Rating Curve

It tries to be different and I can’t knock it for trying. However the execution isn’t all that great and the gameplay would benefit from SLIGHTLY visible speed portals.

Extremely fun and intuitive gameplay throughout with good designs. Absolutely NOT a 9* though

It’s alright I suppose, nothing bad nothing good. Plain old 5/10

0ek reminds me of Pinecones but with a heavier focus on gameplay. Nutty Depths is definitely a good example, especially because this looks and feels like a PCU spinoff level. If I didn’t know this was by 0ek I’d say it could be.

W RobTop for rating this and TSII in the same wave (almost as goated as 2 green user levels and WcropoliX)

This was a very polarising gameplay experience to say the least. I’ll let the below text explain.

Anda Iblis is a solo medium demon created, verified and published by adafka. Despite being a solo work it kinda feels like a collab due to some parts having vastly different aesthetics. Overall though it’s ostensibly a hell-themed level which is most obvious from the beginning and last third. There’s absolutely nothing actually bad about the deco; it could be more coherent nonetheless.

Now onto the gameplay: no comment. One of the rare times I’m leaving only one of gp/visuals empty instead of giving both or neither. Because god is this hard to give a rating to. I’ll just give a brief overview of the gameplay, I suppose.

0-19%: This is unironically the hardest part of the level and where most of my deaths from 0 came from. It requires good timing and ship control to pass and I’m bad at ship. I estimate that I died here around 150-200 times.

19-50%: The first fast-paced section. It’s mostly flow gameplay with some…interesting timings going on with the cube and robot. Nothing too hard and it gets consistent.

50-60%: A short “break” part with a decently annoying ship section (there’s some visual obstruction). It feels so annoying to die here from 0 as you’ve passed nearly all the hard sections.

60-67%: THE chokepoint to end all chokepoints. This is a short burst of hard-insane demon gameplay with a tricky timing into an inconsistent ship transition. To top it all off there’s some (almost) 1-block gap straightfly. I passed this part less than 5 times from 0. It took an hour to pass this part from 0 after passing it the first time, which was soooo fun.

67-100%: This part keeps the pacing of the previous 7% but the gameplay is a lot easier this time. At this point it’s just nerve control as you navigate a slightly learny dual segment around 80% (which I died to twice from 0). The level ends with an easy straightfly section.

This level took me around 800 attempts and 2 1/2 hours to beat (not counting a 20 minute shower after dying to the dual 🫃). I recommend you learn the dual part and practice 60-100 well before going from 0. No gameplay score as the level’s difficulty varies between runs. Out of the runs I did, here’s what I think their approximate difficulty is:

75-100 Insane

60-100 Mid easy demon

19-100 Mid medium demon

0-100 High medium/low hard demon

Despite how nonexistent the balancing is, I do genuinely enjoy Anda Iblis as a level. I recommend you play it if you can handle chokepoints and difficult ship gameplay.

It’s fun and so were the coins

I could see why someone wouldn’t like this but I still think out of all the events so far this has among the best gameplay. It feels a bit handholdy at times but I don’t think that should detract from the level’s quality. The decoration is very flashy too, which fits with the fast, high-energy gameplay but also feels a bit overdone. Not Rafer’s best but still extremely high quality with its animations and design. As usual, the coins provide lots of replay value and Rafer uses 2.2 features very creatively to improve the overall experience. No spoilers though.

The coins are incredibly well-done and compared to other Rafer levels they’re not memory heavy whatsoever and use creative gimmicks in each part. I recommend you learn and get them yourself. Getting all 3 in a single run isn’t very difficult and unlocks a secret ending. If you found the base gameplay to be too easy/boring, the coins also provide a good challenge.

I rate this a 10/10 level because it’s accessible and fun despite the handholding. I don’t really view this sort of gameplay as negative since newer/inexperienced players still have a chance to enjoy this type of gameplay.

DeCode if Rek3dge geeked out: