Astral Divinity

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~ originator

Astral Divinity (formerly known as God Eater) is a 2.1 solo Extreme Demon created, verified, and published by knobbelboy. knobbelboy verified the level as "God Eater" on January 6, 2019, and it was rated Epic-Extreme Demon on the same day. The level was removed from the Geometry Dash servers on June 26, 2019, due to copyright issues regarding the art. knobbelboy replaced the copyrighted art, renamed the level "Astral Divinity," and reverified the level on December 22, 2019, after which it was again rated Epic-Extreme Demon on the same day. Astral Divinity received high praise for its visuals but criticism for its gameplay and performance, On July 15, 2023, the level received an optimization update created by GD Endy, reducing the level's number of objects from 294,675 to 147,432.

History

God Eater was first revealed to the public when knobbelboy released a preview of it on March 3, 2017, showcasing roughly 25% of the already completed gameplay and decoration. Over a month later on April 16, he uploaded a second preview showcasing another ~30% of the completed gameplay and decoration. This quickly went viral in the Geometry Dash community, with some saying it could be the best level ever. Unfortunately, this preview has become one of the most reuploaded videos in the GD space, which prompted Sea to start his rant series. To avoid even more montages, knobbelboy uploaded the third preview, and after some difficulties due to the object count, finally finished the level.

knobbelboy then started the verification process. He achieved 35% and 51% within a month or so. However, he revealed that he was suffering from a kidney stone and would take a break from the level for a while while he got treatment. After recovering, he resumed progress on God Eater and soon got a 95% fail. Nearly two years after the first preview on January 6, 2019, knobbelboy verified God Eater, and it was quickly rated.

On June 26, 2019, the level suddenly disappeared off the servers. It was moved to the Legacy List of the Demonlist. All previews, progress, and verification videos of the level were removed from YouTube. Many speculated that knobbelboy was hacked, and he made a community post saying that he did not. He had removed all his videos about God Eater and asked RobTop to delete the level from the servers but could not disclose the reason yet.

On September 5, 2019, knobbelboy announced the level was deleted because of copyright reasons. In mid-July of 2019, he received a cease-and-desist from the owner of the God Eater franchise that his Extreme Demon was breaking copyright law. He removed the videos and asked RobTop to delete the level and got a lawyer to represent him in the case, though how it went down was never revealed.

However, there was hope for God Eater. knobbelboy said that it was only the name and art that were copyrighted. All of the decoration was still by him. So if he removed the copyrighted parts, he would be legally allowed to upload the level to the servers again. He asked the comment section of that video for a name and eventually settled on Astral Divinity.

On December 13, 2019, knobbelboy showcased the remade level, now renamed Astral Divinity. He spent a few days verifying the level, and after a 95% fail, he verified it on December 22, 2019.

