Falling Up
Falling Up is a 2.0 Extreme Demon level by KrmaL. Falling Up received praise for its music, style, and sync, but some criticism for certain gameplay elements.
Description
Some sequences have a theme that relates to the Earth.
- The first cube has two city themes.
- The second drop has a rainy weather theme.
- The last dual part has a heaven-like place with rainbows.
- The hardest challenges of this level are both drops. In total, this level has five straight-flying segments that all require strict timing to successfully get through. For example, the first straight-fly involves hitting an orb to boost into a gravity portal, but holding too long will cause a crash. It requires an input and a hold, then quickly adjust into the straight-fly and make it through.
- The "rainbow stage" of the level consists of a fairly difficult dual that lasts for the rest of the level. Although some parts are fairly simple, such as the first segment, which consists of just holding, some parts, such as the dual-ship, require precise inputs and timing.
- Warning! It is crucial to hit the very last blue orb before the "GG" message. There is a spike right underneath it.
Falling Up begins with a simple, yet precise cube segment full of moving triple spikes and gravity orbs. After this, the cube goes into a city-themed segment. It has a lot of orbs that require annoying timing. It later becomes much easier with simple jumps, a billboard saying "2.1 soon..." and a few simple jumps. The screen becomes black and the text "Falling Up" and KrmaL's name appears, as well as the song's and composer's names. After the "Good luck" message, several orbs appear that the player has to hit.
The first ship part is very hard and requires a lot of timing, mostly due to several straight flying parts and orbs that require more annoying timing. Later, it becomes a fast wave with fairly tight corridors and more and another cube with more orbs. After another short wave and cube, the player turns into a mini-wave, which is pretty difficult and requires good timing.
The first drop is a dark segment with limited visibility. The player has to remember a few simple jumps to avoid crashing. After that, the cube falls, and the player has to hit orbs faster and faster, forcing them to jitter-click for a short while at triple speed. The next ship and wave parts are similar to the first ones but harder and more frustrating.
When the second drop comes, the background goes black again with a sun rising up into the air, then the player continues with a hard and confusing dual going to the end of the level. At the beginning of the dual, there is a quote that says "the past is happy to be". It starts with a cube, then with a mixed cube/ship part, a very difficult dual ship part and a mixed dual wave/mini-wave part. At the end, the player becomes a double cube/mini-cube dual, ending with a single cube with a couple of orbs. The player has to hit all of them to avoid dying. Later, the "GG" text appears, signalling the end of the level.
Gameplay
Trivia
- Falling Up was placed at #47 on the Demonlist on January 17, 2017, above Light Years and below Asymmetry.
- This addition to the Demonlist pushed Necropolis into the Legacy List.
- The level was ranked #31 in GDToday's 100 Greatest Levels of All Time list.
- The level follows the titular theme of "falling up": the first drop has a background with tessellated arrows facing up. The player starts on the ground among city buildings and, at the end, ascends into the clouds.
- In the city part, a billboard with the word "2.1 soon..." can be seen, referencing Update 2.1.
- This is KrmaL's only level to lack a ball segment.
- KrmaL had to verify this level twice because the first version was laggy for a lot of people, and there was an unintentional secret way that he wanted to fix.
- At 73%, there is a bug where if the player hits the first yellow orb high enough, they will slide on the slope connecting to one of the spikes, landing on the yellow orb that just follows the blue gravity portal, allowing the player to continue normally while avoiding almost half of the orbs before the wave that leads into the final dual part.
- This level has been known to popularize the soundtrack featured in it, Time Leaper, and its creator, Hinkik.
- As the popularity of the song was primarily for the level, the comments in the "Time Leaper" video were almost totally "KrmaL" and "Falling Up" inherent, angering Hinkik himself.
- This is probably the reason why KrmaL banned all players who knew the name of the song in Black Blizzard, not wanting to repeat with Creo what happened with Hinkik.
- As the popularity of the song was primarily for the level, the comments in the "Time Leaper" video were almost totally "KrmaL" and "Falling Up" inherent, angering Hinkik himself.
- There is a small Easter Egg at the end of the city part. If the player jumps into the last gravity portal too late, they will pass through the building's ceiling and teleport to the next section, resulting in the "Falling Up" text being replaced with a "LOL" message.
- Dying at the "H" sign that is supposed to be represented as a hospital H will add the letters "ECK", resulting in the word "HECK".
- There are two popular 2.1 remakes of this level. One of them is called Rising Down by small,[1] and another one is called Falling Up AgaiN.[2]
- Its difficulty has swapped from Extreme Demon to Insane Demon multiple times.
- This level was in EricVanWilderman's 12 Demons of Christmas 2021 series, as Demon #1.
- The movement from #48 to #52 on the same day of its placement pushed Falling Up into the Legacy List of the Demonlist.
- The Demonlist increased from the Top 50 to Top 100 in October 2017, pushing Falling Up back to the Extended List.
- The placement of Hyperio Technia on December 8, 2018, pushed it back into the Legacy List for the second time.
- Later, it was moved from the Legacy List (at #101) to #100 on December 9, 2018.
- The placement of SINGULARITY on December 10, 2018, pushed it back into the Legacy List for the third time.
- Once again, the Demonlist increased from the Top 100 to Top 150 in June 2019, pushing Falling Up back to the Extended List again.
- However, the placement of MadMansion on August 22, 2019, pushed it back into the Legacy List for the fourth and final time.
- It is one of the few Extreme Demons that was pushed into the Legacy List before the Demonlist increased up to 100, and was pushed into the Legacy List more than three times.
- The Demonlist increased from the Top 50 to Top 100 in October 2017, pushing Falling Up back to the Extended List.
Notable fails
- Cyanox crashed at 88%, 91%, 98%, and 99% by missing the third last orb. He stated that he clicked as soon as he touched the orb, suggesting the input did not register.
- Vortrox crashed at 98%. Normally, the gameplay would flow differently than how Vortrox died, possibly meaning that his fail was caused by a bug.