Too Hot [v1.1]

[uugr]

WARNING: This level is too hot.

This is the first-place winner of the Spring 2023 contest! The themes were "irreversible", the number 3, and a choice of either "hot" or "cold". (You can guess which one I picked...)

This is version 1.1, which includes bugfixes and balance tweaks. The level is still quite hard, but a few especially unfair sequences are now a little bit less painful, hopefully. A full changelog is in the level notepad.


Read the RAVE REVIEWS for this level straight from the VVVVVV Discord server:










Download link HERE: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cH2-e9kublL8ahFeqsNH4r7GK6K95QJM/view?usp=sharing
(Best played on VVVVVV 2.4 or above; it's playable on 2.3, but there will be some graphical errors.)

Music can be found HERE: https://uugr.bandcamp.com/album/too-hot

[Ally 🌠]

This level is pretty hot! Maybe too hot.

[Dynaboom4]

So this level is my second favorite level of the contest and here's my opinion

SPOILERS WARNING

So there is the first place of the contest, and weirdly I have a some complains I didn't saw in the judges reviews.
If I have to talk about one, fantastic, beautiful quality of the level, is the soundtrack, damn this ost is a banger. And it's for me the biggest strength of the level. I really like in especially hard challenges to have really good music, so I don't feel too much frustrated from dying because I know I will be able to listen to the music a little bit longer.
I have nothing more to say than the ost is stunning and it is definitely the custom level that contains my most liked soundtrack (even more than Abort 2)
And it's not really a surprise when you see the 3 pages long credits with only names of samples that have been used to make the music.
But what about the gameplay, is it as good as the soundtrack? And that's my main issue about the level, and where I have the most conflicted feelings, because in terms of gameplay it's a rollercoaster from extremely bad, to fantastic, to meh. So the start, the first zone, I have no others words except it's at the level of design as the new random username that sends a level called "challenge impossible" on distractionware. There's everything to hate in the first zone, precise annoying jump with no interesting gameplay, or at least some kind of interesting pattern. It feels like Uurg made the core map than added random spikes. So you keep dying on random precision spikes, which makes a horrible fake difficulty. And on top of that it's a maze, along side being the only zone that contains not a custom music, so what there's not to love in this first part? Almost everything. Sadly this gives a really bad taste of the level, but hopefully the second part of the level is fantastic gameplay wise, and gives you one of the greatest challenges ever made with constant interesting mechanics, where you have to understand which path you must take to complete each room, which is a feeling I love in hard levels. The precision platforming is still there, but can be overlooked by the number of mechanics introduced, that are neither glitchy or annoying in the slightest. And this part really fits the general theme of getting hot, too hot with hard challenges. But than what? We are back to precision platforming, but with timing ... Yeah as you can tell precision platforming is everywhere in the level and is my main complain. This part is still not as bad as the first part, but when you add both constant flashing lights, with tight timing, there was some rooms I hated in my first playthrough of the level. And finally, the last part of the level, has at least the timer that is really cool. But again, has precision platforming that is more annoying than anything else.
Either way the gameplay is still generally good, especially in a second playthrough but I definitely understand why people can hate the level when they first play it. It is really at least for me the kind of level you love playing after a few attempts.
Finally after this long review of the top 1 of the contest, I cannot not mention the story that is well written while working perfectly with the gameplay. And that applies especially for how the theme of the cult is handled, it is really interesting psychologically wise how the chef of the hot cult interacts with the player. The end of the story is a little funny, but not my cup of tea.

[delisadoss]

I like it!,and nice graphics!