CastleMania
“quote~ originator
CastleMania is a 2.1 Medium Demon mega-collaboration hosted by Serponge. It is very complicated and features several different routes. It also contains a small gimmick where there are several keys and doors scattered around, and any regular key can work. The three Coins are collected by going through paths. The difficulty varies depending on which route the player decides to take. This level has been in the works for over a year and is considered by many players to be the best level on the servers right now.
Gameplay
Warning: If you want to try out the level yourself, consider this a Spoiler.
W.I.P
- Forest (Serponge) - This is where you start off in the level. While playing it normally, you will push a skull into a button that lowers the bridge to the Main Hall. By doing a precise jump from the short stump in the beginning, you can go through the log, which has a mini-portal inside of it. While mini, you can jump on the skulls, and lightning will strike the tall gravestone, making it easier to jump on it by making a jump on the second skull. Doing this will cause the bridge to go up instead, letting you fall into a pit which leads to the Sinking Sewers. However, if you are mini, and decide to jump from the gravestone instead of the skull, you will land on the button, causing the bridge to go down, and letting you get to the Main Hall as mini.
- Main Hall P1 (Ferdefunky + Lumpy) - Going through the Castle from the Forest, this will be the first room you get into. There is a door-key to the right of a dark staircase leading to the Prison. If you get into the Main Hall mini sized (refer to the Forest to learn how to do that), you are basically forced to get the key, and you can get it with a precise jump. A bit later, you will find several blocks. You can actually jump on them and go up to get to the White Church. Continuing forward, you will find a large pit with spread-out blocks you have to jump onto. Falling down the pit will take you to the Prison. Falling down from the second row of blocks will grant you a door key. Continuing forward, you will find a ball section, which uses staircases as slopes. There is a dash orb afterward, which you can hit while in normal gravity or not. Doing so, you will go through a short cube section, then transition to the second part of the Main Hall, which starts at the UFO. Again, you can choose if you can do this part in normal gravity or not, as something different will happen.
- Sinking Sewers (DavJT) - By referring to the technique explained in The Forest with the mini portal, you can get here earlier. Doing so will grant you access to a door key, which you can get by falling from the first box to hit an invisible blue orb in the water. Getting the key will take you back down. More importantly, you obtain a Lantern, which is used to unlock a section. There will be a dash orb that leads to the Prison. Continuing forward, you will get to the Crystal Caves.
- Prison (Subwoofer) - There are several ways to get here, most of which are listed above. If you have the Lantern (see Forest & Sinking Sewers for more details), you will get to a new section of the Prison. If you go to this section without the Lantern, the screen will go black for a few seconds, and you will be teleported to the Main Hall’s ball part. However, you are a cube when this happens, so you have to use the dash orb while in normal gravity. Anyway, in this section, there are three cores you can collect; a green one, a red one, and a blue one. To get the Green Core, you need to go to the mini-portal, use the dash orb to go up, and make a precise jump from the highest platform you can land on. To get the Red one, simply skip the green orb when taking the blue jump pad during the end of the section. There is a mini-boss you have to fight called Ossgus - Dead Guard. During the fight, you will find the Blue Core close to the spikes. His patterns are rather simple and easy to memorize. This boss fight is completely optional, and is not required for any of the Endings. When defeated, there will be a room. If you have collected all of the Cores, you will have access to the Abandoned Cells. If you have not, you will instead be sent to the Main Hall, and a free door-key.
- Abandoned Cells (TheDevon) - Defeating Ossgus is required to access this part (see Prison to learn how to access Ossgus). Most of it is straight-fly. After that, there will be 2 paths you can take, one which takes you to the Catacombs, while the other is a dead end.
- Crystal Caves (iISpaceDustIi) - This part goes on for a pretty long time. This section does not have many routes you can take. Most of the gameplay here is a bit more precise than usual. Later in the section, there will be a lava and a mine part, which is slightly easier. At the end of the section, using the red orb at the top will not do anything, while continuing forward will take you to the Catacombs.
- Catacombs (Zepher) - This part is pretty short, and is more of a bridge section. This section does not have anything branching routes, and only takes you to the Deepest Depths. There is another route you can take by using the spider to teleport to the ceiling with the portal particles to unlock a harder route. As for the gameplay, it is straight-forward and easy, but a tiny bit dark to see.
