Rating Curve

What was even the point in making this level? Why was this level made? It's so boring and devoid of substance it's frustrating. All this is is Stereo Madness 10 times with some slight buffs introduced, it's blue the entire time, and the song has been replaced with a piano improv session. Oh, and the ending is a completely random chokepoint for no reason other than to add shock value and artificially inflate the difficulty of the level.

The thing that really irritates me about this level is how it presents itself. Stereo Madness x10, the original level that Stereo Sadness copies and never credits (plagiarism!), gets a pass because it tells you exactly what it is and that it's meant to be a challenge and a waste of time, nothing more. This level tries to present itself like it's something other than that when it does the bare minimum to change things up yet it goes by its own name and presents itself seriously.

If this was a tongue-in-cheek joke, it sure as hell got me. However, I can't imagine this being of comedic value to anyone, not even this level's creator. Don't waste your time with this level.

This is the first platformer I've beaten where I left feeling like it was just achieved everything it wanted to do and it's just perfect. I thought it was really cool when I first saw it albeit really confusing, but once I figured out how to go about this level and I beat it it was so satisfying and that experience was what heightened the experience for me.

When you start PCB, you're just dropped into the level without any form of introduction. You see this alien language, some text you can't read, some values you can interact with and change, and a small sense of dread from the music, beeping sounds, and this background of a vast, expansive, yet inhuman place. You have no idea what anything you're looking at is nor do you know what to do, all you know is that you need to do something. Pretty much everyone will spend their first attempt just trying every button they can yet nothing happens, they feel helpless and confused. Their time runs out, they could not escape. Time to start over.

If playing the level was the only thing the player did, this seems like everything PCB has to offer: an inexorable countdown towards an inevitable death that will always happen. To understand what's going on here, the player will need to look in the description, as there are resources to tell you what is going on and what some of the values mean. Having to use external resources to solve a GD level may be a turn-off for some people, but I really like when levels are able to incorporate external resources since this allows the creator to think outside of the metaphorical box they're locked into if they choose to only use the GD editor and nothing else. Here, I think X Future incorporated external resources to just the perfect extent. He struck a good balance between giving some useful information but not too much to the point where the path becomes immediately obvious. I've seen some comments which are like "I've read the accompanying documentation and I still have no idea what is going on!" and I think comments like those further show the brilliance in the accompanying documents. You need to really analyze everything you're looking at if you want to have any hope of breaking free of the death loop. Once you get a grip, the level essentially becomes a game of Wordle except you got sent to hell on an alien planet. It's something more digestible than the esoteric nonsense PCB looked like upon first impression, but it isn't by any means free.

Alright, we know what's all going on here, let's take a crack at trying to get out of here. Once I started to get runs where I had figured out some of the values, the amount of stress this level puts on you and the strong atmosphere this level is able to create are some of the best I've ever felt from a platformer level. You get to feel the anxiety a little bit even if you're just watching the level pass you by as you struggle to understand anything, but once you know what you're doing the level shifts into feeling like a fate you can avoid, you just don't know if you have enough time to. This level does so many small things that, during attempts, just causes the critical thinking part of my brain to just shut off. The most obvious things are the song shifting into a much more urgent despair and the level turns red and becomes distorted, but there's much more than that. PCB is rather minimal with its sound effects (using only 5 total), but X Future gets a lot of mileage out of these. There's this constant beeping throughout that almost sounds like a heartrate monitor. Halfway through, these alarm beeps come in and they feel like the type of sound that would play when there's a deadly leak somewhere (and judging by the particles that come in, maybe there is). There's this loud, deep alarm that comes in and it sounds like something that would play inside a facility that needs to be evacuated immediately. They're all things integrated so well they initiate your fight-or-flight response and take up the space in your brain you're supposed to be using to process the information that's on your screen. Another example would be the 5 seconds it takes to get results every time you submit a code. It's not too long, but it's just enough time for the player to start praying. As you start to run out of time near the end of the level, the weight of each of these seconds becomes heavier and heavier. This little wait you have to get results each time also comes with its own HR monitor-like sound to further add to your anxiety as you wait. My final example has to be the glitches that happen later in this level. There are glitchy shaders, however there are moments where a letter or number will glitch out and show the wrong value for a split second. When watching the level, this seems like something trivial but when you're sitting there fighting against your own brain to think straight, seeing the wrong number in the wrong place for just a split second sets off all the siren bells in your head makes you think you did something wrong for that split second. There's all of these things PCB does to try to get you to just stop thinking, give up, and die. However, once you know everything you need to do, the level starts to feel like a fight against your own brain and to keep concentrated and keep thinking clearly despite everything trying to get you to stop, and you have some hope. It's because of all these things that make solving the code and getting out so satisfying. You were able to control your nerves and you feel like you were able to escape an impossible fate.

