Rating Curve

Fuck yes to that last third

It's very strange seeing a level you used to love a lot, then forget about it, then rediscover it and sort of like it again. This level does a lot of things that I dislike but I really love the small, simple flourishes that spice things up- stuff like the non-default tile block designs, or the usage of pre-2.2 "particles" similar to 999 by dongchi. Say what you want about this level, but you can't deny that it stands out among others around its time.

Pretty good, although I think I'm starting to feel a bit fatigued on this genre of level specifically. I think there's still some more new cool stuff you can get out of it, but I think the song choices are what's holding things back- I think had all these song choices not sounded the same these levels wouldn't have melded so much together in my mind. It's very hard for me to distinguish this level from say, GGEZ by wetols.

I will say though despite this mixed review, I'm really glad we're getting a larger volume of design levels like this. These levels as a collective work really well similar to how TamaN's levels have, and while I don't think any of their students have become the master yet, I think it'll be interesting to see where this style goes. The mountain in regards to this is wspRocky, who is one of my favorite creators in this update so far, so I'm sure that the creators involved with this style will also begin cooking in the same way Rocky does and reach that summit as well.

A good level- I'm flip-flopping between a 5 or a 6, but I think there are just too many flaws with this level to completely sell me on it- things such as the excessive guard rails put in place in the gameplay, the incoherent last third, the sound effects, the coins, etc. It's really awesome to see rafer come back and also push his style much further with all these cool new effects and the new tools the editor provides, but it's pretty clear that he's falling in a lot of the same pitfalls other creators are for 2.2, and it makes me feel a little disappointed since I think he was above these common mistakes in 2.1- levels like SLAM and In Silico are good examples of this.

I think out of all of those complaints, rafer's gameplay style is the main thing bringing his work down. I see a lot of creative ideas being put into FUNHOUSE's gameplay yet I don't find them to be very engaging in terms of execution, because 1) A lot of them give too much leniency to properly interact with them and 2) it's hard to tell what kills you and what doesn't and so it makes me not care about the gimmicks as much. It's quite a shame in FUNHOUSE's case because I think the decoration is fantastic; I can see a lot of passion put into this level's visuals which exudes a ton of fun, but the gameplay is struggling to catch up in that regard. I hope that for rafer's next project this is addressed.

Also a brief statement about the animation- I really liked it. I like how rafer uses his animations to further supplement his levels and utilize animation to execute ideas that wouldn't work/be possible in GD.

Archive pull- like Wayfinder by Ryder, this is another one of those era-ending types of levels, levels that you just don’t see represented anymore in the creating sphere. I find it pretty neat!

not too hard gremar320