UPDATE: As of writing this, the level was regraded to 9 moons. Everyone wins now!

The problem is that almost no one understood the reference, which isn’t too surprising, but damn some people seem to genuinely think that this is GD Cologne’s peak level design

This is one of my favorites in 2.2 so far. Im in love with platformer levels, but they definitely feel too short. This is awesome

I didn't expect to comment on this video because I'm horrible at writing in English, but I found it necessary to tell you, thank you. This level is an ode to newground games and the like, from the coins scattered around, the sounds, the platform you have to walk on because it doesn't take you. All of this reminds me of my childhood-early adolescence, and the hours I spent with those games. I enjoyed it too much, don't let your happiness be ruined by people who didn't understand the concept. PS: the detail of the unregistered hypercam 2 is pure gold, I love it. PS2: How I hated you in the lava level for having to make the way back afterwards, but frustration and taking out even the creator's dead is part of the Newgrounds game experience

I agree with the comment on the demon thing. Most platformer demons feel a lot easier than normal demons. I think it's because of checkpoints. If you put a checkpoint after each room, it means the player can just forget about the previous part after they complete it. But in normal demons, the player must memorize the whole level and beat it in one go.

Me and some friends had so much fun playing through this in call!!! The difficulty got harder progressively and I really don’t see any issues. It sucks that so many people dislike this, especially for something as little as the moon rating. Maybe it’s worth a little more than 7 moons but that didn’t ruin the experience for me at all! Edit: I also perhaps would’ve liked some sort of progress indicator. Being 10 levels deep and not knowing how much more was left was a little scary 👀

I absolutley understood that the level was an homage to old flash games. The platforms not moving you with them was one of my favourite details.

How can you NOT love this? As a meatboy deathless vet and classic doom enjoyer i really love the style this level's going for, little options menu and (most importantly imo) the gameplay! It's super fun collecting coins and dodging (SYNCED WITH MUSIC BTW IT'S SOOO COOL) projectiles! This is the most fun had in platformer so far, and hearing your voice like this in the video makes me really sad. I guess Stormfy was right after all. So thank you Colon, off to a great start! Can't wait to see more from you! (oh by the way on level 15 you can try speedrun your way to the platform if you don't want to wait)

Man, the level is more than good. I think it maintains the essence of the old Flash game style very well and the level design is super entertaining. Forget what people say, you have talent!

tbh my only real problem is that this level is NOT 7 moons in any way. Robtop was crazy not making it a demon

I'm so glad someone knows about Super Mario 63! And the level felt amazing when I played it. Great job!

The level at 4:15 looks like Celeste, I don’t remember if any levels in celeste are called “Forsaken City” but it looks like it’s inspired by Celeste.

My issue with the level was that later on almost all of the stages were based on moving objects(and having to move your character along with the platforms was not very fun). Having to worry about like 4 or 5 different moving obstacles at the same time was where it fell short to me.

Can’t believe there wasn’t one FIRE IN THE HOLE besides the normal face at the end. You really held back for a gd player, colon

the only issue i have with this level is when you hold jump when directly under a block, it shatters your eardrums.

I really like this level because it proves that a level can be hard with checkpoints, I feel like removing checkpoints in a Platformer Demon would just be artificially increasing the difficulty and would just be to make it harder, difficult things and annoying things are separate after all.

I’m reliving my childhood with this video. As someone who actually played terrible and sometimes great flash games I’m going to enjoy playing this level I can’t wait to make a video on it.