I think that's everything, this level is just perfect in its execution. I've historically been terrible with puzzles, yet I absolutely loved this. If you think you're up for the challenge this level offers, please give this level a shot. Escaping has never felt so rewarding.

If you were to tell me that three legendary creators, cometface, Serponge, and AudieoVisual, were all teaming up to create a Space Gauntlet entry, I would've been absolutely pumped. With three creators who have impacted the game and have been around for years as well as having a great lineup of solo levels, the stakes are high! And...

It's because of this expectation that makes me quite disappointed with Echo Delta. I'll get what I like out of the way first. This level nails being able to establish a huge sense of scale. cometface's part is visually stunning, easily some of their best work. I also really liked the ABEL-type wave effect Audieo was able to pull off in his part. There's a lot of things that are well done here, but what has me confused is where any of these parts belong in the collab. Echo Delta feels very incohesive and it almost feels like if the three creators all made solo Space Gauntlet entries and then merged them all together. It's pretty obvious who built what due to each part standing out too much from the others, from design to theme to gameplay.

While Audieo is a creator I really like, his part is easily the weakest and I feel he didn't put his all in the way cometface did. The sense of scale of gone, the theme is much more abstract compared to cometface and Serponge. He also uses that obnoxious color flickering spawn loop for the blocks I'm glad he has been trying to move away from in recent times. The transition from Serponge's part in Audieo's is a very grating stylistic switch-up due to just how different Audieo's part is how his part seems the most like one of his more standard solo levels.

I've also got some complaints about the gameplay. It's good for the most part, but there are some things I don't like. cometface's part plays well, but it's the easiest and slowest part of the level as well as taking up almost exactly half of the level's runtime. While their part is visually amazing, it did get a little boring to have to replay every attempt. Serponge's part also plays decently well, however the free-form spider part had one click onto blue orbs that was practically blind and I died not being able to anticipate several times. When it comes to gameplay, Audieo's part is once again the weakest. I really didn't like how the gravity strength in the cube part was constantly changing without any heads-up. Outisde of that, the part itself is quite straight-forward with its gameplay so these gravity changes don't make it too hard to play, but it always catches me off guard. I complimented how good the wave part looked earlier, but don't let it distract you from how the gameplay essentially just boils down to "stay in the center of the screen at all times." The ship part right after it is basically the same thing: just keep flying in the center of the screen and you're good. While it is thematically climactic and fitting for being the final part of the level, this "gameplay" barely matches it at all. Finally, this level ends with a nearly 30 second long cutscene. It is a really cool cutscene, seeing your cube drift away in the void of space, but it could've easily been cut down in length to being just 10 seconds at most.

All in all, this level does a lot right but when it's all put together it's an underwhelming experience. I think I would've enjoyed a solo Space Gauntlet entry from any of these individual creators more than I did enjoy them all working together on Echo Delta.

The best level I'll ever make, hands down.

(THIS REVIEW CONTAINS PLOT SPOILERS! Please experience this level on your own first before reading this review!)

...What the hell did I just play. This level is a complete mess visually with almost no polishing at all, the story borders on complete nonsense where events and places seemingly just happen at random, the level spends all 7 minutes committing fully into a joke that was dead on arrival, and it's just constant chaos the entire time...