Gameplay

• 0-11%: The level starts with the player on a platform as a ship with a slow melody playing in the background. The decoration here is mostly made up of rainbows and crystals all over the screen. An LDM (Low Detail Mode) is at the very beginning along with a ULDM (Ultra Low Detail Mode), and the flying itself is moderately tight (straight-fly) and requires good maneuverability to pass. For a brief moment, things get a bit mixed up with a yellow jump orb and a pair of gravity portals to mess up the player. About halfway through this part, the tune gets more sinister and the player is now in wave-form. This wave is not that hard in terms of the overall difficulty of the level. It switches between normal size, mini size, and dual a few times before entering the upcoming segment.
• 12-27%: This part begins with the player, like a cube, jumping over a lava pit with both jump orb and regular timings, all while being chased by a giant monster, supposedly the "God Eater" itself. This is then followed up by another similar section, but it is now played as a ball and the lava is replaced with water instead. This ball requires some well-timed clicks to get through, and the monster chasing the player does not make it any easier either. Transitioning via two green orbs, the player now plays as a robot in yet another similar part with acid as the floor this time. It yet again holds some tricky timings and gravity switching. As this ends, the player is taken into an auto section with a demonic face in the background and the words "Astral Divinity" and "Good Luck" showing up just before the Extreme Demon face shows up, signaling the drop.
• 28-45%: Here, the song gets a more upbeat tempo as the player enters a long four-part section, all with moons in the background. It starts as an extreme triple-speed ship sequence with a bunch of gravity portals and narrow spaces, as well as a mini-portal at the end. Next comes a hard and fast wave with very tight spaces and gravity portals scattered throughout this quarter. A very short auto follows as a dual cube comes up starting with a few jump orbs right into a straight fly quickly followed by a single tap ball and a gravity switching wave, all with insane timings. Next up is a long, straight fly segment with some teleportation portals in the mix, followed by a dual mini cube section with a few hard jumps leading into the next section of the level.
• 46-60%: This part has many flashing lights which makes it hard for the player to see, and spikes on both the floor and in the ceiling, beating to the song. This is all played as a ball and features some very difficult and long timings. Coming up is another short auto with an eye-opening appearing in the background, following the player into the next segment. This is a unique part containing some very large spinning objects acting as hazards for the player now playing as a ship. This flying is extremely difficult and requires pinpoint accuracy. Following is a transition with a ghost-like face in the background right before a long wave section with a very detailed spinning piece of art appearing in the background resembling three dragons in a circle formation. The wave itself is tough and quickly switches size and back at the end of this part.
• 61-82%: Next comes a short UFO section. Then the player enters a cube sequence with a tattoo-like object in the background. Then the tattoo's mouth opens up that turns into seven-rainbow jump orbs. After the difficult cube, a ship flies through tight gaps and turns into a mini-ship later on. Next, the very detailed Devourer of Gods wiggles through the background. The robot timing is difficult. After that, the player is transformed into a UFO with a yellow portal above and lots of jump orbs. Next is a very tight wave part with a gravity portal in half speed. The background looks like a CD with a pink color scheme.
• 83-86%: Next is a ball segment with slopes, a few jump orbs, and some custom rotating saw blades. This part appears to be a reference to the final palace Mementos in the game Persona 5.
• 87-95%: After that is a dual cube section with a few jump orbs and jumps, and a single triple spike jump. The background is separated into two halves, one being the sun, the other being the moon, rotating around each other. The block design follows this theme. Next, there is lots of straight fly with jump orbs and portals, with three black swords against multiple colors.
• 96-100%: At the final part, the dedications flash in the red background as the cube clicks many jump orbs in the white, glowed foreground. At the very end, the player must do a double spike jump while a monster flashes in the background. Then, the player launches from a jump pad to victory. The end screen features a gold monster replacing the copyrighted end logo from God Eater.

