Rating Curve

there's been a lot of fuss about how this level is way too flashy and intense, so when playing it i was surprised to learn how tame it actually is. the gameplay is a total bore and the strange lack of pulses makes it feel quite anticlimactic, which is felt especially in the second half. i actually didn't mind how flashy the visuals are—they can work well with such an overstimulating song—but there's little substance to back them up here; it's surface level intensity that isn't felt at all when playing it. there just isn't much for me to really latch onto here

whenever you start a new level, the first thing you do is choose a song for it, and as such serves as the foundation for which the entire level is built upon. if that foundation is shaky, say if the song isn't very good, drags on too long, or starts/ends at an inopportune time, the whole level you've so carefully built on top of it will be shaky as well. and if your foundation has already been used in 56 other rated levels, then it may as well be made out of quicksand.

i love still's visual style, but the song it uses is just white noise to my ears which really kills any immersion it may have. though i can 100% understand how newer players who haven't heard this song a million times can fall in love with this one

reading through the companion document mcres made explaining his intent with this level, it's very apparent that a lot of attention and care went into every little detail here, but for me most of that emotion has been lost in translation. i just don't think connect does a very good job conveying the message it wants to tell. it relies far too much on symbolism—this part's background is an infinitely scaling tunnel which represents how it felt like i was falling through a tunnel. obviously symbolism can work to great effect, but only when it's in addition to a compelling emotional narrative. it's like the difference between stumbling upon a pentagram etched on the floor of a spooky haunted house vs showing me a png of one; a pentagram can really enhance the experience when built around a compelling atmosphere, but if not, it just ends up falling flat. and for me at least, i find connect to be mostly png and little haunted house.

details like the tally marks counting the number of suicide attempts during the level's creation are chilling after learning what they represent, but if you were to remove mcres's document and look at the level on its own, all they are are seemingly random marks with no perceivable emotional weight behind them (before the document pointed it out, i thought the tally marks were a pause icon). that's not to say that symbolism has to stare at you in the face to be good, but i don't find connect compelling enough for me to want to analyze what every last cryptic detail could mean, even ignoring the big document that explains it all.

i think there's also something to be said about the inherent incongruity of trying to tell the story of your life as you're living it through a 140+ editor-hour, 4 minute long extreme demon. with a gd level you're forced to conform your vision around someone else's song, and there may not even exist a song that perfectly matches the story mcres wants to tell here, let alone one that's on newgrounds and hasn't been claimed by another level. especially with a level of this length and difficulty, a lot of planning and forethought is required to make it feel like a cohesive experience, which doesn't allow for the spontaneity i think mcres wants to have here. perhaps a shorter, more contained level focused on a single, more general idea rather than trying to tell a very specific story could've worked better. looking at his twitter he seems to have gotten into digital furry art and game design, two mediums i think are much better suited for the kinds of stories mcres wants to tell, so i really do hope to see mcres flourish as an artist in his future endeavors, whether that's inside gd or not.

basically just pocke building whatever he felt like for 6 minutes straight. levels of this length really need a red thread throughout to tie it all together into a cohesive experience, and this level has nothing of the sort. because of this the introduction of color at the halfway mark doesn't feel impactful at all, and just comes across as a lazy attempt to capture the magic of lonely travel.

the second half does find its footing more with a strong sense of location, but it still feels quite random and disjointed, and the mere 3 parts in the second half are really stretched thin