...Which is why I'm scoring this level so highly. This is a truly unique experience I've never had before when playing GD, even after over 11 years of playing. I don't care about Ohio memes being dead at this point, this level goes all in on them to such an extent that it's one of the most creative and entertaining takes on the Ohio memes I've ever seen. cw2003 GB is known for this type of madness and batshit insane storytelling, but I feel Only In Ohio Dawg is him at his very best. Despite having a story that mostly exists outside the realm of logic, the plot is continually engaging and funny with some really good moments mixed in. For the first 5 minutes, the story restrains itself a good amount before the plot twist and the title drop once the guitar solo comes in. By the way, can I mention just how great of a choice Free Bird (or a cover of Free Bird) is as a soundtrack for this level? I don't think one of the greatest guitar solos ever recorded could've been used for anything less than a shocking betrayal that throws the player right into a bossfight against a Lovecraftian horror. The intensity of the level once the guitar solo kicks in shifts up to 11 and it makes me quite nervous playing despite this level being rather easy for an XXL+ demon. With all these factors in mind, the crude art and design choices in this level fit perfectly and any higher level of polish or quality in the visuals of this level would significantly diminish the experience.

The only reason I'm not giving this level a 10 is because of the gameplay. While it plays decently well for most of the level, there are some chokepoints and blind jumps/transitions that bring down the experience some. To give an example, I died in Downtown Cleveland (the final part before the guitar solo) around 10 times total but only died after it 3 times. The Cleveland City Limits have a couple blind jumps and one of my bossfight deaths was when teleporting into a ship transition and not being able to react in time. Outside of these issues I have with the level, I would strongly recommend this to anyone looking for another XXL+ demon to play or a level with a strong story. It's not too difficult either, I would place this at around a similar difficulty as Lonely travel.

So this is a level that I never knew about until around a month and a half ago where this level was the center of some discourse on this site and its Discord server. I decided to give it a shot, and this level absolutely blew me away. It's unlike anything I've ever seen in this game before and I don't think I'll see anything similar to this level again for a long time. (Also, I'm the verifier now LOL)

I love how, not even a second in, made in timeland immediately throws the player a curveball. The level first appears as a 1.0-styled level with some text regarding NONG and also a message of good luck, kinda similar to something like Larga Espera, a level of similar length. As you do the first jump, the level switches out on you. With a crack of thunder, the level all around you disappears into black and the real level starts. The gameplay for the next two minutes consists of simple one-spike jumps in the mini cube gamemode that happen at a consistent 60BPM lining up with the beat of the song. This repetitive, simple gameplay may be a turn-off for a lot of players, and it did get boring to sit through every attempt, but it's not what I like about the part. Instead, it's the background of the level. There are these pillars of odd shapes that extend higher than the player can see, the constellations and stars seeming projected onto the sky, the bright, dream-like colors on almost every part of the level - it's a really beautiful overture to the rest of the level. The main thing here that makes this part of the level (and also the rest of the level but this is a good example) stick out to me so much is the sense of scale. The massive size of the objects in the background that the player slowly passes makes the space in the level feel absolutely colossal and the player feels tiny by comparison.

After this loud, vast, and imposing overture, the level gets darker and picks up the pace a bit more. It's at this point the level starts to get all crazy with shader usage. This is the next thing I really like about this level: how the intense shader usage works with the gargantuan atmospheres this level builds. The best example is at 19% - the extremely saturated colors combined with the color/hue inversions, the chromatic glitching, the screen splitting, and the acid-techno beat Timeland starts to go into... man, this level feels like being on a dangerous alien planet while high on acid. There's so many huge structures that seem completely foreign but at the same time every element in the level seems fitting exactly where it is yet it all feels like a dream but you're feeling so dazed and fucked up you gotta keep running... this is why I'm doubtful I'll ever experience a level like made in timeland again. There's just so much that goes into the design of this level that makes it completely unique and impactful that I don't think anyone will be able to replicate. I'd love be proven wrong, but there is just so much this level is doing that any attempt to replicate the magic of this level will very likely fall flat when the level misses one or multiple of the elements I've described.

Another part of the level I really like is how the level slows down around halfway through. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of the dual and the robot that come before this part for the same reasons I outlined in the previous paragraph, but this switch-up in particular sticks out to me. There are these houses made of desert stone and platforms of grass seemingly held up by sticks. It's in an odd space between something earthly and something that isn't, it has enough of the characteristics like a desert village yet enough things are off with it, like the sense of scale and the colors, that it still seems decently alien. The song is also going through this childlike, homely passage that further makes the part feel strange. After a really cool transition to black, next up are the "canyons" as I call them, which continue the same feelings as the last part of being between familiar and foreign. Yeah, the lips are pretty cool, but the part that piques my interest more is the second half with the ship part. This part feels a lot more claustrophobic than previous parts in the level, yet this massive sense of scale is still here and just as potent. The background in this part of the level is absolutely amazing, there's so many layers to it and it feels like a bit of a recap of everything we have seen before. Even though it is a rather slow part, it still feels anxious, urgent, and psychedelic just like most of the parts before it. It seems like everything is closing in on the player up until a fade to white. After this, we get a reprise of the beginning of the level. It's got a lot of the similar feels and designs as the first part of the level, yet there's this added calm and comfort because the level is soaked in a golden fog and the song has some near-angelic vocalizing. It's a great calm before the final part.