- Deepest Depths (Sminx) - Again, a very short section with no branching routes. The normal route has simple gameplay and a free fly section, in which you have to go up to continue. The harder route (see Catacombs to learn how to access it) will not give the player anything, but will make you mini for the upcoming bossfight. Completing this section will take you to a Xender Game boss known as Altus - Fallen Prince. The fight itself is straightforward. Altus will summon small minions who shoot lasers, and he can shoot lasers as well. He will shoot skulls to the player too. Defeating him will complete the Deep Path, and give you a Coin.
- White Church (Serponge + Subwoofer) - Can be accessed from the Main Hall pretty easily. In the Spider part, you can go down to the spikes with the Blue particles to get sent into the Hidden Pipeways. Continuing forward will take you to the Dark Church.
- Dark Church (Alfred PK) - For this part, the screen shakes a tiny bit. By getting to the third platform with the black cross on it, you can go through it, then make some jumps to get a door-key. Your meant to get one in the Attic, but this is an alternative. Speaking of, you can access the Attic by going forward, while going up takes you to the Battlement.
- Attic (N R G, Pan + Disp) - The Dark Church is the only way to access the Attic. Anyway, this part contains mini ball sections, and giant hands that can snatch you and kill you. You can get a door-key here. This one however is very easy to get and access. The Attic has no branching routes, and will always take you to the middle part of the Towers.
- Battlement (Lumpy) - This section contains lots of spikes and boxes laying on the floor. You can get a door-key in this section too. By jumping off a large box to a dark part of a wall close to the second half of the section, you’ll get into a Robot portal. Doing this, you can make a high jump from one of the boxes later to get the key in the sky. You can then fall onto some blue jump pads which take you to a Pink Dash Orb, which leads to a Cog collectible, which is required to access the Clock Tower. You will then get to the top of the Towers.
- Main Hall P2 (Floppy, Nemphis, Pan, Thomartin + Raoiation) - Referring to Main Hall P1, you can access the UFO either upside-down or not. If you are upside-down and complete the first UFO, you can go into the Cube portal and get sent to the Garden. If you aren’t upside down, you will continue through the Main Hall, and get to a Robot section. There is a door-key in this section, but it’s rather difficult to get. To get it, skip the Cube-portal after the first UFO while upside-down, that way you don’t get sent to the Garden, and you can do the second UFO & the Robot upside-down. After doing precise long jumps as the Robot, you can get the key, and go back down. Completing this section will take you to the bottom part of the Towers.
- Hidden Pipeways (Zepher) - A very short bridge-section (see White Church to know how to access it). Doing this section will take you to the Garden, and it is the only section that takes you to the beginning of it, instead of the middle.
- Garden (Tob, KingTony + Subwoofer) - Can be accessed from the Hidden Pipeways & the Main Hall only. By getting to the Garden from the Hidden Pipeways, you can get a giant flower collectible, which is required for one of the paths. By doing a precise jump from the 2nd fountain, you can land on some hard-to-see Red Jump Pads, which takes you to a door-key. By using the Red Orb in the middle of the section, you can go to the Attic, more specifically, the room with the giant hands that snatch you. Continuing forward, you will arrive at the Towers.
- Towers (Serponge) - The most interconnected area in the level. You can access it from the Main Hall, Garden, Attic, and Battlement. Going to the top part, you can find a bridge you can cross, and then a door that can open if you have the Cog from the Battlement. From the bottom, you can find a big purple key which grants you access to the Haunted Hall. Going to the middle, you can get to the Library.
- Haunted Hall (Serponge) - This part, like the Crystal Caves, goes on for a pretty long time, and is very linear. In the middle of the section, you have a door you can unlock using one of the door-keys scattered across the level. Continuing from the point, you unlock the Standard Path, and finish the level. This path does not reward you any Coins.
- Clocktower (Kips) -
- The Library (Thomartin) -
- Painting Alley (Reunomi) -
- Exterior (Rafer) -
Walkthrough
Credits to Viprin
Trivia
- This level has been in the works for over a year.
- Unlike most Serponge levels, this level cannot be copied as of now.
- In Serponge’s full play through video on this level, he used title cards which represent the place you are in, which are inspired by Hollow Knight, a popular Indie game.
- During the Credits scene, you can see the Castle in the background collapse if you have beaten the Reaper Path.
- Serponge’s trailer video for CastleMania used a Castlevania song called “Bloody Tears”, which was remixed by TheDevon.
- The entire level is in 1x speed. This is so they could avoid any sync problems.
- This level had one of the fastest features in the whole game, let-alone epic, taking about 1 minute.