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The first map is chill, an old project from over a year and a half ago. It's techless with jump refills and move blocks, with people placing it between intermediate and advanced. (Maybe I'm just not cut out for beginner gameplay.) It leans into the colorgrade quite a bit with a blue-green heavy color palette. Length is a modest single checkpoint, with maybe a dozen rooms. This was intended to have several checkpoints, with the introduction of a new mechanic after where the map currently ends, but I lost steam in the project.

The second map is goose!'s green facing blocks, a map idea which came from beloved Celeste modder @goose-exclamation-point. Facing blocks are the star of the show, and as it currently stands there is a noticeable lack of other mods which use the mechanic. The unique movement and oddly specific inputs push the map to high expert. Out of the three maps I have today, this easily is the best gameplay-wise. Additional thanks to @abuffzucchinisvariousposts for decoration and music choice. Vine room forever.

The third and final map for today is iota, a compact grandmaster map. The smaller something is, the better it is. This applies to many things, such as celeste rooms, cats, and debt. Rather than use traditionally sized 40x23 rooms, I challenged myself to make short, difficult screens in a 21x21 tile play area. It's got some wacky tech, including corner tech, spiked wallbounces, a reverse cornerboost, and even a dashbounce (these are real words with meaning I promise). For grandmaster players who enjoy the precision kind of stuff, this is a sort of diet-precision map that shouldn't be as much of an ordeal as the heavy stuff.

The first thing to note is that the custom graphics are absolutely stunning. I haven't played Revita, so I don't know how closely the sprites replicate the original game, but it all fits so smooth in Celeste's pixel art style.

It's also -- thankfully -- unintrusive. It's just enough to be pretty and to give off the right vibes, and it doesn't fall in the category of maps so saturated with custom graphics that it's hard to tell what's going on. It feels like exactly the right amount of effort for what the map is going for, I hope the mapper thinks it paid off as well!

Gameplay starts off with a fair amount of easing into the new feel. There's new mechanics of course, but the no-grab limitation is just as much of a foundation to the map as the refill dash blocks. Platforming and movement is built around this, you need to know how to use walljumps to increase height and distance; it's not just a disabled-neutrals-style gimmick. It's emulating a different game, after all.

The refill dash blocks come in one or two-dash variants, and are paired with spikes and dash spikes. Interestingly, spikes on refill dash blocks are the only ones that can be sideways or downwards. Dash spikes only allow you to touch the block if you're dashing, functionally the same as dream spikes if those are familiar to you.

The core gameplay loop of the map comes down to figuring out which dash blocks to break in which order, often involving when certain blocks are accessible and storing a two-dash state for use somewhere else. Fully utilizing your dashes and planning ahead always feels very clever. Gameplay segments are almost always limited to the size of the screen, so the player is given the opportunity to pause and think about the room before they try it. Spawn points are plentiful as well.

It's one of the easier routing maps I've played, but it is a good exercise in the style of dash and refill-centered routing puzzles. The map is techless as I said, and I think I can get away with calling it red beginner. However, with as much as the map departs from Celeste, a decent intuitive understanding of the physics. Some segments are technically trickier than others by a decent enough margin that the difficulty ramp may feel uneven to players still getting the hang of the game.

I do have two gripes with the map. First off is just the camera, which does just stem from the style of map. Moving between gameplay segments moves the camera very quickly as it changes target, which is a bit jarring. This is really just an issue when gameplay is close to screen transitions, when the player might fall of a ledge or interact with entities they cannot see because the camera hasn't focused yet. This is more of an issue on downwards movement, where the camera doesn't move down until the player is near the bottom of the screen, essentially making it a leap of faith. I understand why it was done like this, but it did pull me out of the map a little and this is one of the cases where it's more important for the map to be Celeste and not Revita.

My second issue is the sprites for the refill dash block spikes. They look a bit too similar to tell apart from a glance, since dash spikes and regular spikes are mixed together a lot more as the map progresses.

It feels mild in retrospect, but not knowing the layout of the levels made it matter more. I just wish that the dash spikes were a little less spiky, I guess? More of a shape distinction, since the colors are pretty set in stone.

Don't let these minor complaints get in the way of enjoying the map, though! It has a great, unique theme that goes beyond visual style. It's really not only a Celeste map, and it doesn't feel like one either. It's comfortable for anyone who's beaten the game before, and it can serve as either a good starting point for getting into routing maps or as a reading exercise for experienced players. A couple strawberries and a fully completed debug challenge room are the cherry on top. What else can I say besides to give it a try?

Do you want to know what I thought about this map when it first released? Back in those days, I was still a fledgeling modder, without a lot of the skills and experiences I have today. I watched an iamdadbod video, I heard him talk about it, but I was skeptical.

'Is Shade World really that good? This looks like something that I could make. It seems a bit much to call this the Map Of The Year.'

It took me a while to actually play it myself. Well, here we are. Now I'm here about to tell you in no small amount of words why Shade World really is 'that good'.

As an exploration map, The Last Madeline already takes an interesting turn by having most rooms be accessible in some form very early on. There are many spots that are visible, but are either out of reach or connect to a direction that's not accessible yet. It's like that feeling when you see a collectible but not the path to get to said collectible, except that's the entire gameplay loop.

