Sky Tower
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Sky Tower is a 2.1 Easy Demon level created by rafer and published on 1 October 2020. It is the second level of The Cubearth Saga after his previous level, in Silico, and the third level in the Castle Gauntlet.
rafer built the level around a story that involves him rescuing his friend Alkali from pirates by using a magical gem he obtains from a place known as 'Sky Tower'.[1] He also released an animation of the story in the level's showcase video. Sky Tower is considered to be one of the best Demons in the game.[2][3]
The story of Sky Tower is continued in The Tempest, and mentioned during the epilogue section from Deepvine Pass and Floodfall Caverns on J735's Flashback.
Gameplay/Story
[edit | edit source]Prologue
[edit | edit source]When rafer and Alkali are on the boat while rafer waited, the keys fell during the gameplay on In Silico at 94%, and he said he left the keys on the destroyed island. After going to the island, rafer finds the keys on the rock but fell into the hole. Sometime later, he is still finding his keys in the trees but had a spider on his head. Later, he smashed into the tree to find his keys, which he later found. Outside of the volcano, rafer found the lava gemstone and said Alkali will love it. Moments later, when rafer is swimming to Alkali's boat, and after arriving, Alkali is gone, meaning that Alkali is being kidnapped. When rafer is still on the boat, he found a paper saying "Look In Front Of You". When he looks in front, he found three pirates: Samifying, Loserchik67, and Tylegomaniac. The pirates wanted to fight rafer, and Alkali wanted to help but is imprisoned in the Pirate's cage. rafer is heading to the pirate ship and wanted to fight the pirates, and they bring him back to the boat. Tylegomanic was surprised by the gemstone near rafer and said he found it on the island. The pirates needed the stone, and rafer gave it back to Alkali, and the pirates said "no". The gemstone is now in the hands of the pirates and fell into the ocean before exploding. Tylegomaniac now has a quest for rafer to bring Alkali back, saying that the Sky Tower protects the rarest gem in the world called the 'Rainbow Emerald'. rafer accepts and is now traveling before the gameplay starts.
Main Level
[edit | edit source]After the pirate accepts the quest and travels, the level starts with a cube section on some rocks and tower-like structures. At 8%, the level changes to an underwater ship section, containing some monsters and underwater caves. Then, at 13%, the cube enters a cannon which shoots the cube up into the sky. The game-mode changes into a custom vertical wave mode, where the player will move right when the player clicks/taps. Clouds must be dodged in this section.
Then, at 24%, the icon reaches the tower, and a cube section follows. At 35%, the icon reaches the inner parts of the tower and turns into a ship, then a ball at 38%, before turning back into a cube at 39%. Finally, at 43%, the cube leaves the tower, jumping on some clouds with alternating-color blocks.
Afterward, at 45%, there is a dual ship part before a dual UFO part. The icon becomes a robot at 49% and enters another tower. The player will turn into a ball at 50% and go through the tower, leaving at 55% as a cube, taking an enormous sky monster to the third tower.
Arriving at the third tower at 59%, the player transforms into a wave and must collect two heart collectibles to move on. The player then changes into a UFO at 65% and leaves the tower as a cube, landing on the sky monster again. The player must then jump up and hit four trigger orbs to destroy walls before arriving at the final tower. Then, at 73%, The player changes into a UFO and must dodge some fireballs. At 76%, the player morphs into a cube and enters the final stage at 78%.
The player then goes through the final part of the level, changing into different game-modes. This part is themed around chaos, with lots of objects flying everywhere throughout. Then, at 93%, the player will need to click on the trigger orb at the top of the tower to collect the Rainbow Emerald and complete the level, causing the world to become normal.
Epilogue
[edit | edit source]After getting to the Sky Tower from the gameplay, rafer found the Rainbow Emerald, after which it explodes through the world, causing the Sky Tower to have a rainbow. The pirates then arrive as rafer is surprised that the pirate ship has wings - something Alkali caused to happen. Tylegomaniac said Alkali is worthy of bringing it to rafer from the Sky Tower, now rafer and Alkali can cooperate. Moments later, the sky monster appears (which accidentally summoned by J735), and the pirates, rafer, and Alkali get shocked. The sky monster asks what they are doing on the Sky Tower and tries to get out. Later, rafer missed the Sky Monster, from which Alkali slammed. rafer is now running through the Sky Monster and jumps while holding on to the Sky Monster's body, eventually falling out of balance, along with Alkali.
User coins
[edit | edit source]Sky Tower contains three user coins.
- First Coin: The player needs to start holding immediately as the level starts. This pushes the boat down with the cube’s weight. Now, if the player jumps on the boat right where they pass the lantern, they can barely make the boat sink before the next couple of platforms, making bubbles appear that rise these platforms higher up. Following this alternate route above the normal one, the player clicks a button and later needs to click and hold right as they enter the bubble to use it. The player later needs to touch the lever, which activates the next trigger orb. Using this enables a path on the spikes, allowing the player to collect extra firepower. With this, the player can now go straight through the brown rocks at the drop and finally reward them with the first coin. Before the drop, this first coin plays completely differently from the normal route, requiring a lot of searching and extra skill to get.
- Second Coin: After the drop, the player needs to use the first orb and hold to get below the normal route. Here, the player jumps into a button, and a monster pushes them up. The player needs to memorize all the random jumps they need to do to get the key. This key allows the player to go through the bottom of this ship. The player can now reach the coin inside a block of ice thanks to the trigger orb in the alternate ship route. This part is usually just the decorative waterfall blocks, and the player can get up here in the normal route too, but without the water being frozen, the coin cannot be reached. At the same time, the trigger orb also freezes the coin inside the ice block, but luckily, the button at the start of the coin opens up the room below that melts the ice. Jumping and hitting the green block gives the player the coin.
- Third Coin: Shortly after, the player needs to straight-fly and avoid the 'X' marks at the bottom of a ship sequence. This allows the player to go through the blocks in the UFO, where they find a magnet. It pulls the spikes away at the entrance to the robot part, enabling the player to take the alternate route where they find a fruit. This fruit is fed to the monster which spawns a smaller monster that puts a wave portal in the middle of a wave segment, giving the player access to an alternate route, which is above the normal route. At the end of this alternate route, the player gets a mace. After crushing the walls at 75%, the monster takes the player to another alternate route, including some difficult timings and memorization. At 82%, the player needs to get a blue heart and then continues the normal route until 90%. After that they can reach the coin without doing anything, and a bounce pad will take them to the end of the level.
Walkthrough
[edit | edit source]Trivia
[edit | edit source]- Sky Tower was nominated for Best XL Demon in the Geometry Dash 2020 Awards. It finished as the runner-up to Future Funk II, securing 6,416 votes, or 23.84% of the total.
- According to rafer, Sky Tower was in the works for nearly two years.[1]
- Sky Tower was Weekly Demon #159.
- Since Sky Tower is in a Gauntlet and was the Weekly Demon, it was possible to get this level's rewards three times.
- Sky Tower was ranked #34 in GDToday's 100 Greatest Levels of All Time list.[2]
- Sky Tower has two Mario references.
- In the prologue part, when rafer is heading to Alkali's boat and the latter is missing and kidnapped by pirates is a reference to Princess Peach being kidnapped by Bowser.
- In the epilogue part, the pirate ship with wings is a reference to Airships, which are commonly used by Bowser, Bowser Jr., and the Koopalings.
- Sky Tower also has two Pokémon references.
- Its name was inspired by the location of the same name from the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series, whose soundtrack plays over the credits of rafer's video.
- Additionally, the appearance of the Sky Monster is a reference to Rayquaza, who resides at the top of the aforementioned location.