10:48 Calling the game unoptimized does also go by the fact that the game was set to have a default object limit of 80k. Using cosmetic and creator hacks like object limit bypass does go with the risk of having a bugged game interface

12:01 ok but this has gotta be one of the biggest power plays in GD LMAO "Oh, you're gonna kick me from the verification and make it an open verification? Ok :)" *Verifies it anyways*

I feel that the gd community got too spoiled and now always expect top of the line levels

21:02 i think it is rateable. People just dont think basic blocks can be used as a deco because they're used to it being a placeholder or a layout

Nine circles isn't created to make a trend so it actually did less wrong then for example problematic

I think Invisible Deadlocked should be on this list, same reasons as XO and conical depression

Demon park because it scared away the devout Christians from gd

this is not ur typical gameplay commentary video, but I still enjoyed it, in fact a little bit more than some of ur level completions. I personally would like to see some more of these

16:26 - this still pisses me off Like… why do people have the audacity to tell someone to „verify faster“ and stress them? Some people even attacked knobbelboy for taking so long… it’s crazy to me… like those are usually the people who would never be able to get even 10% on the level Its the same with people sh*tting on verifiers for nerfing a level! This should only be between the creator and the verifier

Here's my opinion. The decoration of levels should not matter substantially when it comes to the demons list. The list is to document the toughest levels present, not fancy looking ones.

honestly, to this day I am still impressed by mullsy's class act of handing Tartarus over to dolphy, truly a fine gentleman

This community has changed so much, I remember when decor didnt matter at all, just difficulty. Anyone starting controversies about the decoration of a level is just sad

a lot of people are forgetting that rob was actually hesitant to rate kowareta because the first timing was impossible on 60fps and 120fps, though after a fix was made kowa was rated

if I'm being honest, I'm kinda tired of people trying to "push the limits" of GD, and then just spamming over 200k objects. In regards to Peaceful, it actually does NOT take that many objects to create the horror effects (I can't say too much on Zylenox's gory redecoration to the end). I can confidently say that it doesn't take that many objects because I literally created an optimized version of the level, with 104k objects instead of 220k. One of the biggest problems with the level is the circles used to make the eyes on the giant monsters often taking up to 22 objects to make each eye, which REALLY adds up when there's over 100 eyes per monster. even the tiniest eyes take 22 objects when they can easily be done with 3-4. There's also the fact that it uses CORNER GLOW to make the whites of the eyes which can be done with a simple glow circle. This is the real reason why the level lags so much at that part, not the amount of rotates. In my optimized version, I went for a different block design from Zylenox which to be fair was much simple, but still. I added more monsters to extend the original idea instead of devolving into fleshy gore. Also at the cutscene in the middle of the level, the glitch effects take up WAY too many lines, and there's stuff that's offscreen that shouldn't even be in the level. The block design for the part with dash orbs takes up over 70k objects ON ITS OWN. No wonder people can't run the level. The holes that the monsters are pockmarked with is also extreme, being around 600 or so if not more per worm if I recall correctly. there's around 9 worms in the section, one of which is inexplicably made invisible yet still has the holes, so it just adds to the lag and not the visuals. In my version, I replaced many of the holes with the little rock shine objects in the decoration tab with the chains and stuff, and added back the worm that was made invisible. You think that's it? You think that's ALL that was messed up in the level? WRONG. Because if not knowing how to make circles was bad enough., the use of triggers is downright appalling. EVERY SINGLE WORM that bobs to the beat throughout the level has its own groups and set of triggers. As a result, the level unnecessarily reaches over 900 groups, when there's SO much that could have been saved. Spawn triggers could have been used to save on many of these triggers as well, reducing the chance for inconsistency, AND the need to have so many triggers in the first place. After I uploaded Peaceful optimized, (it's just called Peaceful on my account), I created a level based on the beta version of Peaceful that is hidden above the first cube of the original level, and named it Joyful. Joyful is pretty much Peaceful but with a much more efficient sense of creating, making full use of spawn triggers, reusing groups, and knowing how to make circles. You can argue that Joyful is more like a watered down version of Zylenox's Peaceful, but you cannot argue that Peaceful needed that high of an object count, when Joyful only has 74k in comparison to Peaceful's 227k (the zy version). I want to use this as a springboard for a talk about optimization in general. I feel like people are being very lazy when they act like their levels need more than 100k objects to look good, when there's plenty of levels that look great with sub 80k. I think we can all agree though that the biggest problem is glow abuse. Rule of thumb: if you're passing the upper object limit with GLOW ALONE, you're doing something wrong. Night Rider is a good example of this as it feels like a glowy fever dream. Then there's Ocular Miracle which has OVER 200k GLOW OBJECTS. I don't wanna hear "but muh complexity" when your level bugs out because it passes an object limit that exists for a good reason. Half the time the glow does nothing but make the level feel like you've been drugged, and then you got Zimnoir12s part in OM which should have been scrapped because the assclown used the glow STICKS to make a glowy space, blowing out the object count even further. After Peaceful, The Mayhem War, Ocular Miracle, Castlemania, Boom Slayer, and so, so much more, when are you people gonna learn? Stop using complexity as an excuse, stop blaming Robtop that you can't run your 300k+ object abortions when the game explicitly does not recommend you pass 80k. Maybe instead of blaming him, you should reconsider if your level needs this many objects.

