Rating Curve

talked to faust before writing this and I considered an 8, and I think I'll keep it there lol (that said this is a pretty high 8, you'll see why)

love the song rep, the static and the rotating stars like panning a spinning camera straight up into the pitch black with every barely noticeable low hum, and then it roars to life with almost no warning after flashing and deforming the title as it blasts you for the rest of the minute with white and everything distorted and barely tangible objects slowly showing up on the screen, and as the drums slowly creeping up from behind and you start jumping to it, what a tone-setter

buildup to the drop has us climbing the blocks with eyes occasionally dotting the screen (same eyes that show up on the thumbnail of faust's own vid) with a broken black border and keeping up behind us with flashing objects lodged inside, ending with a fall all the way back to the ground as the drop enters with even more of that chaos back from the intro (no fluff here, just writing down what I see, I'll explain later)

drop ensues with a steady melody and drums from the chaotic buildup earlier, and I'm definitely left a bit desired for gameplay since the only indicator was the player hitting a speed change (very noticeably out of place among the jumble of stuff), but at the same time pretty fun just watching everything fall apart, I like to think it's deliberate with the fade effects for the foreground elements and the fact that motion blur was off specifically for the player to emphasize its presence among the still super chaotic visuals

and then the drums very slowly fade, still audible, the piano starts showing up, everything is still chaotic as ever, the bagpipes feel like they're louder now, and eventually the drum break comes and everything starts fading and as all the sounds go away the visuals crawl away as well out of the screen and we're left with the end credits

...then a near-minute of nothing.

levels like these I often can't judge its visuals purely because this is a process of feeling the material on hand way more than looking at visual composition and whatnot, it's also why I gave this such a high 8, you can feel that chaos and everything rumbling throughout the level with some pretty clever details sneaked in there as well, like the motion blur being off for the player near the drop with no gameplay so we're forced to watch everything crumble and have nothing to do about it as the melancholic track goes on, then that near-minute of death-quiet before the endscreen (the song talks about struggling towards a better future with marching band drum patterns and bagpipes as a metaphor to motivation, then the chaos throughout as pain and suffering, the main instruments come back near the end with the piano again as motivation before everything's cut down for good)

it's usually not my thing to look for this much research and info when reviewing levels like these since review site unga bunga caveman brain pretty thing give big number, but faust specifically asked for a review from me, and I wanna honor this the best I can, and I can confidently say I really truly loved what I experienced

and I know trying to feel a level just goes into really subjective territory hence why most people don't feel like looking at these at all, but hey, give it a try, if it's not your cup of tea fine by me and most other people, if it is then I'm happy for you finding out a new way to enjoy stuff

despite my absolute disappointment of having no space horror at all in any of the space gauntlet entries I think this is the closest I'll get to cope with the fact, and it's a damn good one

love the aesthetics here, from simply roaming a planet and having this outer wilds-esque feeling of wanderlust to literal mechanical hell calling back to the alien franchise (specifically the sevastopol station from alien isolation, minus the aliens and the biological mess they make) before throwing you into wormhole after wormhole then spitting you out into the void, it's one hell of a trip, and I wish it was longer despite it already being 3 minutes

space doesn't have to be all future tech jargon and laser lightshows, and with how the level plays with megalophobia both at the second part and the very end and the only remotely tech thing being the occasional UI flash, this gave the dose of space horror I genuinely wanted from this contest

gameplay's great, parts I remembered the most are the second part into the mechanical complex and the spider part (for very different reasons, may include complaints about a slightly botched buildup), but that aside I loved it overall, especially audieo's part (still amazed at how seamless it felt despite the gravity spam)

(bit unrelated from this point on, this is the part where I blow up about horror and people sticking the game's pg rating up people's asses whenever they try anything like this, absolutely up to you if you wanna read what's below)

why are we not trying anymore after peaceful by small and red room by devin2003? Collab level by mindcap??

I get horror's hard to make, but we have people doing it before already, and it's like people are intentionally avoiding it and it's a trend I've been noticing since the community got careful after peaceful's release (which I get, it's straight up trypophobia in a kids game dressed up as a mascot-y level)

I also get all the examples I listed are more or less body horror, but not everything horror has to be that, this is perfect for a non-body horror example, even something like save as by PAHC potentially being psychological horror

PLEASE please please just try horror, it's such an underappreciated and underdeveloped genre and element in the creating scene, and we don't need people on moral high horses yelling about the kids grouping the genre into one giant disgusting thing when it simply isn't