The way the boss died is so funny to me. Just the slap on the head with the box. Really good level! :)

DO NOT CHANGE A THING!!! As someone who _actually_ plays Platformers outside of GD, I love this level's: 1) Level Design - Each level felt unique with gimmicks and fun to play through! 2) Pacing - I love the short, challenging level format present in so many Platformers, and this is no exception. I never got bored of a lengthy level or disappointed at a short one! 3) Aesthetic - You *nailed* the Flash game design PERFECTLY. It felt so nostalgic and beautiful! 4) Inspiration - Flash Platformers were my childhood, and I still play them to this day, so this level is 100% approved by me! 5) Difficulty Balancing - I'm pretty bad at platformers, yet it only took me 40 minutes or so (WHICH IS FINE FOR A PLATFORMER LIKE THIS). GD players are just really bad at Platformers, like back in the day with levels like The Nightmare. Trust me, this will be a similar situation where people a few years later will laugh at how we thought it was 10 stars when it was really 7 or 8. Edit: Another possible theory I have is that people view Platformer mode as SMM levels (as intended) rather than seeing the potential of them being like the Platformer Flash games (which I am most familiar with). Your level works as the First World of a fairly average-difficulty game, but people complain that it's long because it's a whole world. In normal GD, length usually equates to difficulty because you have to restart, but here, the overall difficulty is much lower due to the checkpoint system. People just have to get over the fact that it's not a conventional SMM level but rather one of those short yet fun Platformer games! Edit 2: I'd say I'm pretty equal between GD skill and Platformer skill, so FYI, it takes me about the same time to beat 7* levels in normal GD so yeah lol, it's a perfectly balanced level! Edit 3: I also want to state how I feel about the level system too. Most people are going to use Platformer mode like SMM, but I've always played those Platformer Games that have a cool gimmick and use it throughout a couple dozen levels and I just LOVE this format! PLEASE make more levels with this format (and feel free to use higher quality graphics) because those games are SO MUCH FUN!!!

I love how faithful you kept it to the original source while keeping the gameplay fun. It probably took me a good 15 minutes first try and I had fun. I love how you gradually brung up the difficulty instead of throwing the player right into it. Like others mentioned, the hate comments I feel came from the fact that it got rated -- let alone rated 7 moons --but ignoring that detail and just playing the level for what it is truly is an experience if you understand all the little references.

I loved this stage, got stuck on Level 9 and accidentally exited on Level 10. Still a wonderful 10 levels I got through, might try my hand at it again :) Please make another one, these are incredible lol

Jeez those replies are something else. I think the fact that most of the people playing gd right now have never touched a platformer game ever plays a part in it. There's a massive difference between the first time I started playing celeste and the time I started beating grandmaster maps for example lol. I think that kinda explains why people find your level way more difficult than it actually is (i genuinely think this level could be a 6 star.), and people just need time to get used to this sort of gameplay tbh. I am sure longer platformer levels will slowly become the norm in a few months. Nice level btw! I don't usually think about the way I play these types of levels, but your level got me thinking in a fun way!

It's really fun seeing creators actually not caring and just having fun for once! This level has a lot of personality

This level has really put forth the incredibly massive skill issue everyone has with platformer levels right now lmao. When I first saw the comments, my first thought was "oh no. are there no checkpoints for each level or what." Nope! It's just that people aren't used to spending more than a minute on levels and actually enjoy them. Hopefully this will change with time though. Nice level :)

this level was a blast to play, the last levels definitely got a little annoying but I think it's just to say how well you captured those old platformer flash games. really charming and well done on it!

8:38 dont tell me i was the only one waiting for FIRE IN THE HOLE

I love how well used the “Box That Kills Stretched Monster” trigger. Nice work!

I think the biggest problem with platformer levels is that you get rewarded ONLY if you beat the entire thing. And since you cant leave the level and come back later to a checkpoint they have to be shorter to not be frustrating. With normal levels full clear is short, so you can stop and come back at any point, but with platformers if you leave not only you are not rewarded you also have to once again spend a lot of time to get to the part you got stuck on

This level is like post-irony, i like it

I highly suggest adding checkpoints to some of the major chokepoints. This level is amazing and I felt broken when seeing people hate this great level, it captures the old flash appearance well, and the hypercam is a really nice touch! Great level GD colonge!

i grew up with flash games and instantly knew what the level was going to be when i saw the name lmao loved the level, you really nailed the early 2000s flash game vibe and it generally felt very fair and just fun to play

didn't tried it yet and as you said, it is better to play it for what it is, more than for the moons (otherwise you will be mad bc is not demon). Love the passion putted on the references, and the end was peak cinema.