A level I missed was Catharsis, this level was so hyped just like Woodkid and I seriously think like 80% of players in this community did not even know it was verified. So Catharsis was in my opinion one of the most underwhelming verifications in this games history

Not what I expected when I saw that tweet, but that was super interesting. I knew about half of those, so it was cool to hear what levels stirred the pot and why

Another thing to add about the Save As controversy, Mulpan's video. Mulpan simply uploaded it on his channel as if it's a glitch level and people said he was undermining the message and severity of the level, since it's about a real life mental issue. I myself also thought his video was tasteless, but a year later, I now think the community had taken the response a bit too far, even so far as to bully him online. Even PAHC, the level's creator, was distraught that his level sparked that kind of hatred.

20:13 Not really, Dear Nostalgists was basically a middle finger from TriAxis to people who were mad at levels that as you said "weren't geometry dash". The level was TriAxis' way to say "No, f*** you, this is my medium to express myself, if you don't like it, then stop playing my levels."

I personally think that andromeda has completely redeemed from his hacker days. He reverified all of his old levels and buffed some such as Poltergeist. Now he is even better than what he was viewed to be back then.

2:33 jumpscare warning

15:35 Initially when Dolphy started getting framed as a hacker, Mully's version of Tartarus was the one that got rated. The only reason Dolphy's version ended up getting rated was because Mullsy himself asked RobTop to unrate his Tartarus version, and rate Dolphy's version, since he beat the level before Mullsy did. Edit: About Phobos, what you said isn't entirely true, KrmaL's version of Phobos was significantly easier then the original one. Deimos, the one verified by npesta, was a redecorated version of the original hacked Phobos, to give you an idea of how much more difficult the original version was.

xo is a pretty good looking level imo. Just because it uses default 1.0 gray objects (plus 1.8 slopes) doesnt make it a layout

SAVE AS honestly gave me a sense of terror in the level. I never knew you could convey Alzheimer’s in a Geometry Dash level where the gameplay and song deteriorate through the level’s progression. Honestly terrified me because this is metaphorically something people experience to this day, and it scares me.

10:48 I mean, they used hacks to go far far far far beyond the normal object limit set by rob, so you can really only blame the creators for going far beyond what the creator of the game expected you to go.

4:31 I might be wrong here but I think that the Hell Zone was the level that drove Cyclic to confess. People caught a single frame in his video where his icon disappears.

RobTop: RATES AND FEATURES Wysteria, a level that literally displays the story of a man who murdered and ate children Also RobTop: deletes a goddamn middle finger from an extreme demon

Watching your videos improve my english, well my listening, I'll keep watching your videos :D

Honestly I generally have low standards when it comes to playing lvls, so sometimes I can care less what judgemental people say

I think Rob should bring back his old system of being able to feature levels without rating them. That way, he could highlight big achievements like Thinking Space, Sakupen Circles, Ocular Miracle, etc. without "messing up the demon list" or creating other problems.

