Rating Curve

I believe this is the first GD level that tries to go towards Conceptual Art rather than anything representational. Honestly, I think this is very unexplored territory and its cool that wless paved the direction for that.

I feel a bit mixed about wless's pastebin, which contains the meaning and intent behind this level. On one hand, yeah it adds some good contextualization to what wless was doing here. On the other hand, I think the level should be a stand-in for various other interpretations, and I'm not sure how I feel about wless enforcing an adamant, intended message for this level. Personally, I really vibe with this level being a meditation on inaction, a level kind of like the film "Wavelength" (1967) where for me, both of these works make me feel entranced by the monotony.

I think the fact that this level has caused so much debate and controversy is proof enough it has merit. I don't think its like some masterpiece or anything but its neat.

I honestly like this a good bit more than Dead Device. I thought the randomized RobTop levels in the beginning were a nice detail, and a lot of the animations and set-pieces are of a higher quality. It doesn't exactly feel like it's just rehashing stuff with little merit, it's trying to do something. But I can't really say I enjoy it beyond that. It was made for YouTube. It was made for the Waboo contest.

Imoxi has a lot of talent and after building flash zer ker 2 I can appreciate the things that were executed here. With that said yeah this is just not it. It just feels hollow. I don't think this is the worst thing ever made though, it can be way way worse.

My level. Think of the rating less of an opinionated metric on how I view this against other levels, and more like just a general satisfaction of the process in making the project.

Very surprised to see just how much attention and praise this got. I made this as a one-week fun project for Chunlv1 and some of my other friends. It was never really meant to be anything beyond that, just a fun goofy thing for April Fools as well as my appreciation for 1.9 and 1.9 creators, specifically Funnygame, Dverry, and some 1.9 GDPS folks like Valeud. I loved the original Aperture and since effects are much harder to pull off for 1.9 than representational art (and also since I'm friends with the people who built Aperture), that level felt like the perfect thing to "demake".

With that said, yeah I feel like it kinda shows its "one-week for fun project" flaws with the gameplay and some sections that I think aren't that great deco-wise. I definitely say anybody can continue where I left off though! I think this was an awesome exercise in "limitations breed creativity" and also the joy of discovering things.

Dead God Cult is a roguelike deck-builder similar to Balatro and Inscryption, but taking its own spin from both a gameplay and theming perspective. This honestly feels like a game you'd by on Steam with how professional and polished this game feels. Each animation and movement feels so slick. The cultish theming rocks. Each card design oozes with creativity and immersion. It's all here: demons sorcerers, angels, Cthulhu ... the hat man

Additionally, the gameplay loop is incredibly addicting and replayable. There's probably hundreds of different deck combos you could utilize. I personally love the huntress + necromancer + hat man combo. I can't think of too many gameplay criticisms, this is very very finely-tuned. Honestly, I feel like this game represents a major shift in minigame creation. In the past, the best minigames were the technological marvels (think of Mastergame, Dim, GD in GD). But this game is different. It is relatively simple, but still an absolute blast to play. I really think this is the apex of what we've seen so far, and a glimpse for what's to come. Incredible work.

Terminus is a top-down space-shooter game with rogue-lite gameplay elements. It's around 25-30 mins of full gameplay, but the difficulty of some of the enemies might make the full game duration around 2-3 hours. You should play this one when you have free time and not on a whim between class hours haha.

I really love what a lot of this game offers. The rogue-lite elements come to play with the different weapons and upgrades you can get to make your ship stronger. It's really fun playing with different upgrade types and seeing what works and what doesn't. The enemies are also very fun as well. They get really crazy later on in the level when MoistenedEgg introduces kamikaze-like enemies, mini-bosses, and I think mini-mini-bosses? Speaking of bosses, the bosses in this game are thoroughly engaging and exciting.

There are some things I'm not too big a fan of though. I found most of the decoration to be underwhelming. The preset-pixel style has a certain homogeneity to it, and this level doesn't really stray from that. In general I wouldn't say anything in this level felt visually distinct. However, the biggest flaw of this game imo is its replayability. The enemies always spawn in the general same locations, which makes it very frustrating and monotonous to play when you die at the final boss and have to restart the whole level. I would have loved some more enemy variation, like maybe "Random Events" or different enemy formations. Regardless, this is a super impressive project. Not sure if it reaches the heights of a "mythic minigame" but it is sure one of the best ones of 2024.

Easy contender for one of the best minigames in GD. Very intuitive controls, appealing pixel art, and a metroidvania game progression that benefits so much from Zejoant's spark. He may be the best in Geometry Dash at "show, don't tell" progression when it comes to minigames.

I really only have two issues with this. The first one being that I wish the bosses were expanded upon. The monster bosses feel monotonous, and while the final boss is cool, I feel like it could have benefitted from some extra visual fanfare. On that point, it would have been nice to see more NPCs and details across the map.

The second issue I have is the plagiarism. Now, unlike what some reviewers here say, the level is not a 1-1 recreation. The only truly copied assets were the checkpoints, and the layouts of the first couple rooms. You could maybe say the gameplay mechanics were as well, but that feels like a stretch to me. Everything else, probably 85% of the level, is completely original. I do wish that there was 0 plagiarism though. Zejoant could have easily switched out the layouts and checkpoints for something else. It's not anything malicious enough for me to sound the alarms, but it is a bit disappointing.

It's charming. I'm not sure if its Vesuvius's best work though. As many have pointed out, there's a lot of dead time between enemies and attacks. The game was originally going to be even more straightforward until I helped collaborate on the project by making some concepts and convincing Vesuvius to make it more brainrotted. Yes, the brainrot was caused by me. I feel like every level I touch ends up with a brainrot curse.

My level. Think of the rating less of an opinionated metric on how I view this against other levels, and more like just a general satisfaction of the process in making the project.

A very weird time in my life when making this. The first half was built around 2018 and the second half during COVID. I think this was definitely where I went from being a novice minigame creator to being more skilled. And while there's a lot of technical prowess and advancements in this level, it really lacks any coherent sense of gameplay or progression. Back then I just kind of assumed the technical set pieces would be enough as gameplay, and that's why the level is really messy in that department. This level still holds a special place in my heart though, brings back a lot of fun memories.

My level. Think of the rating less of an opinionated metric on how I view this against other levels, and more like just a general satisfaction of the process in making the project.

I'm going to always be pretty surprised by how much love and attention this level got. I made this as a 2-week experiment of trying to do a more realistic style but with modern structuring. It was actually practice for one of my (still upcoming) levels. It was also my first star rate (yay!) The building process for this one was fine, not really much special. I was originally going to make this super unbalanced with a crazy wave part because I thought it would be a subversion, but one of my friends talked me out of it. This is also why the gameplay is really scuffed and boring. That was all a remnant of the original plan. If I were to redo this, I'd definitely improve the gameplay to match a 4* or 5*.