Marathon
“quote~ originator
Marathon is a 2.1 Extreme Demon collaboration created by weoweoteo and Hinds and verified by Luqualizer. It has 26 sections, one for each mile of a marathon, testing memory and timing endurance. Because of its highly specific skillset, it has gained a notorious reputation among top players.
Gameplay
Before describing the gameplay, there are several features in the gameplay to highlight:
- All portals, pads and orbs are black, so the only way to recognise them is through their particles (except if the player has the game's Low Detail Mode in work).
- The level has no dash orbs.
- The whole level is memory based.
The level is divided into 26 sections, each representing one mile, numbered off as it progresses. Each of these sections has a different background colour and structure design.
- First mile (0-4%): The background is bright red/pink coloured. The gameplay is simple and contains many fake paths.
- Second mile (4-8%): The background colour changes to a darker shade of pink, and the gameplay is similar to the first mile.
- Third mile (8-12%): The background is now dark blue coloured. The structures now have black blocks, and the gameplay still utilises several fake paths.
- Fourth mile (12-16%): The gameplay has no changes in structures and fakes, but the background becomes darker.
- Fifth mile: (16-24%): The player becomes mini. The concept of this section is small platforms and blocks; there are still many fake paths, and the background is dark red coloured.
- Sixth mile (24-30%): The background colour is now dark purple. In this part, the player must jump on several pillars with spikes and avoid some mini-spikes. There is a purple key the player must obtain. If skipped, a further part of the level would become impossible to pass.
- Seventh mile (30-33%): The background becomes black, and the player's size changes to normal. Unlike the rest of the miles, this mile has no fakes, only based on doing seven tight jumps; the first six are triple spikes, each one structured differently from the others, and the last one is four low spikes attached to be physically possible.
- Eighth mile (33-39%): The background becomes grey. The player's size changes to mini, and they must hit many orbs attached to blocks and jump on small blocks with abounded fakes.
- Ninth mile (39-42%): The background becomes black, and the blocks are green. The player has to jump over many blocks and avoid invisible blocks.
- Tenth mile (42-45%): The background is still dark and pulses to dark green sometimes. The player must hit and avoid orbs without hitting saws, blocks and spikes. The key in mile six toggles an orb at 44.1% for the player to pass. This section becomes impossible if the player skips the key.
- Eleventh mile (45-50%): The background is purple and turns darker and brighter. The player is now normal-sized and must go through some bricks by jumping up and falling; the bricks often become black, making them hard to see, and then they become brighter. Notice that some pulsing hearts indicate the path that the player must take.
- Twelfth mile (50-55%): A simple part that can be easily beaten without learning. It is only jumping onto some pillars. The background is dark orange.
- Thirteenth mile (55-57%): The background is cyan. The player is now mini-sized and has to avoid spikes and jump onto the proper platforms. The player goes into double-speed.
- Fourteenth mile (57-60%): The player has to go through small blocks, jump over spikes and hit orbs.
- Fifteenth mile (60-63%): The player becomes a dual, the background turns grey, and the blocks turn white. The player must perform tricky buffer clicks and timings based on where both icons are located.
- Sixteenth mile (63-66%): This section requires some learning but is simple when mastered. The background stays grey, and the player enters a mirror portal, becomes normal-sized and must now jump through blocks to avoid spikes while the monochromatic block design changes constantly, making some platforms invisible at times.
- Seventeenth mile (66-68%): The background becomes yellow, and the player enters a normal direction portal. This section is trickier than the rest because the player must tap or hold at the locations of certain orbs depending on whether or not they should be activated while also being wary of timings, including one particularly difficult one at approximately 67.1%.
- Eighteenth mile (68-71%): Another dual section similar to the previous one. The background stays yellow as the player must jump on certain mini blocks and time yellow orbs.
- Nineteenth mile (71-72%): The player becomes a single normal-sized cube at normal speed as the song takes a short break. The ground is covered in a layer of blue glow, and the background becomes a dark grey, slightly obscuring the overhead obstacles. Despite being one of the slowest sections and being very easy to learn, this section has some of the hardest timings in the level. It includes one at the beginning in which the player must jump at the edge of a mini block to avoid hitting a spike overhead (though this timing can be skipped using a coin route).
- Twentieth mile (72-78%): The player goes into triple-speed, and the background becomes purple. This section contains numerous fake paths in the first half but easier gameplay in the second.
- Twenty-first mile (78-81%): The background changes to green, and the player size constantly changes between normal and mini. The gameplay consists of a series of stacked-size portals. All of the blocks are invisible.
- Twenty-second mile (81-84%): The background changes to a dark grey, and the gameplay flashes visible and then invisible. A specific path must be taken to toggle an orb at approximately 82.8%.
- Twenty-third mile (84-90%): This section is the most well-known of the level. The background is completely black, and the player starts at normal speed. The first section consists of rows of white lines with one-sided outline blocks hidden in them. These rows occasionally flash and reveal the blocks. The second section makes the player double-speed and replaces the one-sided blocks with corner blocks making them nearly impossible to see. The third section is at triple-speed. There are columns of lines moving up and down, and the blocks are now completely invisible.
- Twenty-fourth mile (90-93%): This section consists of only two clicks. At the first click, you must click a toggle orb in the middle of a series of gravity orbs. With the second click, you must clear a tight gap of spikes. Not clicking the toggle orb will render the second click impossible because it replaces a spike after the jump with a necessary gravity pad.
- Twenty-fifth mile (93-98%): The background changes to the same colour as mile one, and the speed changes to half-speed. The gameplay consists of a series of two stacked gravity portals with a barrier between them. This part transitions into gameplay similar to mile one about halfway through.
- Twenty-sixth mile (98-100%): The background changes to black with blue decoration. This section is short, only a few clicks, and there is a coin at 99.5% at the last jump.
Trivia
- The level cannot be copied.
- The level contains 32,992 objects.
- The level is 4m 34s in length.
- The level was initially placed at #120 on the Demonlist on November 16, 2019, above Audio Extraction (#121) and below The Antimatter (#119).
- This addition to the Demonlist knocked CYCLONE into the Legacy List.
- It is currently on the Legacy List of the Low Refresh Rate Mobile Demonlist.
- The level sparked drama among players debating if it should be star-rated or featured. It ended up being featured.
- Cube is the only game-mode in the level, marking the first Extreme Demon to do so.
- This is weoweoteo's second hardest created level, behind Betrayal of Fate.
- The level took nearly three years to complete.
- The song had originally been composed by 'Metea11', being uploaded by weoweoteo under the pseudonym 'sLate10'. In August 2023, the song got taken down from Newgrounds because weoweoteo uploaded the song without permission from the original author.
- The placement of Aesthetic on May 6, 2020 knocked Marathon into the Legacy List of the Demonlist.