Game:

Undertale (2015)

Duration: 2:38

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202

It's been longer than I'd like, but here's another user level I'd like to show off. I realize this is a bit of meme, but I was enthralled by this level and do think it's worth your time.
This one comes from Ian Weston who is the most prolific and talented level creators when it comes to making difficult and fair levels. I daresay he would even give Bean a run for his money when it comes to design, and I wanted to discuss this level in particular because I not only think it's one of his best, but also because it's the best level based off another game's mechanic, and I'll detail why below as to avoid spoilers.

There isn't much to say about toby fox at this point that hasn't been said many times over. Undertale is a delight that feels impactful and imperfect, and the soundtrack is probably the strongest point of the whole game; an incredible feat given that most melodies only last for a minute or two at most and most songs never seem to tire after many, many repeated listens.

Guide: To talk about why this level's brilliant will require spoiling a bit of Undertale, so if you plan to play it at some point, please ignore this section.
As anyone who's familiar with the Undyne fight will know, the gimmick of fixing your avatar in place so you have to block incoming attacks DDR style was quite a twist. I never thought such a thing could be recreated in Soundodger+, a game where movement is freely controlled via mouse.
And yet, here we have a level where the goal of most patterns is to hug the center as much as possible. How Ian managed to find so many patterns that worked so well at preventing you from doing anything else I'll never know, but the end result is brilliant.
That also means there's not a lot to figure out once you realize that, it's more a matter of feel. This level is still tricky since your movements have to be precise, with the worst easily being 2:20 which ended up being a late run-killer for me. The bubble section preceding it isn't a cakewalk either; muscle memory is your friend here.

Undertale OST on Bandcamp: https://tobyfox.bandcamp.com/album/undertale-soundtrack
toby fox on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tobyfox

No download link for level. He did not want to post it because of fear of criticism, so if you say something like "I love you Ian please may I have your level" there's a chance he might oblige (I'm hoping.)

Soundodger+ on Steam:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/247140/
Undertale on Steam:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/391540/

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