Rating Curve

Looking at CabeGMD’s account, they seem to be relatively new to creating. For how little they’ve made, Lost in Time is a really good showing of their potential. They have a pretty simple and somewhat outdated approach to block design, but the approach works due to the nature of their style. Some parts need more work than others, like the second parts bright and distracting white outlines, but other parts blend in nicer. Lost in Time is highly background focused, letting the player take in what they’re seeing in the distance. While they’re still pretty unpolished, they’re executed stronger than any other elements in my opinion, so I like seeing what they have going on for them. There is one exception to all of what I’ve been saying so far though, which is the part at 0:38. Out of nowhere, Lost in Time starts to look amazing! You can still tell that it’s a little bit amateur, but the train and mountains in the background look fantastic, and I think the unique cluster of blocks for block design works extremely well with the part given. At the drop, the blocks take another step back, but the background is extremely detailed now. It’s super cool, but the extreme amount of detail does contrast pretty heavily from everything else in the level, which brings it down a bit. Overall, I think that CabeGMD is a creator with a lot of potential. While they still have to work on their polishing skills, the train part makes me really excited for their future, and I think this level could potentially earn a Star Rating despite it only being their second level.

JamAttack’s most recent creator contest has seen a ton of high effort entries, and The Gem Factory is no exception to that. The main rule of the contest is that it’s supposed to be in a similar style to JamAttack’s levels, and while The Gem Factory does this, it loses a bit of the JamAttack charm in the process. Generally, the designs are pretty good in this level. It’s not nearly as polished as JamAttack’s levels are, but that’s to be expected. My main issue with The Gem Factory is due to the theming and song representation. The factory theming in this level isn’t bad, but it feels pretty basic. There isn’t much more to the theme than just “factory” which is a bit of a let down considering JamAttack has made a factory based level before, but with the additional gimmick of it being full of jam. On top of this, I think that the song choice brings down The Gem Factory a ton.

For some reason, Luminous chose to use the elevator song from RobTop’s platformer level The Sewer, a consistently intense song used to portray a chaotic escape scene of sorts. It isn’t a song very fit for a classic level, as the repetitive nature and lack of changing intensities limits the creator's ability on progression a ton. I still admire that they attempted to have different segments you run through, but they don’t change up enough to stand out from each other. Overall, The Gem Factory was a level that I believe was a bit too ambitious for the creator. Luminous did a good job at creating a theme, but the lack of variety and a poor song choice brings it down quite a bit. I still think it could receive a Star Rating, but I hope Luminous learns from this advice and puts more consideration into these things in the future, as they have a lot of potential.

GetFixedBoi is a super challenging Jump King styled level inspired by Terraria. While I’m not all too familiar with Terraria myself, only having basic knowledge, I can see the influence, and I think it resulted in a pretty cool level. There’s a ton of variation as you climb higher and higher, and while that’s to be expected from a Jump King level, it’s always greatly appreciated. Every part is recognizable because of all the variation, giving the player a clear idea of how far in they are. Gameplay wise, it’s about what you would expect from a difficult Jump King level. It does have a few things that stand out though, like an ice slope gimmick that adds significant challenge to the level, as well as things like sidequests. While I enjoy this level quite a bit, I do think that all the glow on the visuals combined with the colors can make things feel murky at times. Because of this, the level can look a bit blurry which makes it feel off as a result. Despite this hiccup, I like what GetFixedBoi has to offer. It isn’t a very revolutionary level, but I admire what it does, and I think a Featured Rating would be well deserved.

I have absolutely no idea what I’m looking at when playing this level. I can sense that somewhere in this collage of objects that there are some pretty unique and awesome looking designs, but JotaDeX is the definition of overcooked. While I can really appreciate a crazy level with a ton going on, JotaDeX is perhaps the most extreme example I’ve seen of overdecoration to the point where everything blurs together. From the designs to the colors and effects, everything is super bright and chaotic. Due to how challenging it is to make anything out in this level, the gameplay is quite frustrating by nature. It’s surprisingly readable in the first half, but when the drop hits, all sense of readability is completely gone. I truly do admire this creator's dedication to his craft, but this level is simply not for me. Sometimes less is more, and I think that IDegelI might benefit from taking a bit of a step back and adopting this mindset.

MannyHeffley is a creator that’s been on my radar for quite a while. Everyone now knows him for his masterpiece Extreme Demon, Menace, but before that, he was known for his level Peenos. The quality of his decoration was a lot lower a few years back, but I’ve always seen the potential in his ideas. 1984 by George Orwe was a level of his that actually slipped under my radar completely, and although I was surprised to realize I had missed out on a MannyHeffley level, the level at hand has not aged particularly well. This came out after his first 3 levels, including Peenos, but I think it looks a good amount worse than them.