Trivia

• The password for God Eater was 282019, and the password for Astral Divinity is 1517.
• The level contains 147,432 objects.
  • Prior to the optimization update on July 15, 2023, the level had 294,675 objects and 120,875 objects in Low Detail Mode.
  • It was the second highest object count of any solo Extreme Demon, a record that was then held by Dark Odyssey.
• Astral Divinity is 1m 30s in length.
• God Eater was initially placed at #36 on the Geometry Dash Demonlist on January 22, 2019, above Asmodeus (#37) and below SubSonic (#35), and Astral Divinity was initially placed at #63 on the Demonlist on December 30, 2019, above SINGULARITY (#64) and below Audio Expulsion (#62).
  • The addition of Astral Divinity on the Demonlist knocked Mystic into the Extended List and Volume into the Legacy List.
• The name "God Eater" comes from the Japanese RPG game by Shift with the same title.
  • Some had speculated that this was the reason for it being taken down, in which it turns out they were right.
• knobbelboy's 2nd preview-video of the level made the community upload montages of it.
• The level was ranked #90 in GDToday's 100 Greatest Levels of All Time list.
• Sea has made a rant video about God Eater. It is not about the level, but about how people were simply stealing and editing knobbelboy's God Eater videos together for views and revenue.
  • This later influenced knobbelboy to start blocking said videos.
• Unfortunately, the full level was leaked by Monoxide405 (at the time where the level was far from finished). The leaked version was called "God Eater 2018 leak" and has the description "I just want to trigger Sea, don't sue me". This created a large amount of backlash and caused a lot of hate for the creator.
  • The leaker's wish came true when Sea uploaded a video called "The New God Eater", discussing the leak but shows a copy by "Cyclic 1" rather than the original upload (which was on, at the time an unregistered account).
• knobbelboy predicted the finished level to have more than 400,000 objects, but this was later disproved as the fully completed God Eater had 294,218 objects.
• It took knobbelboy 450-500 hours to fully finish building God Eater.
• God Eater contains over 500 different color channels.
• God Eater took six months to verify.
  • It also was up for only about as long.
• On Discord, knobbelboy said that due to the huge amount of lag, "it can't be played on mobile, and it probably never will". However, it was technically possible to play on mobile, mainly if a player had a high-end smartphone.
• For a short time after the level's release, the level had a secret way at 16% which let the player skip to the end of the level. Many people took advantage of this secret by using "Force Smooth Fix" to slow the gameplay down and then get to the secret way. However, it was quickly patched.
• Former reupload-based Geometry Dash YouTube user Droid 1415 reuploaded the level after reposting the original verification video.
• Many people say that while the decoration and song are both superb, the gameplay is extremely frustrating, with Technical giving it an enjoyment rating of 7/100.
• In his quest to beat the Extreme Demon Roulette, this is the only level that npesta has skipped a percentage on, getting 25% instead of the required 24%.
• God Eater is one of five levels that got pulled to the bottom of the Demonlist.
  • The others are Entwined Room, DoomsDay, lezicuv, and Sadism.
• Some art pieces of the level are based on the game Terraria and several backgrounds are from the game God Eater.
  • This is the reason why knobbelboy asked RobTop to remove God Eater from the servers.
• God Eater is now known as "Old Astral Divinity" by some people.
• The four individual parts at the drop are all based on the celestial pillars from Terraria and are presented in the following order: Nebula (purple), Solar (orange), Stardust (cyan), and Vortex (green).
• The eye midway through the level shows a striking resemblance to the "Eye of Sauron" from the Lord of the Rings movies.
• Another art piece showing some resemblance to something else is the ghostly face right before the wave segment at ~60%. Its appearance is very similar to that of the final boss of Sonic Generations: "Time Eater".
• At around 70%-74%, the Devourer of Gods (boss from the Terraria mod "Calamity Mod") can be seen.
  • knobbelboy has also made a speed build of the Devourer of Gods.
• At around 82%-85%, the Titans Bionis and Mechonis (from Xenoblade Chronicles) used to be able to be seen. They were replaced by a new part featuring decoration inspired by Persona 5 when Astral Divinity was finished.
  • This is possibly knobbelboy's most object-heavy art consisting of around 5,000 objects.
  • knobbelboy also did a speed build of this art.
  • GGTVCHANNELTV made and uploaded a version of God Eater. The ID was 57128110.
• The song for this level was removed from Newgrounds, though lia;quo (the original composer) reuploaded the nightcore edit (without reverb) to her Newgrounds account.
  • When her songs became usable in Geometry Dash in October 2018, knobbelboy switched the deleted song to the official reupload.
• A composer named Keany has uploaded the non-nightcore version to his account, which has since been removed.
  • OblivionOfficial has also uploaded the original non-Nightcore version of the song, which remains more popular than Keany's remaster but has since been removed.
• There were rumors around knobbelboy canceling God Eater due to the music (Crystal Corruption (Nightcore Edit) by Lia;quo) being banned off Geometry Dash. However, knobbelboy had never mentioned its cancellation.
  • This was later completely disproved on October 2, 2017, when knobbelboy streamed himself drawing the official design for "The God Eater" from a hand-drawn drawing converted into a photoshop. He managed to finish it on that same day and the finished design is currently available on his Twitter account.
• When God Eater got removed from the servers, it got moved down to the very bottom of the legacy list and remained there for a couple months.
• The movement of Berserk from the Legacy List (at #151) to #133 on December 9, 2021, knocked Astral Divinity into the Legacy List of the Demonlist.

Walkthrough

File:ASTRAL DIVINITY VERIFIED! - DIVINE DEMON - by Knobbelboy (me)

The verification of Astral Divinity. Credits to knobbelboy.

File:Astral Divinity vs God Eater. God Eater - Full Detail Comparison

The full-detail comparison of Astral Divinity and God Eater. Note that this footage is not legitimate, and is for showcasing purposes only. Credits to Vitesse.