This level did not deserve all the hate. I loved it!

This level was brutal for a 7*. I spent way too much time on this level only to give up on level 14. It was a good level though just lured me and other people into a level that was much harder than it looked

I actually liked this level when I played it, I found it very charming and nostalgic. I think the majority didn't understanded the purpose of the level :((

9:50 YESSS I KNEW IT, mostly bc of the non-stick platforms man, you really managed to capture the vibe of that flash game in the level maybe it's a bit too long, but i still loved playing it through

it KILLS me how bad people are at this to say this is a demon

tbh, when i first played the level i understood immediately what it was trying to reference, so i didn't care about the design and instead laughed about the hypercam and noticed how well you recreated the look of those old flash games, 10/10 level i liked it a lot

This level was a nice nostalgia trip! And also made me realize that having unrestricted internet access as a kid was the best/worst thing to happen to me 😅

BRO WHAT?When I found this level, I didn't even notice that you built it. I passed this level for 50 MINUTES because I suck in platform mode and on the last 5 levels I sat and was like, "the author is just scum, whoever it is, he's going to die in agony!" lmao, I can't understand why this level is rated as "harder" and not "easy demon". But in any case, the level turned out to be interesting, I did not give up on it and went through it to the end. Keep making levels, it turns out cool, I would like to play your other levels

I have to say I really liked the final level boss laser beam. It was like you said very similar to The Binding of Isaac, and I felt that was a really cool way to create a callback/reference. Overall all the love letters to original series and flash games were so cleverly put, and honestly, I love it! Very fun level for sure!

As a kid, I loved playing those old mario games, especially Super Mario Starcatcher 2, making the level feel like a return to the past, to my childhood. Good job getting that authenticity to old flash games, I love it

The trowback this level gave actually hit hard. As soon as I saw the newgrounds loading screen i knew i was in for a good one. The gameplay is frustrating and I love it for that. Thanks Colon, this is such a good tribute to old flash games.

I agree with the mindset that this level's difficulty is inconsistent with the levels that surround it. However, much of the issues with longer levels in platformer mode is the lack of a togglable "save and quit" feature, which would allow players to continue from the last checkpoint they reached upon re-entering the level. Due to the lack of it, levels have to be designed in a way where most players of their target skill level have to be able to beat it in one sitting, and most creators took the route of making short levels to compensate for the lack of this basic feature.

I played the level, and it was quite fun! Also now that 2.2 came out with the random trigger, I’m going to recreate your random level video but bigger :)

4:06 .I feel like the reason why people hate platformer levels that are long is because of a lost of progress when they quit. In a normal level if you die at the end you have to restart or just quit the level and lose nothing, but in platformer, if you die at the end, you first get mad, then want to quit, then realize if you quit you have to do everything again and lose checkpoints, then you have a good run and die again. It is losing checkpoints that make dying and quit not an option.

this level makes me realize that there's a lot of potential for levels based in flash games, maybe we can do something like a koopa's revenge or something, it would be very good

It's kinda good, no "Fire in the hall", no effect spam, no normal face. It's better than than the 2.2 recent tab

The fact that alot of people hate that level, it's actually good

10:33 bro just want to make lobotomy level

The compilation of bitesized challenges was a great choice. The length of a level shouldn't have too much sway on its rating if it has good checkpoints imo. The level of difficulty was just right for 7-9 moons.

