Rating Curve

I was ready to pin this down as another top-echelon modern level (which I also assumed was like three years older than it actually is) but the rainbow ufo part and everything after it are so stunningly beautiful that I think Equilibrio deserves more than just that. That's not the say the first half is a letdown, I love the style and how each part has its own visual theme running, but the rainbow part probably singlehandedly carried this score by like a point ITS SO FUCKING GOOD HOW IS THIS REAL

I don't expect every level like this to really get the attention they deserve on account of them actually being pretty common, but I think going out of your way to look for cute and understated levels is a good strategy for hidden gem hunting. Or just get AudieoVisual to send you twenty of them at once the choice is yours

Would have been a 10 if I liked the song at all like I love you Lockyn but this is not it

I never really go out of my way to look for cool Jayuff levels but when one crosses paths with me it's always a great time. Special FX is an incredibly joyous level and it evidently had a lot of influence flowing both in and out of it. 2019 was definitely a great year for chill modern and effect levels, all of which may as well be evident in Special FX entirely. Although I wish I could say only good things about it, the level does have several points where all the colors and art are starkly absent for a transitional moment. The other main level I would relate this to is Adust, which also has some very annoying and completely empty parts where you just do a couple triple spikes, and both levels are unspeakably held back by it. Special FX is also very crusty in its design at times, with some relatively subtle things that would probably be sanded off if the level were released closer to the present, but for me it just elevates the whimsical charm levels from the time had and it's hard to say the level's even worse off for it in the first place. Jayuff also knows exactly how much energy to put into each part of their creations, and especially in the second half the balance is met perfectly. Enduring classic as always from them lol

Incredible that no one's reviewed this yet lol

Foremost, the backgrounds in this level are really special! Since this is AudieoVisual's second rated level I think it's accurate to prescribe them as experimental, which is really fun since all the rotating lines and shapes feel like something that anyone with a vision like Audieo's would love to just mess around with. I even did something in my own first level, Sketchbook, and it was even the first thing I ever made for it. I see AudieoVisual's early progression as a creator very similarly to Wulzy's, and if you know my thoughts on his levels it's clear where the score comes from for Mind Game. The style that would later get developed into more popular levels also started to shine through in this level, much more so than the prior MyByCy. Other than some phenomenal backgrounds I don't have too much to say on this one, it's a really chill and readable level that anyone could really get invested in.

Obviously I don't have as much profound stuff to say about Rivers of Nazareth as I did Caraspace so I'll keep it short but my ambivalence toward this level (especially against Audieo's other levels lately) is mostly due to the playing experience. I'm not too experienced with extremes so I won't be too harsh on an otherwise remarkably well-received level but it's very clear when playing it that Audieo isn't that experienced of a player himself. If anything it reminds me of when I try to build extreme gameplay - the sync is very flimsy at times, most of the parts are very awkward (until you learn them, presumably) and overall it just feels undercooked. It's not really satisfying to pull of in the same way that some similar levels are, if that makes sense. I don't have a huge problem with the player being in the center like many people seem to,but because the level is so obnoxiously bright it just feels a little too daunting to try and get this otherwise straightforward gameplay down. It's just really not for me.

I think the effects in this level range from decent yet uninteresting to genuinely really creative. The last ship, although it's probably the worst playing part, is absolutely gorgeous and justifies a lot of the design choices made earlier very well. Rivers of Nazareth employs a ton of divine and astral imagery, hence the name, and although I don't think this level is as strong in theming as it is effects it's definitely worth the rough deviation from AudieoVisual's baseline aesthetic. Also seeing this level get legendary was really cool, certainly deserved for the hard work!

AudieoVisual, like a lot of popular 2.1 creators, has been on an even more incredible run in the new update. His style is generally defined by a lot of bright and colorful glow with often more simple design and structuring, and despite thinking that the addition of shaders and particles to the mix wouldn't pan out very well that's certainly proven to not be the case. Caraspace is a great remake of Audieo's first level, Turtle Smack, and is a very good case for this sort of reimagining, certainly better than Bli's Magic Travel. Caraspace is arguably a little too literal of a remake, with almost boringly 1:1 improvements and keeping a lot of aspects that actually held Turtle Smack back, like the sudden white backgrounds towards the beginning. The circular part around the midpoint of Caraspace is obviously phenomenally executed, and seeing that sort of part fully realized over the haphazard original attempt is cute, but that sort of ingenuity is somewhat lacking in the new things Caraspace brings to the table.

However, what I feel is a vastly underdiscussed aspect of Caraspace is actually how it ties in with many of AudieoVisual's older levels, not just his first. The sort of vibrant rainbow glow style that put Audieo on the map is gradually giving way to what we've been getting lately with more effect-based levels like Limeade and even Back on Dash. As such, Caraspace feels like a heartfelt farewell to the levels like On And On that served as landmarks for Audieo's evolving yet persistent style, and for that (in large combination with a really sweet ending) Caraspace is certainly up there with his best.

This is farther down in the queue but an update has made this level relevant recently so I'll hop on the bandwagon! The first thing I really considered about the level was the name, especially since it was just a line of text in a spreadsheet to me until yesterday. I do have very uncontroversial opinions about self-deprecating level names, including the related Bli levels Absolute Garbage and Trash Level, but once I thought about it more and got around to playing it, Objectively Garbage is definitely worthy of the title. Both Bli levels have a similar double meaning, simultaneously a description of the theme and a funny jab at poor level criticism, but Ydo takes both far further, being unapologetically raw in detail and structuring, and of course with a masterfully tongue-in-cheek spin on what poor level criticism looks like nowadays. Both are so bizarre in their execution that it makes it really hard to dismiss out of hand, which I can appreciate.