Oh man, this final part is something else. This ending is a huge tone shift, a big burst of intensity, and formerly the part of the level that brought made in timeland from being hard demon difficulty to an extreme demon that could've been top 300 worthy. In a lot of ways, it's comparable to the last 10% of Eon, another extremely long level that has a massive difficulty spike and tone shift at its ending. made in timeland is able to pull off a similar effect in less than a third of the length of Eon, yet the amount of difficulty this final part of the level adds to the whole makes Eon look like a kid's meal by comparison. I've got mixed feelings about this ending, but I'll start with what I like first. As an ending, it's really powerful with how fast you are going, how intense the shader usage gets near the end, but the best addition is the timer until the level ends. It's a nod to the level's song's music video, which revolves around a 15-minute timer until the song ends. However, made in timeland only uses this timer for the very end, and this makes it feel a lot more meaningful. While you'll always go at the same speed through the level since it's a classic GD level, the timer makes it feel like you're running out of time to beat the level, adding to the amount of the stress this part induces. What I don't like about this part is its gameplay, both pre-nerf and post-nerf. Before it was nerfed, this part was obscenely difficult and would take me hundreds of attempts in practice runs all the while the shader usage makes the gameplay in this part almost impossible to see and it seems like you're just blindly jumping for a minute straight. I've spoken with robtobfreak about this level some, and he told me this level wasn't really meant to be played by humans. While this player-unfriendliness can be seen in some parts before this (like the ship with the floating cubes), the ending is where this is the most glaring. There was a "noclip" mode for this part that the player could activate previously, but the level would still be impossible due to spikes that still kill the player. To fix this, robtobfreak scrapped the noclip mode altogether as well as the coins at the end the player could get from doing it legit (no one was ever getting these anyways) and just made the part automatic. Instead of physically going through the part, though, the auto would just make the player float through everything in the ending of the level and while it makes the level possible and potentially able to get rated, it kills a lot of the tension this level had before it and now it seems like just a cool short film the player sees after they get through the rest of the level before this.

Before I end this review, I want to talk about some more of the gameplay seen in the rest of the level that I'm not entirely satisfied with. As you could probably tell just by watching a video of this level, made in timeland is severely unbalanced. There's the stretches of the level I've outlined previously where you're just doing basic jumps to the beat of the song, and there's also long stretches of automatic parts in the level, but there's also some actually difficult parts randomly tossed in. My least favorite is easily the fast-paced ship at 37%. While there is a lot of open space for the player to fly around and no ground/ceiling spikes, the main hazards in this part are these cubes that float around that are really hard to predict the movement of. There are multiple instances where it seems like you could be able to get through a gap between two cubes, but as it turns out you're crushed instead. It's deceptively learny, and a lot of my deaths were at this part because I made the mistake of trying to go into a gap I didn't know would close in on me. The part goes on for a while and I couldn't remember every single cube movement, so I kinda had to trust my instincts during this ship and sometimes they would fail on me. Another less severe chokepoint would be the desert village part I talked about earlier. Especially during the UFO part, the hitboxes of the structures are a bit ambiguous and I had a lot of unexpected deaths at this part. I was able to get it down eventually, though. Outside of these two parts, the level felt too easy by comparison and I started to get bored as I was trying to beat this level.

Despite everything, would I recommend this level? Yes, but not to everyone. This is the type of XXL+ level where you need to really be into this level and how it goes if you want to come out of this level having enjoyed it. If you try beating it for the sake of beating it or because it's really long, you'll probably hate this. Other than that, please go show this level some more love as it's an underrated gem! I'd say it's a hard demon a little below Larga Espera in difficulty, nothing a skilled player with a decent amount of endurance would struggle with.