Idk why everyone was complaining about the level being too long, it really isn't. Just got done playing it, and honestly it felt like the perfect length. Didn't really find it to be too hard either (Granted, i am the kind of psychopath who likes playing modded celeste so it's very probable my difficulty gadge is just permanently out of whack lol [EDIT: Ok i wrote this out before watching the video, yeah i was very much referring to strawberry Jam in particular. In a weird twist of fate, Treehive (the level shown in the example) is probably my favorite level from the hack so far (although admittedly I'm still partway through the advanced level set, so that's still liable to change), so, uh, what are the odds lol]). Only level i had trouble on was 13, but that was just on me for choking right at the end, once i realized that the pillars marked where the fireballs were it was smoother sailing from there. I believe i had about 110-ish deaths when i finished, and half of those were from 13

I made a comment similar to this on your community post, but after watching this vid, it made me want to say it again: Colon, you did great on this. I may have some bias having grown up on flash games myself, but really, it was fun, it was challenging, and felt like a true nostalgia blast! Thank you for the effort you put into this community, and dont let the negative comments get you down! 'v' (Also, just wanna say, I really appreciated those Super Mario 63 and VVVVVV mentions. Feels like nobody nowadays knows those games DX)

Very cool video thank you cologne

3:09 It looks like a Mario Star Catcher level

10:48 FIRE IN THE HOLE

i honestly think this is a really good level with work put into it and i see what you mean by the old games that can be good and can be back and i love how it is mario themed and i love mario themed games, its a really good level and if people don’t like it dont let them stop you from building what you want to build:)

One of the best apology videos i’ve watched

0:12 “Hi, hello” Somethings missing..

i loved this level, i did think the 7 star rating was too low but i played it for the experience and it was awesome

I didn't really have a problem with the star difficulty - I knew that platformer difficulties would be wacky for a long time - my problem was with the sudden jump in difficulty as you go through, it feels like around level 9 or 10 and beyond are demon difficulty and everything before it is 5, which is why it averages out to 7 stars in the final product. Maybe I just have a skill issue, but I would have liked a steadier difficulty increase.

2:59 Colon: Something thats not worth complaining. Also Colon: WHY IS THERE NO INDICATION THAT YOU WILL DIE THERE!?!?

The biggest problem I had was the heavy reliance on moving platforms, none of which had any physics for friction. Meaning you would die because you couldn't keep yourself on the platform. This became a detrimental problem in levels 10 and 11. I stopped at 11 cause it was annoying the hell out of me. If you added friction physics to the moving platforms, later levels would be so much more manageable. However, I picked up on the style immediately, and it is a pretty level.

Dear gd cologne, your level is not bad at all, but the real issue is that it kinda breaks Newton’s first law of physics that states: “An object at rest remains at rest, or if in motion, remains in motion at a constant velocity unless acted on by a net external force”. So, In our case, in other words, the f*cking platform you made should stick with my icon’s ass. Thank you 😃 (I love gd cologne) (You are not a furry)

The level really was a good nostalgia trip. I have tons of fond memories playing those crappy bootleg Mario games on my old busted up laptop and your level perfectly captured them in all of their janky glory. keep up the good work 👍

this level is so cute. Like I loved this and enjoyed it a lot. It has such a nice charm! I’m glad you made it

My problems with this level were the difficulty spikes and the waiting time required for the platforms to move, which was specifically bad in some levels, but other than that, it was fine for me; definitely didn't deserve that much hate, so I'm sorry you had to endure that. Also, I completely missed the pillars indicating where the fireballs came from in level 13 and still didn't find it all that hard.

This level would be awesome if it was robot instead of cube because the robot plays more like Mario and gives you alot more control when jumping. A sequel with robot would be a lot of fun.:) btw this level put me into cardiac arrest

Bro, I was doing random list today, and I came across this, surprisingly for most of you, I loved it, every bit of it, I didn’t read that it was made by GDCologne, but that just makes it better.

thanks for unlocking some childhood memories when you mentioned mario starcatcher 2. I remember getting mad at the moving platform stuff as a kid and now seeing what the name is I might go revisit the game if it's been saved. Amazing level. Many people already pointed out the problem with it being the lack of understanding the reference but to those who do it's a cool level

1:12 Dude I remember playing Super Mario World Flash 2 on my grandparents PC when I was 5. I might search this up agian so that I can finally compleate it (I think there were 20 levels and I only got to lvl 12 or something if its the game Im thinking of)

He got a lot of comments saying the level was bad, so he proceeds to explain why the level was bad on purpose. LOL I love this level though, and the hypercam watermark is so accurate it's scary. I also agree that platformer demons are super easy and it feels like cheating, takes me about 10 minutes as well. 8:38 also, FINALLY a level where the cutscene brings in black cinematic bars at the top and bottom, I was waiting for this.

