Rating Curve

Super boring. Really lame song, introduces no new features. This is the level I forget about most

The best Meltdown level, owing in large part to the song and how Rob builds to the song

I think it's important to recognize that Jumper was the original final level in the first version of the game. When I first beat this level, it was after an update to GD Lite and was the final level there for a while too. I think this level is a great original final level, getting the most out of the game's core feature, jumping! It also throws a final insane twist that no prior level has done - upside down flying! I think it's quite remarkable for a final level to still be introducing new mechanics like that, tho it's likely Rob had always intended to keep adding more and more levels with new gimmicks from the beginning. Still though, jumper is a level that made me really impressed as a kid with how you could combine 2 previously introduced simple mechanics to make a new interesting one!

The gameplay is very fun. The jumps are spaced in ways that are require you to hone your reading ability, not just memorize. Gameplay that is fun and challenging to learn to sightread is my favorite!

I've been told this is one of the worst epic rated level in the whole game lmao.

idk, I enjoyed it :P

gameplaywise it's pretty fun, especially the dual-ball swingcopter sections. The visuals are way too bright and flashy

The OG cubes story!

It's a very charming level. And is fun to watch in its entirety, which is not something you can say about many GD animations nowadays.

My favorite of the original 3. I think the cinematography is best here and I'm particularly impressed with myself for using move triggers to shake the screen (even though that is pretty simple tbh)

If this was an online level I might just call it an ok level, but I have different standards for the official levels, and Dash utterly fails to do what it should as the intro 2.2 level.

It doesn't dedicate enough gameplay to exploring its mechanics, they're all shoved into one level just to show them off. Really, these mechanics could have been more fleshed out over 3 levels. Swing gameplay isn't really meaningfully explored even though this level introduces the gamemode. There are just a couple basic swing sections. The spider orb is used just twice in places that do not at all really show the unique gameplay potential of that gameplay element, it could have been replaced with a blue orb easily. The arrow trigger gameplay is barebones and in one case shoved inappropriately at the start just to fit one unique arrow trigger segement in somewhere. So this level overall just doesn't have a strong mechanical identity.

The gameplay is very dull and does not capture the energy of the song, you can tell Rob really rushed to get this finished. The art is lame, just another lava dungeon which we've basically had for 2 other levels in a row now, and in Meltdown and Subzero and seemingly in the upcoming Explorers level. Dash looks just Fingerdash but messier, which is a shame cuz I think there is potential even in this style for something unique looking. Rob just couldn't put enough time into it.

Press Start from Subzero would have been by far a superior 2.2 intro level despite having less mechanics and visual effects, Press Start is fun and exciting, Dash is genuinely just boring. 3rd worst official level.

The first time you enter this level, you're hit immediately with pure demon aura. Like you know this is fucking serious. The Clubstep monster is just such an iconic symbol, it shows how much Rob really cooked with this level. Clubstep fills the role of first official demon perfectly.

The spirit of Clubstep embodies both the archetypes of a classic trickster and the devil. It feels like Clubstep is an evil horrifying place covered in saws, spikes, and chains. Where the world is made out of monsters, immobile and unfeeling but still very much alive with their beating eyes. The level feels designed by a malicious force (devil), but there's also a sort of meta humor to the traps that are placed (trickster!). The gameplay is filled with fakes and traps that I wouldn't call fair, but when you die to them they make you go "Oh you cheeky bastard Rob ;)". So there's a lot of hate and anger and despair experienced while trying to beat Clubstep for the first time but also a background humor to it. That combined with the visuals of monsters carved into and creating all the block structures, and the background colors, really makes it like you're flying through some kind of Hell Circus. I think this feeling of flying through monsters' mouths and guts that make up the blocks themselves, like the monsters ARE the world, is felt much more powerfully through the classic GD style than a more modern artistic style could achieve. It's more immersive, not like art painted on top of gameplay. For sure the majority of one's experience beating this level for the first time leans more on the hell side, it's pretty painful and difficult. But I find I always appreciated how the traps were designed, and now the difficulty after the level has become easy for me.

In terms of enjoyability, this level is very fun, it's one of the official levels I go back to routinely to replay for the fun of it. While the trickstery gameplay is something people have moved away from in modern GD, I think it was very appropriate for the first official demon level at that time. Solid gameplay, decent visuals, ULTRA SOLID AURA

Best official demon as of 2.2. I love how 2 of 2.0's core gameplay features were saved for this locked demon level, green orbs and teleportals.

Deadlocked has so much personality. It kinda feels like the "dark side" of 2.0. 2.0 was teased with pictures of pretty new blocks, but also an ominous line "Here Be Dragons" so it's like Geometrical Dominator was the good side frolic through the flowers, and Deadlocked is its dark counterpart. Symbolically I think this is best represented in Deadlock's memory ship section. Unlike GeoDom's dark section, this one is a real memory heavy section using moving objects, something many people today don't actually like but I think is very appropriate as an introduction official level to how moving objects can be used in gameplay. This section features rainbow blocks in each of the blocks, which seems to clash with the general hardcore vibe of the level but it kinda reminds you this is like a dark mirror to the cheerier colorful 2.0 entry Geometrical Dominator.

The style is very nice, a toxic water / lava dungeon, something that unfortunately has become Rob's new generic style. The gameplay is also solid all around, with some fresh gimmicks for its time like the blue/red ball section, monster bossfight, moving object memory ship, and teleportal shenanigans.

Aura-wise, Deadlocked excellently embodies the spirit of an official demon like Clubstep did.

Geometrical Dominator is an exciting introduction to 2.0! The 2.0 feature I think it introduces best is "unlimited" color channels. This level is SUPER colorful and boldly declares 2.0 as THE paradigm shifting update in terms of design.

GeoDom also has the best section out of any official level which is the dark section. The game never tells you how to read it, and many people still think it's a fully memory section, but in fact there are indicators for every jump that appear for about a second before you reach the platform. This turns this section into reaction time sightreading gameplay, which is a kind of gameplay I think is severely underused.

The level does fall off after the dark section tho, both in gameplay and visuals. This is a trend with robtop levels, moreso in the newer ones that require more production quality on his part. It seems Rob just gets burned out on the rest of the level and rushes it.