That isn’t to say that 1984 is without its good aspects, though, as it has a lot of creative gameplay ideas. It’s a bit learny, but once you get it down, it can be a pretty fun level. I really like the part at the drop especially with the gravity portals, as the effect of them rotating is super satisfying. Still though, I’m really not a fan of this level visually. The colors are pretty all over the place, often having some pretty strange combinations that result in a murky feeling. The designs are off putting too, since most of it utilizes default blocks in really strange ways. The whole thing just feels pretty incohesive, with the default block and spike parts feeling essentially unfinished. Even though this is probably MannyHeffleys worst decoration in a finished level, I still appreciate how 1984 shows Manny’s potential as a creator. He tried a bunch of ideas out, with a few working and a lot falling short, but it’s still a level full of ideas nonetheless.

Armarillo was Jayuff’s first level of update 2.1, and for an early 2.1 level, it’s aged surprisingly well. It still shows its age, but Jayuff was a pioneer in the creating scene for many years, so I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising how well he was able to transition into 2.1. His older levels took the approach of having super simple block designs to make the backgrounds stand out, of which there were many different ones with different ideas. The background at 25% in particular is still really good in my opinion, and could easily be put in a modern day level without question. Of course, Amarillo is still an early 2.1 level, so it wouldn’t be without issues. The wheel part at 50% has aged especially poorly, as the gimmick was still pretty new. Jayuff was one of the first to do this wheel gimmick, and although it was pretty cool at the time, it looks and plays very awkwardly nowadays. It’s pretty buggy as well, with the cube jittering around pretty badly when going backwards. Still though, Amarillo is a very charming level. I love all of the movements keeping it alive, and the colors are very smooth, especially for using yellow, which is notoriously difficult to pull off. Even though it doesn’t stand out much in 2025, Amarillo was a great level when it came out, and one of many of Jayuffs levels that changed the creating scene forever.

Aspid Adytum is a remake of Serpents Shrine by LmAnubis that’s gone super unnoticed since releasing over 2 years ago. While most people know that Serpents Wrath already has a fantastic sequel, Aspid Adytum is a much more faithful take on the level. The gameplay is similar to the original level, although harder, using entirely 1x speed and older gamemodes. As a level remake, the snake theme is much more subtle here, but I still think it does a successful job at theming. The atmosphere is dark and mysterious, very fitting of the song it uses, and the colors help solidify an evil but cold feeling.

While Aspid Adytum is fairly simple, I really like how this level looks. The designs are really effective at helping the theme, and there’s plenty of variation to keep it interesting. There’s also some cool moments where there’s bursts of fire to the song that keep the level from feeling repetitive. If there’s one main thing I would want more of from the level, though, it would be movements. The creator experimented a little with them at 0:36 with success, but this is sadly the only point in the level where this occurs. It results in the level feeling a bit static overall, although it doesn’t bring it down too much, as there are still some nice animated elements here and there. Overall, I quite enjoy this level, and I really appreciate level remakes like this one. It isn’t too over-detailed, and mainly just focuses on atmosphere while updating the designs to feel modern, but not realistic like a ton of remakes nowadays. This level has gone too unnoticed in my opinion, and I really hope that it receives a Featured Rating at some point.

DECAY has intrigued me for a long time, but for some reason, I never got around to playing it. I finally played it today, and I understand all the hype that was around it when it dropped. DECAY is a beautiful platformer with strong world building. You enter a world as a little creature that gets informed that it’s decaying and has a limited time left. You progress through a world utilizing your legs to make jumps, until you lose your legs from the decaying the further in you go. This was a really smart way to change up the platforming, and it isn’t close to the only way the level changes up. As you progress, you go higher and higher up in a world in the sky, each one having a different vibe that brings a new feeling to the world around you. I was a big fan of how a storm worsened as you progressed through the last segment, really emphasizing the sense of urgency to get to the ending before you decay away. When you reach the end, there’s a bitter but sweet ending that shows that life goes on. I’m being a bit vague to avoid spoiling anything, but it’s a super nice and emotion filled way to wrap up the short adventure that you travelled on.