I played different (but still similar) flash games when I was a little kid, and I absolutely love the aesthetic of this level. The player not moving with the platform is an amazing touch btw, I love that :)👍

DUDE THIS LEVEL SLAPS!!! Im in LOVE with this level.. PLEASE make another in this style but make it a bit harder and add more coins. I have a few ideas such as adding a tower mode or making a speed runner mode just an idea. LOVE THE LEVEL KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK! :))

geometry dash apology video

5:24 why did this actually sync with the music

This level was fukin amazing, I didn't even know you made it. Good job man

I played this as one of the first community-made platformer levels before I knew about your channel. I thought it was a really cool level because it was long enough to have lots of different mechanics, but not so that it became boring; each stage felt unique. It was also really satisfying to complete it because it took me a long time to do so but was still fun & frustrating in a good way that geometry dash always gives me.

3:34 I'm also ugly by design

Tbh the level is funny, and also, i would think the level design is actually good, but yeah the length was exhausting lol, not bad tho

When I played it for the first time I loved how every level/checkpoint was a single screen, I want to make a level like this but I still need to learn a BUNCH of 2.2 stuff. The level is very creative, Loved the level and I hope you make more kinds of levels like this

Personally I loved this level (starting with the low quality and the unregistered hypercam 2) some levels were hard but fun to try and try as well, keep doing levels like this:)

i love gd colonge

6:54 honestly, level 11 was significantly harder. the timings on the fireballs were much tighter in level 11 whereas here it felt like for the most part the only difficulty was not making a mistake.

You're level is awesome and I enjoyed every last second of it (except for the 10000 trials for the 3rd coin lol). It directly went to my fav list. Would love a part 2. Don't listen to much to people's complaint and continue to create what you like

This looks so cool! I don't think I could play it cuz I'm not that good, but the mechanics and the visuals are also cool

I think the problem with the difficulty is the expectations set by it. If I play a 7* or below, I usually want a relatively chill experience that I can complete within ~5 minutes, so having it be longer than that is a little jarring - though this might be just something we need to get used to with platformer levels, considering that each segment is definitely easy enough to be a 7*, its just really long. I definitely agree it shouldn't be a demon, its much too forgiving (so are most demon platformers but that's a separate issue), but it doesn't meet the expectations set by the difficulty which is why I guess so many people had a problem with it. Had it instead been rated 8 or 9 stars I think the issue would be lessened. One way I think could help this issue would be to be upfront about how many levels there are. I got up to level 10 I think, and just got bored and left because I saw comments about how long it was and I didn't know how long it was - in my head I was thinking 10 initially, but when I saw it kept going I was thinking 20-25 levels potentially and got bored and left. If I knew it was only 15 I probably would have kept going.