This is a level that I just randomly stumbled upon and was so impressed by it I felt I needed to write about it. I really liked what this level was able to do with just the 1.0 blocks. While bring the sun doesn't fully submit to all the restrictions of the 1.0 level editor, it still keeps itself mostly restrained and doesn't get too crazy as opposed to something like f3hcs. As a result, the designs are all simple yet effective and the gameplay is sightreadable and easy to digest. Despite this restrained approach, bring the sun still shows a lot of creativity and does something with the 1.0 blocks that I haven't really seen before.

bring the sun has this progression where you get to watch an entire day go by. You experience sunrise, sunset, and nightfall as you travel through a town, farms, forests, and space. The fact that this level is able to have all these structures that represent all these distinct all while sticking to only using 1.0 blocks and being very abstract is very impressive. Just to name a few of my favorites, I really liked how endyn used jump pads to make twinkling stars as well as for the pedals on sunflowers, the bridge over the gravity portal river, the usage of different types of the 1.0 blocks and spikes to make distinct shapes for houses, fences, animals, trees, etc. The world feels alive and interesting despite this level just being the GD-equivalent of sketching something with a pencil. The choice of a lo-fi song is also really fitting for the simpler feel this level has. The ending with being in outer space was really neat, though I'm not sure what the yellow orb field at the was supposed to represent. Overall, this was a great playing experience and one of the most unique 1.0-styled levels I've played. I highly recommend it, and it's easy enough to sightread at just 7*.

This level feels too short, yet that makes it the perfect length as well. This level feels like an all-encompassing moment of bliss that ends leaving you to think "that was it?" I love how this level starts in the void, then ascends into a high euphoria, and finally sinks back down into nothingness in just under thirty seconds. Aside from the very end, it doesn't feel like a single second is wasted here.

The brief high this level reaches is phenomenal. The first part is a hazy, somewhat confused-feeling part, and it feels kinda similar to having to adjust to light after being in the dark for so long. The part after this is blinding, yet sharper and more saturated. The rainbow-like gradient effect that moves through the blocks looks really good and they have a nice texture that helps them standout against an eye-piercing sky. I would say this part is a little too bright for my liking, but that may be an intentional choice. Anyways, ascending starts winding a little bit before the last few notes, but the way the level ends in the void so suddenly yet also right on time is such a satisfying ending paired with the last few jumps and orbs.

The gameplay is also really fun and satisfying to do, but I still have some minor complaints with it. First off, the level is very frontloaded with its difficulty. While the first 30% or so is well above hard demon difficulty and is where most of ascending gets its difficulty, the level is basically free once you get to about 60%, you just have to not be stupid. In fact, I fluked this level from 26% when I beat it! The orb arrangements in this level are really learny and difficult to sightread and the majority of timings and click patterns are harder than they look. While they did become very satisfying to do in normal mode once I got them down, they were a bit infuriating to learn. Other than that, I really liked playing this level! It would be pretty easy to knock out if you've got at least insane demon skill level, though I wouldn't recommend it to someone looking for entry-level hard demons despite that being the difficulty I would consider this level to be.

For almost every level trying to make a statement or really utilize Geometry Dash as a medium of art, I will always hold some amount of respect for them regardless of whether or not I think they're good or bad because I respect being bold and trying to do something more than just existing. However, in the radiator (which I'll call ITR for short) is past the realm of "agree to disagree" and it trying to make an artistic statement does not shield from the fact that is conceptually bad, horribly executed, and is a peek into an extremely self-destructive mindset, all of which are why I hold zero respect for this level.

I'll start by talking about the level itself. There is almost nothing to actually talk about inside ITR, it is roughly 4 minutes of an automatic level where the player drifts through a black void with quiet ambient music. I don't particularly like it nor do I particularly hate it, I just don't feel anything at all when I "play" the level. That's because none of the substance of the level is actually within the level itself. Instead, it's all in a pastebin found in the description of the official YouTube upload of the level. The pastebin has since been taken down, but an archival of it can be found here. I immediately take issue with this approach because it takes the route of "tell, don't show." While wless does try to explain in the pastebin some of the stylistic choices inside ITR, none of it changes the fact that the level itself is extremely boring. Whether or not they chose to make it this way does not change the fact that the level is inherently flawed. The level itself is so devoid of substance that the level could straight up not exist and wless could've just released the pastebin and not much would change. The pastebin's attempts at explaining away the problems of the level comes off similarly if an artist were to have a near-blank canvas and tried to write over 2400 words on how this canvas with almost nothing it was actually some subversive statement piece about art itself and the art market; they would look ridiculous and be laughed out of the room. Let's just call a spade a spade.

