Rating Curve

It feels wrong to criticize levels for being too short since length is usually a decision informed by the song used, but Aster definitely doesn't make the most out of its scant 60 second runtime either. Everything in Aster is structured very loosely, which is something that works best if it's in service to a broader characteristic, especially in demon levels. Although this might be an unfair comparison, one very successful way this might be accomplished is with a gesture towards awkward or open-ended design, like in Hollow or Grebeworld respectively. In Aster, this awkwardness is definitely present, but the sort of friction it adds lends more to flimsiness rather than memorability. The gameplay in Aster is definitely a contributor, with a lot of things that look outright arbitrary until you realize skipping them leads to dying to invisible objects, but the visuals are arguably just as flimsy in execution. There's undoubtedly a theme running, which is beautifully established in the first ship (by far the best part), but considering how few foreground objects there actually are Aster feels simultaneously aimless and busy. I actually thought I ran into an unavoidable bug towards the end because of how little direction to the player Aster bothered to offer. Polarizing has taken this sort of effect work to much better applications, especially in 2.2, so with how undercooked Aster is I'd mainly refer to it as a relevant creative milestone.

I'm sorry Arcadiac but this is not it

RaveYard was made for the NCS gauntlet contest, and actually got an epic rating which is really cool! I was prefaced to be as brutally honest as I wanted to be when Arcadiac requested this level, though I don't think the (relatively) low score comes from anything they anticipated I would complain about, given their track record of basing reviews primarily off of gameplay. I actually think the gameplay is pretty alright all the way through, and even some of the more unorthodox parts only really suffer from some bad transitions after learning them. The decoration is fine I suppose? Some parts are pretty empty or just kind of ugly, particularly the ones that rely on pixel objects, but the last part is pretty good and it's not a level ruiner.

What are level ruiners are the song choice and the transitions. I have no issue with the song representation in this level - I actually think it's painfully standard more than anything - but I think the song itself is absolutely terrible and anything that uses it is pretty much always better suited by something else. No further comments. RaveYard also has several moments where literally nothing happens, usually in transition parts but even in one part with gameplay, where the background is so dark it's basically just floating structures on a black screen. There's even a completely black screen transition (that lasts like two full seconds??) in the middle of the last part, it's so abrupt every time it happens and I was very excited to see it cleaned up in Starcadiac. Other than that, RaveYard has some great ideas and interesting gameplay, and I'm happy to see how many of them were realized in Arcadiac's later stuff.

reviewed this one on twitter sometimes great sometimes stinky