Gotta say it's a rather bold claim to say that the gameplay feels bad at times because it was inspired by things with awful gameplay/physics but guess that's more on rob for giving it featured so I assumed the gameplay would be good as I didn't get the reference myself. For the difficulty, I am not the best platformer player really, especially when playing gd on phone. Played a bit of celeste and some metroidvanias but usually insane gd platformers take me about 15-30 mins and easy demons like 30 mins to an hour from the ones I have played. There's some that of course don't follow this pattern like the catacombs (9 moons) where I was stuck in a single room for like 50 minutes and twenty trials (easy demon) which was pretty long and took me a total of 1h 20 mins. But still, this level does take the second place for most time spent on a single insane platformer so far and I can't say I had a great time. Some levels like 6, 9, 12 and 14 did have some cool ideas and pretty fun execution to also give some positives and hunting the coins was a fun side object (finished first playthrough with 205 coins) but that's about where the positives end. First of all a game inside a game I dislike the idea of the level having a linear increase in difficulty. It feels really easy for a while with the first 9 rooms taking like 6 mins and then the pain begins but at that point it feels like I am already close to the end so it would be a waste to quit now as the whole thing is a single level, not a collection the player can play one at a time. In my opinion the level should at least clarify that it gets progressively harder so the player kind of knows what they are getting into or should showcase its hand relatively early on for the same effect. Also the room 13 is just dumb, it's harder than everything else combined and most of the difficulty is from climbing back up where the room feels like it's wasting my time since I have to do the same thing I can do with 95% success rate just to attempt the thing I actually want to practice. With the annoying physics of the platform the level really didn't invite me to try to speedrun the room either. I am not sure if it was sarcasm or not but the "clever" level design of room 13 doesn't work, I tried to backtrack on the top row after getting to the first box and got it first try, it really isn't hard to avoid the moving platform when going down. Some of the ideas were neat but this is definitely the biggest case of any platformer level I have played where I just wanted it to be over already.

The room with two fire balls going at the same time was the room that killed me the most 😂

Cool level colonization!

3:46 no, it’s not. My thumb rests on the bottom right corner 👍

i’m guessing the reason people were complaining about the length was because most platformer levels in the game currently are just that: levels; whereas you decided to recreate the entirety of a game instead of just handful of levels (admittedly, a short game, but an entire game nonetheless)

Im so excited to see what more you will make as platformer levels if this one is just to learn the new editor

Seems super fun and I would love to play it. I feel you with the old fan-made Mario Games on Newgrounds, I always used to play them. This level will really help with skill and levels im starting to build.

3:44 that also happens in the 1st two levels if you're left handed btw...

Something that a lot of people don't seem to understand with platformer difficulty is that you can't just compare your platformer skills to your normal gd skills. You can't just say that a level should be demon just because it took you roughly the same amount of time an easy demon would take in a normal level. The truth is, for most people, you've been playing and improving at regular sidescrolling geometry dash for several years. If you haven't been playing platformer games in a similar vain (most people who play gd have beaten more than just the main levels, which is why only completing the main chapters of say celeste is not the same as the hundreds to thousands of hours you may have spent on online gd levels), assume that you are basically starting platformer mode from square one (besides basic game knowledge). It'll then be completely normal for a 7 star to take you upto 40 minutes if you remind yourself that you're not actually good at platformer compared to 2.1 gameplay, considering you probably have 5 hours at most of platformer practice.

I will admit that the whole premise, regardless of gameplay is very cool, and is nice to see pulled off so well. I liked the platforms and how they didnt slide you with their momentum, yeah you have to move yourself with the platform but it also allows for more precise movement on moving stuff which is nice. I had a bit of a skill/luck issue with dying to the last input in later levels multiple times in a row, but that's on me. What I had a problem with was just some of the gameplay itself. There was a couple times where you had to dodge fireballs whilst on a moving platform which required either some luck or extremely tight timing and placement of your icon. I would've also liked the bosses laser attack to either be a bit slower firing, or have some more noticeable clue its going to fire but have it be more randomly firing. Felt very easy to complete after realising how often and how long it fired. (except that one part with the moving platform that you had to purposely miss once to have an easier time. But realistically these are all small details on the whole thing. Also would've preferred it be 10 moons, but I can see where 9 came from. There are a few platformer mode issues I have such as no practice mode (possibly able to switch between different checkpoints too) and being able to quit out of a platformer level and come back to it on the latest checkpoint you unlocked (although I can see why this isn't a thing it does make longer platformer levels kinda artificially harder seeing as it took me like 3 hrs to beat IWBTG but I had to do that straight without breaks.)

This level looks amazing nice one colon

This level is so cool, sucks to hear ppl for some reason hate this. The touch of old flash games is nostalgic asf and I just love the level. Good level man

Why did people hate on THIS level specifically? sure 7 moons is insane but that doesn't matter