Rating Curve

Who doesn't love X, the everything level? Actually, the joke is quite apt, because much like X, the everything app, this level does many things, and very few of them well. The gameplay of this level has been burned into my muscle memory, but looking at it through a critical lens, this level makes many decisions that are straight up baffling.

The best 2.0 has ever looked. And frankly, the level isn't even that good-looking, I just really like the usage of glow here to create an incredibly ethereal atmosphere, aided a bit by the song. The tiny glowing stars in the dual part (which, by the way, plays great) still amaze me to this day; the entire rest of the level feels like a buildup to that part specifically. The gameplay is fine, definitely a lot less broken than people would like to claim, but the drop parts are interspersed by significant periods where you do literally nothing. It's weird that the predrop is probably one of the harder parts of the level.

Not Hinds's best work. The few hints of orange in the decoration do not stop this level from being a monochromatic mess in my mind's eye, blending together every part of the level and making it undifferentiable from the dozens of hell levels that already existed back then. The gameplay is even worse: it feels barely thought out, with random chokepoints and oblique sections around every corner. This level will take you from a part that's high CPS even by today's standards, to a ship part that plays like something I would have made in 2021, with the lackluster song representation and everything. I really don't like this level at all.

It's been a while since I beat this level. It's nothing special, though I do like how it never wears out any of its gameplay gimmicks.

Having an established oldhead creator hate your level so much that they flat out quit the game is a badge that Codex should wear with honor. The gameplay of this is obviously pretty unorthodox (well, as unorthodox as you can get with just plain cube jumps), though this simplistic gameplay style only raises the question of why the level still needs jump indicators. It's really not that hard to just look at where you need to go, and in fact, the very last part of the level completely abandons the jump indicators as part of its turn to invisible structuring, which, naturally, makes the part look so much better, because there aren't any bright white triangles sticking out like a sore thumb amidst the subdued colors that Codex is so well-known for. The one-block-gap jumps are not marked, which I assume is because the arrow would not look good in such a narrow space, except that's not actually true, because there is exactly 1 (one) such jump marked in the entire level. The reason for this discrepancy is beyond me. And sure, perhaps removing the jump indicators would make certain jumps blind, but that feels more like a flaw with the gameplay itself to me (as it is with almost every instance of jump indicators). I suppose I shouldn't expect too much from a level purportedly made in just a few hours.

Amazing theming for its time, even if it is just crosses scattered everywhere. The yellow-orb cube part is legendary for a reason: it forces you to be extremely aware of your surroundings and what's coming up next. Sure, you can learn it like you do any other memory part, but it feels so much more awesome to actually sightread. You could perhaps make some complaints about the gameplay (certain parts are very inconsistent indeed), but luckily, I fluked it from 16, so I can't say anything about that.

Which genius had the bright idea to recommend this as an entry insane?

Cool visuals that are drowned out by the copious usage of shaders.

This level looks a bit nicer than I remembered. I still cannot forgive the terrible 2-player dual, which, by the way, feels utterly incompatible with the rest of the level. Truthfully, the breakdown began at the drop, when all pretense of the level taking place in a cramped cave was thrown out the window, but at least you could pretend that it was a more open part, or something like that. Why do you even split into two? Do dragons have the ability to do that in the world that this level takes place in? That's stupid. This level is stupid.

This level looks really good, aside from a select few parts, like the checkerboard ball and the second drop, where I have no idea what the creator was even trying to do. I must have subconsciously referenced this level when making the transition into the drop in Faux Room.