As a pure platformer, it isn’t the most outstanding thing of all time. DECAY was relatively early into 2.2, so the gimmicks playability wise were fairly simple. Honestly though, I think this is fine. There’s still some unique ideas I loved, like the Golem creatures that walk back and forth, requiring you to jump on their heads. The characters have fantastic character design overall, with each one being super varied and well animated. Speaking of animation, the level as a whole felt very fluid and pretty. From the animation of the character you play as, to small details like frogs that croak and jump around, Vegtam put a ton of love and care into DECAY, and it really shows. Only a few things stood out to me as a bit of a negative, such as the camera when you switched from left and right, along with the lag due to all the details in the level. However, these really couldn’t take me away from how breathtaking this level was. Overall, I think that the Legendary Rating for this was well deserved. DECAY isn’t completely groundbreaking gameplay wise as a platformer, but it’s one that makes for a fun and very memorable experience with fantastic decoration.

For My Girlfriends is one of the biggest anomalies of a Rated Level in all of Geometry Dash. The original version of this level was about what you would expect from a Star Rated level in 2.0, being a pretty nonsensical collage of a bunch of different ideas to varying levels of success. Some parts, like the ship at 0:11, seemed to be essentially unfinished and amateur, like someone that was creating for the first time. The level ended with some very funny cursive text saying “I love you girls” after a rainbow segment saying stop the hate. Most people don’t know about this version, as it’s basically lost media now. The only footage I can find of this was a video from Golden from 5 years ago, with every other video being the current version that most people know.

The current version of For My Girlfriends is a bit of a mess. Tygresek tried to save the level with updated decoration, but it resulted in a super odd mix of styles between the updates, with the first few parts looking especially empty and outdated. The ending of the level is now the infamous wall of text explaining the “meme” behind the level. It says that in 2017, Tygresek entered a relationship from GD that became polyamorous, leading to Tygresek having 2 girlfriends. It then says “Mistakes happen.” before throwing you into a ridiculously out of place wave challenge. This wave challenge makes the ending extremely difficult, and is the main reason a lot of people even know the level.

A lot confuses me about this level. Why did parts at the start in the original version appear to be a complete joke, but not any other part? Why does the level end in a ridiculous wave challenge, bringing more attention to the level rather than allowing Tygresek to leave it in the past? Finally, my biggest question of all… why does the story make no sense? The very start of it claims it was a meme started by a relationship they were in from 2017, but the level was made over 9 years ago… Between 2015 and 2016. The story also cuts short. Why did Tygresek call it a mistake? Why do they call the level a meme when it appeared to be a serious level initially? Honestly, I don’t even think I want to know. For My Girlfriends is an odd level with a very questionable backstory, and I think it’s hilarious that a level this peculiar is Star Rated to this day.

It’s very rare that I can say I don’t understand the hype for a level at all, but I truly meant it when I first said that about Centipede by zander12. Centipede is an Extreme Demon Nine Circles level, estimated to place around top 25 on the Demon List. While this isn’t very new, the contents of the level clearly… don’t shine above the rest. Nine Circles came out over a decade ago, and we’ve seen thousands of levels utilizing the gimmick over the years. While I don’t dislike Nine Circles levels, you need to do something to make them stand out for today's standards, which Centipede simply doesn’t do. Centipede is a fairly basic take on the style all things considered, with the designs mostly reminiscent of the 1.9 era. However, the execution is where I take problems with Centipede. 

I honestly don’t enjoy the visuals at all here. It’s a mix of the Nine Circles style with 2019 styled Glow Design, and the combination of these 2 styles clash drastically. All of the structures feel clunky and out of place, and there’s an absurd amount of dark objects at the top and bottom constantly filling the screen with clutter, on top of chains that directly go over all of the decoration. On top of a color scheme utilizing a less than ideal looking green, Centipede feels like a messy Nine Circles level far away from the quality we’ve seen in Nine Circles levels even from 2.0. Despite all of this, Centipede has attracted a very large fanbase with people constantly begging for it to get Star Rated. Why is this?

I’ve tracked the success of Centipede compared to the quality down to a few things. FIrst of all, it really isn’t a terrible level. While I’m personally very harsh on it, it doesn’t do anything too outrageous to warrant it not getting Star Rated, as well as clear effort put into aspects of the wave designs. The level is also very hard and verified by a top player, which will always bring lots of love to any level that releases. Finally, the general community doesn’t care deeply for originality or quality. To most people, Centipede does enough to satisfy them as a viewing experience. While I don’t personally agree, I can somewhat see the appeal. I really wish that Centipede did more to feel original, especially when lacking great execution while using a style so overdone like Nine Circles, but in all reality, Centipede isn’t even the worst Nine Circles level out there of this difficulty. In all reality, it’s far from it. I don’t think I’ll ever like Centipede very much, but overall, there’s a high demand for the level that I can somewhat understand after thinking it through. When the majority of the community thinks a level of passable quality should be awarded, I think that it could still be overall beneficial to see Centipede receive a Star Rating, despite its glaring issues.