My favorite part about the exploration, however, isn't the destination. It is, in fact, the beginning! Lots of paths open up depending on how you start the path. Usually this means entering a specific room from a specific entrance. It's not all one-way paths: sometimes, rooms and strategies will change entirely depending on your entrance.

Another crucial part of the exploration is your spatial awareness. Being able to keep track of where rooms are relative to each other is vital for some parts. On top of that mental map, some map elements are useful a significant distance from where they're collected, so keeping track of which keys unlock which doors and where and how to get there is all part of the puzzle.

This map is intermediate, using wavedashes and wallbounces. None of the gameplay is tech-heavy, but since the point of the map is not to get caught up on the gameplay, you should be comfortable with doing the techs. (There is a cassette room that is all gameplay, and it is rather difficult for intermediate as well.) With the exception of maybe one jump, the map is well telegraphed with how to move.

This is maybe one of my favorite maps of all time, and is one of the few that I come back to replay just for fun. If you love exploration and using your brain, and you can do intermediate gameplay without much trouble, this is a must-play. Even if you think it won't be your thing, I definitely recommend trying it out anyway, and having some patience with yourself. I will also restate that the music is incredible and makes the experience that much better.

First off, everything just works. All the moves are buttery smooth and polished to perfection. Segments will mesh together really well. The timing on the moving bubbles is impeccable. Whenever I had an issue with something feeling wrong, it's because I was doing it wrong, so I changed my approach and did it right. I never had the "immersion" break, for a lack of a better word; I never had a moment where I was thinking about the gameplay from a critical perspective. It's all just pure, perfect shmoovement. (That's not to say it's effortless. Some of it is tough as nails.)

The routing here is a work of art. There's an excellent use of space, of course, but what makes this great as an experience is the segmentation. Each room has individual parts that can be parsed fairly easily on their own. The routing challenge becomes the when: what order do I want to do the segments in. This is usually the case in the later rooms. Breaking up the rooms like this makes the map a lot less intimidating to do blind (i.e. without a walkthrough video), and I think any player at this skill level should be able to do it blind. The segmentation also makes progress easier and more rewarding, since you can learn chunks at a time and even partially sightread, instead of going input to input.

As an extension to the point of routing order and reading, the indicators in the map are exactly the right amount of helpful. There are red bubble indicators that show up in points where you meet the bubble in gameplay, so there's no guessing where a bubble is when you need it. However, that's all they tell you. No directional indicators, no numerical order. It gets real exciting when they start to overlap too, since then the bubble is going back on its cycle. There's a great mix of getting information from indicators, from level structure, and from plain trail-and-error experimentation. At no point should you feel completely lost, and finding the correct solution never fails to be rewarding.

The map difficulty is low grandmaster, mostly due to room length and complexity, but on occasion input density flares up. The map uses demohypers as a normal gameplay element; instead of being treated as a gimmick, it's just another tech in your arsenal. My demo button isn't in the most convenient place, but with one exception the extra button didn't have an effect on execution difficulty. It was a new experience for me, but still came off natural. If you're looking to play this but are worried about demos being out of your skill zone, try playing The Blizzard or Heavy Metal Mountain from Secret Santa 2023 (Medium lobby) to wear it in a little.

I think for any grandmaster player this is a transcendent experience. It has become one of my favorite maps of all time just by having some hella slick tricks. If you're at or have just graduated from high expert, this map is likely doable as well. If this isn't your jazz but still want to see it, I have a video here.

I am very hesitant to call the map beginner (I do, in the end) -- I'll get into this later. Intermediate is a safe difficulty to rank it as, but there's more nuance than just the one scale.

Gameplay is centered around springs, being both the main mobility of the map and the only way to change gravity. Falling blocks are introduced later, and maintain normal gravity no matter how you're aligned. Lots of the rooms are built like vanilla rooms, where the game recognizes that you might not be comfortable with the controls and gives you a decent amount of freedom to move around, pause, and experiment. I found myself relying a lot more on climbing and walking than I normally do while flipping gravity, and the map seems to encourage this with lots of grabbable surfaces.

And, of course, the berries. I won't say how many there are, but it's a hell of a lot for a single chapter! Some berries are pretty obvious, either visible from the main track or in easily-accessible side rooms, ""standard"" berries. Some berries require a little bit of backtracking with different gravity, using the fact that springs are the only thing that can change your gravity. Some berries are in series of rooms that run parallel to the main track, or are off of other berry rooms, twisting and turning on itself to occupy every bit of space in the map. Berries aren't really treated as challenges for the sake of being hard, they're treated as extra content that adds to the main gameplay of the map. Honestly, I'd say that the map was built for the berries instead of the other way around!

The map also contains a cassette and a heart. Despite the crazy pathing of some berry rooms, the map can be full-cleared in one go, if you know what you're doing. Going in blind, I guarantee that you will miss something on a first run! But that's more of the fun: going back to get everything that you missed. It really makes me glad that vanilla shows off berry order after you complete a map. A lot of the side paths are well-indicated as well, and even those that are pretty sneaky aren't too egregious. (By the way, progress for the heart is saved between runs.)