Definitely think that Save As controversy was silly. Even though the gameplay was very sketchy, it was meant to be that way for showing Alzheimers disease. I also wanted to point out, what I think is, another controversy with Save As, and that was the removal of the old version of the song, The Noise Experiment. Apparently, triplebarrel decided to remove the song altogether, just because she didn't like it. That's it. Well yeah, there's a new version of The Noise Experiment and while it does convey dementia better, removing/replacing the first version ruined the meaning of "Save As" as a whole. -To me, I don't get it at all: PAHC asked her to make the song (which she had a chance to refuse btw), she made the song at 2am (which she could have had more time with the song), the song was loved alot for its meaning, but then she deletes it because in her words, "it's shit lol". So much for trying to create a level with meaning. I guess that removal of the song just rubs me the wrong way.- Edit: It is within my attention that both PAHC and triplebarrel wanted the song removed (it was mutual). For that reason, I rescind my “I don’t get it” spiel.

For dv, it was first accusations of semi auto at first due to inconsistent difficulty, and THEN the 54 objects were noticed, which caused the team to find the exact auto spots. It was eventually reverified by tosh.

I remember when one of the most controversial levels was Time Machine lmao

12:31 When you are uploading a level it literally says: "By sharing a level you give the rights to use the level (in any way) to the creators of Geometry Dash" Dude, what's wrong with Twitter.

In my opinion, I think any level that has been created with care and love put into it should be rated; Imagine spending 100 hours to create a level with great gameplay just for it to be shut down by the community because it hasn't got the latest decoration techniques, e.g XO, which, let's be honest, has some of the coolest gameplay and is still seen as just an ordinary "layout" by many players. Not gonna lie, it really pisses me off when great levels are killed because of this, and what people need to remember is that levels started off like today's layouts! New blocks were added to the editor to make more creative possibilities, not to get people to change how the game works!

Kinda surprised that VSC didn't make it in here, as that was a huge controversy, especially considering it was pretty much unanimously the hardest level at the time of verification and it's debatable whether that is still the case. There are few other challenges that could have been covered here too, notably 3sh in Hell with the old dupe rule, Delusion being placed on the list without removing D, Im Deaf replacing SC66P, etc.

Tbh if you have epilepsy you cannot play gd, period

Congregation is one of my favorites of the extreme category imo

Honestly, I feel as if the "Demon levels have to be heavily decorated" argument misses the whole point of a level being a demon in the first place. Demon levels are meant to display the hardest levels in the game, not by how pretty your super hard level looks. (Unless the level's decorations are put to specifically effect gameplay. Like with the darkness effect in Slaughterhouse and a few other extreme demons) At this point, I feel as if we need a filter seprete from demons for those kinds of levels. Kind of like the magic levels that are on the bar tab

Something to consider about Nine Circles controversy is how the trend changed over time. There was a point where RobTop specifically said he would not rate more Nine Circles-style levels, however as time progressed some "Nine Circles" levels were decorated in a more modern way. For example, Auditory Breaker and Bausha Vortex are "Nine Circles-style levels" levels, but they got rated.

4:50 fun fact: the original light blue SW was made to rival Poltergeist as the most difficult NC level, but the dark blue update was made to rival BB

Bruh i just realized that there were technically 3 controversies around bloodlust lmao. First there was that it took too long, then there was the crazen thing which was sort of an extension of the first, and then the bloodlust vs PPF stuff

This really shows to me how mad people can get over levels. I get conical depression, but it wasn’t really krmals fault…

