ExMachina, by Slimsick (Youtube Video) 5* hard

On behalf of all level judges I would like to thank you for your patience.

Gameplay
First and foremost I would just like to say “what the heck man?!” now that’s that’s out of the way I would like to start with the first part of the level. The gameplay for this part is interesting, meaning it wasn’t just tap tap to keep from dying, it was actually engaging, which is a good thing. No bugs for the first part, just your average gd level, but then you get to the ship part, where the gameplay goes from semi-intriguing to pure cake, this difficulty fluctuation isn’t good and it persists throughout the level’s duration. Unlike the previous section this one is not engaging, although there is no horribly game breaking bugs there is a quite annoying one at the cube portal where the player is subject to sudden death at the game’s will. The odd transition part, as I will be referring to the ball and wave part, we’re riddled with bugs, at the ball part the gravity portal is subject to malfunction at times, regardless of the player’s actions and the in the wave part I would highly suggest that you substitute the blue pads for damage blocks, as I don’t quote like dying at the same spot four times in a row -_-.
Plot twist, literally! The level makes a complete 360 in all aspects following the drop, absolutely awesome gameplay for this part, nothing too misleading, arrows always in sight and a little touch of unseen dangers to keep the player engaged, the only problems I have with this whole last section is the purple dash orbs placement near the beginning of the drop (which could be a little lower) and the transition to the spider (which could be A LOT smoother)

Gameplay score: 7/10
-1 for bug at ships cube transition
-1 for purple dash orbs bug
-1 for odd transition part


Decoration
The beginning of the level can be summed up in one word , bland. The background, although well crafted and barely noticeable until the reveal of the second bg just isn’t enough to call ‘decoration’ for the first part of the level. I understand that the level was a variant of machinations, but that doesn’t quite exempt the fact that the block design and deco for the whole first section is utterly bland and empty. The second part of the level doesn’t offer much more in all honesty, besides some fading at the top and bottom (which appear to overlap) and some fading spikes I can’t really see how there’s much decoration offered at all in this section. The odd transition section handles bloc design a little bit better by pulsing the saws and having secondary slopes in the wave part flow to the motion of the song, but the bg is left blank. The final part of the level showcases a brilliant design scheme in both the background and foreground. In the cube and ship part the circular pulsing objects rising in the bg accompanied by the extremely detailed block design contrasts everything that was previously showcased in the level, in most cases this would be a bad thing, showing inconsistency, but in your case it flows with the whole remake theme. Throughout the spider part the block design gets a little more bland, but still more detailed the first half, the bg changes slightly, still looking good with the level and the colors flow smoothly.
Decoration Score 5/10
-5 for lack of decoration on the first half of the level


Concept
The whole idea of a level remake is something that we all have come to expect since the levels put out by Neptune, but you managed to take this idea and take it to a whole new level, incorporating your own design scheme into this. If only you would’ve done this with the first half of the level too.
Concept score: 7/10
+2 to base 5/10 for implementing design schemes that have originality Co dependant of the remake itself.

Final score
((G+D+C)10)/3=R
R/10= final score
Final score= 6.333/10
DECENT