The decoration is very well done, using a seamless blend of vanilla and custom assets and taking inspiration from OMORI. It just oozes the love and care that was put into the map, not to mention all the hard work. Between this and a peaceful music track, it all comes together to be very comfy.

Now, difficulty. I want to call the map beginner so bad, because everything in the map's design is truly meant to be beginner. However, there's a simple fact of gravity helper: it will mess you up. Gravity helper is very intuitive to understand, but there's just a different feel there that takes away a player's confidence in their movement. If you aren't already comfortable with Celeste's controls, adding more on top of that might push into frustration. For the record, I list the map as beginner in my personal list. I just can't confidently say this will be a fair ranking for absolutely everyone.

Taking everything into account, I think this map still appeals to a wide audience. I recommend this map to anyone who has a handle on the game's controls, and for players who loved full-clearing the vanilla game this is a must-play. It's a good start to understanding gravity helper, but it won't teach you much about its capabilities. It is also an excellent map to replay whenever you're looking for something easy and feel-good; if you played this when it came out, I recommend you play it again sometime soon!

Difficulty is "beginner for people who lie about difficulty", which is my way of saying "I wish this was beginner but it is not". Uses grouped crumble blocks and jump blocks. Takes inspiration from a variety of maps.

goopvendor gameplay just feels SO good. These maps are usually not tech-heavy, focusing on routing and interesting setups instead. It's a level of routing that's appropriate for each map's difficulty, so that no player should have to resort to looking up a clear. Taking the rooms piece by piece is a rewarding experience that often lends to steady progress. Maps are focused on one or two primary mechanics or gimmicks, with supplemental things like falling blocks or springs being pretty universal among all the maps. The focus allows the maps to really, really explore the possibilities of its mechanics; no room feels re-used or same-y. I just cannot overstate how clever these maps are.

It would also be a shame not to mention that goopvendor's music choice for each map is phenomenal. It's almost always something I've never heard before but each song is absolutely iconic. Someday, I hope goopvendor releases a curated playlists of certified goop classics.

Below I'll list a little bit about each mod, in order of difficulty (more or less).

Bloom Vault focuses on green boosters (bubbles) and no-dash-refill springs. It would be a step above the b-sides in terms of difficulty, but it doesn't have any kooky tech to worry about besides wallbounces. There are three checkpoints. This is absolutely the mod to start with if you haven't played a goopvendor map before, but if this is at-difficulty for you then expect to take some time on it.

Bloom Vault also has its own b-side, which adds no tech but is still considerably harder, into advanced land. If you're starting out, maybe take a pass on the b-side, but if you know what you're doing definitely play it.

UFO Nest is quite possibly the greatest goopvendor map to date, and it deserves its spot as the most popular map in their library. The map uses a variation of green boosters that allow you to stay within them indefinitely, but with one twist: the boosters have jelly physics! The mechanic is surprisingly smooth and is oh-so-delicious to play. Besides dream jumps and dream grabs the map is techless advanced. There are four checkpoints. This is also an excellent map to jump into if you're ready for it, as long as you kind of know what to expect with mods.

Flux Fortress's gimmick is gravity falling blocks: falling blocks that switch between falling down and falling up. They are toggled by core style switches around the map. This map gets into more tech-y advanced gameplay, but is still a goopvendor map at its heart. There are four checkpoints, but the first checkpoint doesn't have the same gameplay as the rest of the map. Out of this list I think this is the weakest entry, but it is still great quality and great fun. This is where I would start recommending to more seasoned players instead of to new players.

Ricochet is the newest goopvendor map as of this post, being released yesterday! It is another dream block map, this time using hearts placed inside dream blocks to bounce you in all sorts of directions. I've never seen the mechanic used in gameplay like this before, and it is executed very well! The main map consists of a couple advanced-ish rooms, which merely serve as a tutorial. The REAL map lies to the left, as a secret teleport, and is some juicy expert gameplay. Be ready to dream hyper and heart ultra! One checkpoint, but two series of rooms. This is the silliest map in terms of mechanics but is actually quite simple gameplay to execute (y'know, relatively speaking), and I think most expert players shouldn't have much difficulty. The consistency is also extremely impressive considering the silliness. This is what good goop does to a mf.

Radiant Sanctum is my first experience with a goopvendor map, and it is what got me absolutely hooked. This map is quite spicy with its routing and execution. It makes you think, and once you get it, it makes you happy. Mechanics-wise, it's just zip movers with your classic springs and falling blocks, but in style this is pure, distilled goop. High expert by difficulty standard. Two checkpoints I think, but this is expert gameplay we're talking about so it's no walk in the pærk.

More Radiant Sanctum is, you guessed it, more Radiant Sanctum. It's essentially the equivalent of a level-pack, being slightly harder and slightly nuttier. I would package the two maps together as one, and together I think this is the pinnacle of the goopvendor experience. If you take on the challenge, hold on to your butt.

There are other goopvendor maps too, mainly for those who are "kinda nice with it", but this the main list of things I would recommend if you want to have a balls-to-the-walls gooptastic experience.