The argument of Man Man and Red Rooms being "genuinely disturbing" levels and "Devin not being mentally sane" is an absolute joke. (I made a video on Man Man where I go into more detail, but this is just a summary of some of my frustrations.) Have none these GD players been to a public middle school or high school? Most kids say the N-Word in every sentence. Or have these GD players ever been on the internet for more than 5 seconds? Like on KZfaq if you type . or / into the search bar you'll find some wired stuff. And if you search deep enough you find just straight up illegal stuff. You can find equally messed up stuff on the Surface Web, just as much as on the Deep Web. Even Mutahar debunked the whole Live Red Rooms thing in his "How "Scary" is the Deep Web... 2021 Edition..." at 12:30. And yes of course there are videos of beheaddings from terrorists groups, but not any actual red rooms. Heck even real life is more scary than these levels. Like South Park even had entire episode on how school shootings are just an average thing that happen on a tuesday now. Devin levels are so much more tame than what an average person would find anywhere else on the internet. I mean have you SEEN what Sydney (Sydsnap) Hentai tastes are!?!? SHE LIKES UB AND NTR FOR GODS SAKE!!! All jokes aside, Devin is probably one of the more normal people that live on the internet. Great video Aeon. :) I'm surprised didn't add the controversy of UnderWorld not being added to the Doom Gauntlet, because it was "too scary and disturbing." Bruh like 5 year olds would even make it that far into the Doom Gauntlet. Or Crazen, Guitar, or the worst of all that "human" who made the UniKitty Series.

For the horror levels, it’s kinda like saying that the person who made Resident Evil is mentally unstable. They weren’t in the slightest.

I would’ve loved to hear your opinion on Peaceful and SAVE AS, as I think they’re both extremely impressive.

Going to the Man Man and Red Rooms levels, I don't understand why people are wondering if the creator is mentally sane. Why wouldn't people wonder the same thing for horror movie directors? I feel as though there should be an age restriction option for levels like that, but still not allowing any pornographic material.

woodkid had like 5 separate big discussions around it and you put it in the same category as god eater

Pretty interesting video to talk about. Personally, I would have included Element 111 RG, as it was more or so lost in history, the Hell series from Sohn and ICDX, Your brain on drugs by Jayuff, and Gunslinga Corridor. I could go more and more about levels that had a bad history or drama, but I would take forever lol.

With what you said about man man and red rooms, “many people wonder if devin is mentally ok” and stuff, I actually DMed him on the subject and his response was simply “never been better”

Doing a sort of series like this where each episode discusses a certain controversial level could be fantastic, even if the videos aren’t very long

Really nice video! I feel like another level that could be added to this list is either deconstructed level or darkerer drop by braedenthecroco as a lot of people complained about the levels quality and whether robtop has a bias towards certain creators.

1:28 The talk of the town? That’s an understatement. People were telling BotC to end himself.

This video reminded me that the Geometry Dash level editor gives you so much freedom that simply creating a new project can result in something very pleasing or straight up concerning. From creating games and animations inside a game to, well, Red Rooms.

I think if the meaning of a level hits heavy, it's rate worthy despite the lack of gameplay.

seeing this video made me go on a nostalgia trip. having followed the game since late 1.9 being reminded of all these levels almost brought a tear to my eye.

Your Recent Commentary Type videos are so enjoyable to watch :)

I personally love those effect layouts. Yes. They are kinda empty but man if done well… they can look so good.

Imagine saying deadlocked is harder than leyak. Those people shouldn't have a say in the gd community.

About Red Rooms, Devin has said before that it was heavily inspired by his favorite movie. I dont remember the name of it though.

Just wanted to say that you could've boxed together bliss & karma, as they dealt with the same controversy. great video as always! :D

I’m one of the people who loves the nine circles trend I’ve attempted to make several NC levels but I never seemed to get the effect right, luckily while making a level named Special Effects I learned how to make effects using the color trigger

I have beaten Thanatophobia and I can say a 100% sure it is an Extreme Demon, the predrop is sometimes very frustrating that the true difficult is to not go insane playing the level and then in the drop is the 56% bug on the ball part that makes the level a bit weird but it is an Extreme Demon imo

i like these sort of commentary discussion typa videos! would be awesome if you decided to do more (as well as your other content on the side!) keep up the good work aeon

20:27 bro just foreshadowed the spaceuk situation

Coming from someone who has thousands of attempts on Leyak, I do believe it’s current spot is good for it. It’s not hard enough to be an extreme, but deadlocked sure as hell isn’t harder

12:44 i think he cab remove stuff from the level because when you upload a level it says like terms of service or something that robtop can do that.

