Rating Curve

megacollabs and solos have always been treated quite differently in the gd community. you'll know what i mean if you've stuck around the game for long enough - the way level showcasers will title their videos with solos, for instance. that's definitely in part because solos are inherently a more impressive feat, and the community loves impressive numbers and statistics, but besides that megacollabs just kind of have an invisible trope that everyone follows. despite megacollabs being just an abstract concept of "multiple people building a level", all of them tend to converge to the format of a host, some people taking parts, merging them, making transitions, endscreens, so on and so forth.

i've always been of the opinion that this format, and by extension all megacollabs are flawed. it's exceptionally difficult to make a single cohesive level when any single creator building a part can't really see the part after or before, and the only directions anyone's given is a theme. by consequnce of this, in my eyes most megacollabs kind of result as coming off built for show - to push forward a large number of big recognizable creators, an impressive number of parts, the length and the spectacle of it.

it wasn't always like that, though. go back to any pre-2.1 megacollab and you'll see that the common megacollab trope there was never about the creators or the end result - people just picked a theme and built to it. they did it because, well, firstly, it's just fun to build shit, but also because it's fun seeing various people from completely different backgrounds share their ideas on how to interpret a theme. the goal was rarely to put every popular creator in the same room and see what happens, it was just to have fun with a group of friends based off some basic idea of a level.

instinct is the closest i've seen a modern megacollab come to recreating that feeling. the inconsistency, incoherency and variance in style across the parts comes to compliment the level rather than working against it, as it would in any other typical megacollab. it's hard for me to pinpoint why it works here, but i'm sure this is an intentional feeling - and it's for once an instance of trying out what people did in old updates that works without relying on nostalgia, making the level stand on its own as a great level

natural evolution of SumPlusWorld but this time taking itself significantly more seriously, and getting a lot out of it. there's a few neat overarching themes, there's an always visible commitment to unconventional but fun gameplay, and it's still filled with references and charm all the way through

this level has always felt really charming to me like no other. filled with references both to various media and personal lore it's just so adorable to look at

i love the end gimmick SO so much. just in general the gimmicks this level has are great but the end sticks out as one of the most genius parts of any level

just about all the best parts of loltad's gp and deco style coming together as one in one incredibly good level

the level's gimmick is impressive enough on its own to manage to pull off and still be fun but on top of that every other part of the level directly compliments it, from the deco to the music. it ends up coming together incredibly well in the end

an incredibly impressive refinement of gmdmann's deco and gameplay style spanning an entire 5 minute runtime without ever stopping to take a break for even a second, sometimes maybe to its detriment. i love everything this level does visually and it's consistently just overall pretty, but it does struggle with any overarching themes or a better sense of cohesion across the level