favour, as the song's slow, gradual burn is translated very nicely into the gradual progression of the level's gameplay and decoration. The introduction of the soft, wavy glow alongside the lead guitar at 0:31 is subtle, but matches really well with the increased volume of the wavy synths in the song's background, and the increase in speed does well to keep the intensity despite the decoration otherwise staying roughly the same. The switch to faster, higher-clicks-per-second mirrored gameplay and the introduction of clouds and wind at the one minute mark yet again has strong, consistent ties to specific elements of the song: the gameplay syncs really nicely with the increased pace and intensity of the lead guitar, and the clouds and wind both feel like translations of the increased volume of the droning, reverberating synth notes permeating the song's background. The falling transitions in and out of the clouds during the drop's second half use verticality to represent the way the aforementioned synths "rise" and "fall" between individual notes, which is my personal favourite element of the entire level due to how simple yet effective it is.
The decoration itself holds some of my main criticisms. The colour scheme shifts slowly from pinkish-red to purple as the level comes to a close, but to me the purples and blues used feel much more relaxing than the brighter colours from earlier in the level; I think this would be more fitting if the colour progression was reversed. Additionally, I wish more was done with the floating translucent coloured blocks near the beginning, as they use low opacity diamond blocks to almost appear like stained glass windows. Considering the strong city theming of most of this level's block designs brought on by the dark grey/black metallic backing and the yellow dotted highlights, the aforementioned colour blocks slowly phasing into either accents or just windows or beams of light feels quite underwhelming, especially in the last part when they all become yellowed and akin to being lit by a streetlight. Overall, though, evenfall has fantastic theming and cohesion throughout, with most elements fitting together with one from the song, and the general design and effect quality being outstanding, particularly in the falling cloud transitions during the drop. I am very glad this level received an Epic, and look forward to more from spark.
CLARITO's first half has some remarkably poor effect and design work, considering how solid the second half is in comparison. The really bright pulses with the glow beams and shaders in the first part aren't synced to anything, and thus feel completely out of place considering how intense they are. A similar issue crops up in the following part with the rainbow up-down glow beams that are, once again, not synced to any part of the song and are far too intense to justify their existence with no song representation to go off of. I'm also not a fan of the slowed down transition between parts 2 and 3, because it once again does not match any element of the song and thus feels out of place. Lastly, the following part's camera rotates slowly side to side, which I personally am a huge proponent against because I feel like it adds nothing to the level and just looks disorienting. Despite this, though, the actual art design sections of the level are consistently quite solid. There's a few parts that resemble more "generic" modern styles from years past (namely parts 1 and 3 with the flat colour blocks, basic rectangular structures and very minimal background detail), but the second half has a lot more variation in structuring and deco style, as well as more complex backgrounds and pulsing effects that accentuate the song's percussion. I especially like the transition into the drop, since the song's rapid melody is conveyed quite well with how fast the backgrounds shift between one another. However, I can't overlook the issues I mentioned previously, and I would not recommend this level to be rated due to the poor cohesion and effect work in the first half.
Visually, ANNIHILATED is one of the most batshit insane levels I have ever seen, and I love it. The whole level takes place in a flaming, crumbling factory, with fire constantly filling the bottom half of the screen, with tons of movement and flashy effects syncing with the song's percussion and leads. This creates an extremely intense atmosphere that makes the player feel like they're running for their life to escape certain doom, which is awesome considering how fast and intense the song gets in the second half. The copious use of large rotating grounded sawblades and huge drills slamming the ground in combination of the fire makes the whole lower half of the screen feel like a death pit, adding to the running-from-certain-death feeling. I also love the way the gameplay is integrated into this, with the large piston-like structures connecting groups of orbs and the gameplay platforms being barely big enough to support the player giving the impression that the player is running through a machine that was not built to sustain them. The corridor style of gameplay also adds to the mechanical atmosphere, as logically this sort of factory would have a fixed upper and lower limit for where the player and internal structures could be placed. However, in terms of playability the gameplay has a lot of jank in regards to icon placement and orb timings: lots of clicks (mainly in the dual midway through the level) have the player in positions just barely offset enough from the orbs and platforms as to feel constantly awkward and inconsistent. While this adds to the hellish atmosphere of the level by making the player feel like they're fighting against the level to live, it does hurt playability by making the intended click pattern far less obvious and harder to execute consistently.
I also wish the level had a break part or two, as the constant high energy over almost two full minutes is both very hard on the eyes and tends to make the detail blend together. The bright, flashing effects sometimes wash out the background details, and the transitions often hide or muddy the detail work through custom cube transitions or similar. Regardless, though, ANNIHILATED is a fantastic, chaotic experience and one I'd like to see receive an Epic or Legendary rating.
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sorry about this gang