I hate spending such a large part of a review talking about unrelated things but I unfortunately don't have a ton to say about the level itself. While I certainly don't mind levels being messy, I think this one in particular should have leaned harder into parts like the ship, which use the array of blocks and slopes as a landscape and theme with more coherent foreground elements to develop it. The crusher part was really fun to figure out and I think they mesh really well with the more chaotic elements of the part. However, as Objectively Garbage develops it both becomes even messier and strays further away from its central ethos. The robot, for instance, feels less like a junkyard and more like having a ton of overlapping slopes and slabs was the entire point, which considering my praise of the balance this level strikes given the title is a bit of a letdown. I enjoyed playing through it - I don't think I would enjoy beating it but it was fun to figure out - but it's another thing that devolves along the runtime. For its strengths early on, though, Objectively Garbage is a very welcome play on both words and an abrasively unpolished style.

Harder than back on mountain

I LOVE YOU WHOEVER SUBMITTED THIS

Regret Cave is one of my favorite 1.9 levels ever and it's also probably the most underrated. This level got massively overshadowed by the whole thing with it being superbuffed and becoming the hardest 7 star and then being nerfed again, and I think that's way less interesting than the level itself. In fact, none of what I think is interesting about Regret Cave has to do with the old buffed version and I like the current version better anyway. Even so, my attraction towards Regret Cave doesn't have as much to do with gameplay or even the incredibly well aged visuals. Like very few levels from the era have, Regret Cave has captured the simultaneous retrospective goofiness and preserved sincerity of 1.9 levels in a way that really stuck with me. Even the song, one of the classics from DJ-Nate, is at once adorable, powerful, and impossible to take seriously. In the midsection with the buffered yellow orbs along with the pulses in the song, it's so fucking stupid but it just works perfectly.

Regret Cave is a pretty archaically designed level, maybe even a little bit amateur for the time, but when the drop hits and the gradient finally fades in it's a magical moment. People always cite Lonely Travel for the grayscale to full color transition but this level precedes it and does it just as effectively in way less time!! The effect itself is also AMAZING looking even now, and especially when the color comes back towards the end I think it's still the most creative standard use we've gotten out of the 4 color channel restriction ever, GDPS or otherwise. Animations and art in 1.9 are cool and all, but the really cool stuff lies in effect and color work and I wish more people were doing that. Incredible level

Really sweet level concept that I'm not sure I've really seen before! As a developing creator myself it's actually very fun to see people's own journeys up from the kinds of levels they'll probably be embarrassed of later, and to me at least it's much more interesting than creators who just happen to hit it on their first try. My old levels absolutely sucked, and even my first completely finished level wasn't anywhere near great. It's really great to see that the creator(s?) of this level found their footing quickly though, since pretty much anything from day 4 onward was very solid and certainly enjoyable on its own merits.

I was also asked by the requester to guess what update this level was made in. I didn't quite know what to expect from this question since this seems like a very 2.1 coded idea, right? I didn't know people were looking back as fondly on their older catalogs when this level was made, which turns out to be a LOT older than I expected. Creator Growth Story has a SEVEN digit ID, putting it solidly in middle of 1.9, around the age of Sequence by Woogi. Admittedly I should have been tipped off by the creator being Minus, a very talented ~1.7-2.0 creator and one of the collaborators on Colorful Overnight, but it seems like the material this level draws from is probably not all theirs, crediting a few other old creators in the description. Admittedly knowing that this level isn't a solo is a bit of a letdown, but it's still incredibly cute with a nice montage-y song to match, and although I think any future iteration on this concept wouldn't be that interesting at least we have this.

I don't have a ton to say about Before the Square that hasn't been said already but finally getting around to playing this level was very worth it! For the most part this level is a phenomenal revisit to older mechanics of difficulty, truly feeling like a labor of love for how levels played before waves, duals, and straightfly changed the formula. Whether it's through memory or just a gesture towards the awkward, Puueds very effectively captured the fun and unique puzzle aspects of old top demons while putting a very welcome modern sheen over the top. There's a very commendable level of frictionless towards this level, and for that I think if you do enjoy that puzzle old levels provide (such as myself) Before the Square is a must play.

I know I say this in most of my reviews at this point, but Puueds has absolutely been on an incredible run for some time now. With projects ranging from Pulse, an atmospherically moody and repetitive 2 player level, to Calm Frenzy, a manic effect level with what I can only concisely describe as deconstructed dual gameplay, Puueds levels always have something going on that really gives them that magic touch, distinct to all other levels including his own. No two of his levels are anything alike, and so playing Before the Square was as much of a visual surprise as one in gameplay. Unfortunately, the visuals happen to be both an incredible strength and easily the strongest weakness of the level. The drop of Before the Square takes a sudden switch into a colorful and unpolished effect style. While it's a great and chaotic part on its own, it's a letdown of magnitudes I haven't found words for. I absolutely love the approach to including imagery of temples and lost maps in the first half, and it synergizes perfectly with the gameplay style. I'm not even sure how you come up with the idea of exploring lost temples for forgotten relics and cultural glimpses in the context of GD, but it's so fucking genius and I wish it was developed even a little bit more. Before the Square is so close to a 10 and it's certainly a high point in Puueds's insane running catalog.