And now for the pastebin itself, while I don't agree with its message, I still want to talk about what I don't like about it. When I read it, it struck me as (1) extremely cynical, (2) very pretentious, and (3) a little bit doomer. wless talks about how the general norm for rating levels is starting to centralize on a "monogenre," experimentation is discouraged, and the GD mods and RobTop are the ones at fault for letting the rating system reach a point like this. While I do partially understand where they are coming from (though I think they are greatly exaggerating these problems), the tone of this pastebin and the general way they communicate their ideas makes me very uncomfortable and slightly concerned. Throughout the pastebin, wless seems to generalize all GD into two groups: those which fully cater to the standards and ones that don't at all. It's a very black-and-white way of looking at things. wless also carries this tone of being smarter and more lucid than the children who play this game and anyone who builds a level which caters to the standards in any way, even at one point in the pastebin calling themselves a "radical" (you aren't some unheard genius, you're just a 16-year-old with a shitty attitude). There is no other way to quantify someone who calls the rating system "the demise of creativity and experimentation" other than a doomer who gets themselves caught in slippery slopes and black-and-white fallacies.

The more I read this pastebin, the more it solidifies me giving this a solid 0. While I will almost always respect statement levels, I just can't do that when the statement in question is a look into a very self-destructive mindset and the level itself is just a hollow experience. The fact I feel nothing when I play the level while wless built it to express bottled up frustrations they've had for a long time is another failure of the level to properly convey emotions. ITR is just a something completely rotten, through and through.

This is one of the most reviewed levels on this site as well as one of the most divisive levels on this site, and right now I'm bored so I'll put in my two cents.

I don't love this level but I also don't hate it either. I've got some mixed feelings towards Rage Quit. Visually, it's one of the best levels to come out of 2024. It's also widely influential due to how cinematic the level is with its excessive 4th wall breaks and its attempts to divert the player's expectations whenever possible. The really big problem that Rage Quit suffers from, however, is how unfocused the level can seem at times. Rage Quit can be unfocused to the point where select sections of the level make the whole level feel like a senseless product made so bli can flex his GD editor knowledge in the flashiest way possible. The two most glaring examples of this have to be the ship parts where the designs are constantly shifting for no apparent reason, or the second half of the first cube where the player flies of the screen, the player enters Dash, the futuristic eye appears, and there is a fake-out level exit... I don't even know how to properly summarize this part of the level. What's unfortunate is that are some legitimately cool things this level does, like the original 4th wall break setting the stage for the rest of the level after the player is confused at why they couldn't pass the first spike, or when the level does this again after the player somehow crashes into the completion wall. It's this extra layer of nonsense that surrounds these cool concepts that sours this level for me.

Another reason I'm split by Rage Quit is its gameplay. The gameplay is also not particularly good or bad, rather there's just not a lot of it. When levels choose to be ultra cinematic, gameplay quality is often shoved aside. This often takes one of two roads: (1) there is a lot of gameplay but it's unsightreadable, confusing, and frustrating, or (2) the level has sizeable stretches where it is just automatic or the gameplay is very simple. For the most part, Rage Quit takes road 2, which still isn't very good in a level, but it's very preferable to road 1. Despite this, there are still moments par for road 1 in Rage Quit. The most commonly complained about is the red part of Stereo Madness, where a silhouette figure is destroying the nine screens GD is being played on in a fit of rage. On your first playthrough, you don't know which screens he will break, so when he breaks the screen you are looking at, you're most likely dead due to not being able to react and adapt in time. A less severe example would also be the final ship part; I have a friend who, on a blind playthrough, did not realize it was a ship part due to the player being a cube, thus dying. Outside of these parts, I'd say the level's gameplay is fine.

TL;DR some great designs and ideas, but way too unfocused in execution and lacking in the gameplay department. "Hype Moments and Aura" was invented by bli when he released this level.