21:04 a level kind of like bliss is Layout by alkali, which also sparks the idea that its only rated because a popular creator made it

I’m new to the gd scene, and these kinds of videos help me understand the community a bit better, so that’s super cool. Thanks, Aeon :) This game has a lot of history, and way more depth than people give it credit for. I’m just now realising how much weight the “code of honour” regarding verifications etc. holds, how important it is found to be by the players. I think that’s super nice, and I wish more people appreciated it. Instead, I am the only person I know who knows even the slightest bit about the gd community (like, that it even really exists), and that’s kinda sad :/

If learning a level wasnt a factor in the difficulty, leyak would be a hard demon. However, I think it should be a low insane demon due to the learning process

this is a really great video, super interesting and well researched. Well done!

I was watching your uploads and I just wanted to say that this video format works really great on you bro

Another aeon discussion video! I always enjoy these dude keep making them :)

My personal unneeded opinion: Plus minus any quality level deserves a rate. It might be short, it might be simple, it may have a meaning, a nong song. Mostly they should be rated if they’re good. Some levels even have those characteristics more as a speciality. Regarding copyrights and stuff, I think these should be rated as a compensation for the work put in, but with some punishment/limitation. For example if you make a level with a nong song with copyrights then your level needs to be more unique and like actually great let’s say and that you can’t get more than just a rate for it. It just makes sense as it’s kinda rewarding then, but not very tempting. The nc controversy in my opinion puts light on an important topic when it comes to rating levels: creativity. When a style is getting overused there should be kinda the same kind of punishment that goes for nong songs levels. What also is a factor is memory. Memory can make a level way harder. No need to explain here. Levels with depiction of gore, violence, all that kind of stuff... Can’t really say anything about them. On one hand making levels is art of some sort and there shouldn’t really be any boundaries when it comes to art (I like the fact that such levels exist actually), but on the other one not every member of the gd community is “mature” enough to deal with that kind of levels. By the way I think it’s important to put disclaimers on them. It also has been mentioned throughout the video about levels that shouldn’t be rated, biases and so on. When I found out about levels like cd or buff this I didn’t think it’s a bias. There might be however a chance that there was, but I took it as some kind of a joke which is also a possible scenario in theory. Especially knowing the Rob’s temptation to doing pure random things sometimes. Hopefully I didn’t forget anything and once again it’s my personal opinion. If you read all this through: Congratulations! You just wasted a ton of time. Have some cheese. 🧀

Just me or 2003 devin’s levels should still be playable at least. It has a warning for literally 10% of the level. The art work is still amazing no matter the gore😂 It is one of the main reasons he won artist of the year for sure

yoooo i really enjoy this type of content you’re creating, just talking about general gd stuff

Another good aeon vid! But there have been 2 levels i noticed, that hadnt been told the full meaning/story of so imma correct them. Man Man/Red Rooms These are 2 levels inspired by 2003devins favorite movie called "august underground" which is a story about 2 murderers recording themselves as they do heinous stuff with their victims. This movie features alot of gore, blood, vore etc. Some art of man man and red rooms are actual scenes in august underground. Battle of the shades Battle of the shades is a level made by GDvirus which started of as a pretty normal level with a monochrome color pallet. The level recieved quite alot of attention which also increased the ammount of haters and critizism and it made GDvirus angry up to a point, that he updated the level to a completely different level to snap back at the haters. The more haters come, the more "phases" battle of the shades got.

There was more legal trouble in with God Eater/Astral Divinity. There was a strand of copyright claims against the song used in the level (Crystal Corruption by Lia;Quo). One of the people who got claimed was Lia;Quo herself, and all the legal trouble that followed made her almost completely quit creating music altogether. Thankfully, she came back a few years later and made some more songs.

Very informative. I learned a lot from this, though I think Sonic Wave Infinity should have been included. There was a lot drama surrounding it around the time Xanii verified it, ranging from whether he was milking the verification for clicks to whether it should've been rated with the crash trigger. There's still people hating on it for its decoration, so it's still a hot topic even today.

8:15 god eater could've been an oops moment and him not realize, but woodkid is just bruh

15:18 okay do people not understand how open verifications work?

When will this community realize that the demon list is supposed to measure the hardest levels. Not the best levels

8:02 honestly, xo actually deserved to be rated. it’s an amazing level, even despite that it doesn’t use “modern” decoration.

9:59 if zodiac did not need to be “reverified” neither does devil vortex. it was already unofficially verified in sunix in 2017 (if tosh hacked/semi-autoed the level ofc)

I LOVE Congregation. The art is simple and incredible when you look at the small details. And yeah, it’s really atmospheric!

in my opionion, the learning process should count as difficulty and memory levels shocase that concept. also in my opinion most of these weren't explained as well and could create confusion: for example lithifusion kicked zylenox from verifying requiem because "he roleplayed" also the creator of battle of the shade actualy updated the level because he was salty about the criticism he was getting on the level also the saws in devil vortex made people suspicious because they had the same object count as it would take in blue pads to auto the wave parts (they thought that the wave parts were autoed, not the whole level) nontheless really good video! also to be honest the save as situation was quite ironic, as people were judging the gameplay (which was made to explain how alzheimer's generally works) negatively, just like some people in real life tend to dislike people with alzheimers and dementia just because they have a brain disease

Damn people are becoming demanding these days. Most of these levels are fine, deserve star ranking and don't deserve all of their "hate". Like Dear Nostalgists and Bliss, these levels are very good I don't see a problem

SAVE AS controversy boils down to "should a level be made if I don't like it?"

actually, about buff this, boyofcones was promised a rate by rob if he made a straightfly only level. he wouldnt have done it if he wasnt

In my opinion levels like Ocular Miracle and Peaceful really pushed the creating community towards optimizing levels. The GD creator obviously was not intended to have literally 300k objects stuffed into it, therefore the game does not like when creators do that. Look at levels like Night Rider, which is heavily optimized, but has (IMO) comparable amount of detail to Ocular Miracle. Also Culluc, oh how could I forget Culluc.

6:29 "i'm not gonna be showing any clips of the levels because they are genuinely disturbing to look at" *puts it in the thumbnail*

This is not your typical Aeon video it is very fun to watch and I hope you make more in the future Aeon

Honestly, the god eater situation is just laughable of how fragile some people are over a game that doesn’t even give the creator of the level money, same with woodkid, they have copyright yes but it wasn’t even the original song, it was a sample of the beat

9:23 now we have closure

19:12 people were also unhappy that wless unchecked a speed portal in the editor to make it long length when in reality it was medium length. after that was exposed it's been updated and it shows correctly as medium

I sort of find it a bit dumb how many many people that a level is only good if it has fast exciting gameplay, lots of flashing cool colours, heaps of different transitions and gameplay, longer than a minute 30 and with heaps of deco. Like levels are allowed to be chill and slow, and yet people hate on them when they are made.

1:51 As an epileptic (Literally had a seizure this morning) less then 1% of epileptic have seizures that are caused by flashing lights. For example, my two main triggers is overheating and overexerting myself, I have no idea how or who started the myth that all epileptics can’t look at flashing lights but it is not true. Ok thx.

Questioning someone's sanity for making something with gore / dark themes is honestly stupid, if you really think someone's mentally unstable or anything along the lines for making something discomforting, I wouldn't say they should be rated as GD is intended / marketed as a more child friendly game but it's still a creative outlet for many, and if they wish to do so by making something "dark and disturbing" that should be fine. It's just a expression of art, and you can't deny the quality of the levels (for Geometry dash) is very high (refering to: 6:16 )

The gatekeeping that some people do is crazy. Maybe some creators dont need hundereds of thoasands of details crammed into levels for it to be visually appealing or fun. All that mindset does it prevent new creators from coming up

20:37 okay, i feel like it should be common sense that, for hacked verifications, the verifier title simply be moved to the first victor.

10:24 i have the same literall issue with White Space by Xender Game .. i literally did beat it without actually playing it and visual black buggy icons and death effects started to appear in my game