Goldcrest Palace w/ GrenadeofTacos | 2021

☑ Verification Video*:    • goldcrest w/ clicks   ♫ Song: Ginseng by Envy Song Link:    • Ginseng   −−−− LEVEL INFO −−−− ► IDs: 34004 [1.9] / 66858272 [2.2] ✎ Retrospective: Saying this level is meaningful to me would be an understatement - "Goldcrest Palace" was an incredibly fundamental level for myself, as well as to the whole 1.9 GDPS, one could say. For starters, this level was made when Grenade was flourishing as a creator, and it was pretty much inarguably considered "the best" of what the server had to offer when it first released. Despite its age, I would personally like to think most of the level holds up today with the exception of the first two predrop parts and the second dual design, which are by no means bad but comparatively don't seem as thought-out. That said, this level definitely holds a special place in my heart. I remember the sheer amount of time that went into playtesting the layout as much as possible, with my playtesting copy exceeding 10k attempts. Although I grew dissatisfied with the gameplay once again, I can't say I did horribly at the time. In fact, I'd like to say I did as well as I could for how much experience I had. However, similarly to its prequel, I updated the gameplay to be more up to my standards, which in return helped me appreciate it more. As is probably obvious, the duals are the highlight of Goldcrest's layout and definitely took the most amount of effort to make by a landslide. Anything that isn't a dual mostly lags behind for me, but I'm still fairly proud of the grey-green intermission part between the duals and the gameplay just before the drop. With the fundamentals out of the way, I'd like to rewind to some of the level's building process. Making the gameplay took me around half a year - with a large break in between - because I tried my absolute hardest to get it right with the knowledge I had. Did I get it right? Kind of. As I said, I feel somewhat underwhelmed by it nowadays, but it certainly has its moments for me. I do remember sitting at it for a whole two weeks while making progress every day before I passed it over to Grenade to decorate. Seeing Grenade put this thing together - within just a month—was honestly a very special moment for me, and I can't stress enough how thankful I am that someone would put so much effort into decorating a layout of mine. I recall writing a fairly sizeable .txt file expressing my gratitude toward Grenade, since I genuinely didn't want to take it for granted, especially considering it would become a milestone level. So yeah, thanks again ‪@GrenadeofTacos‬ :) Lastly, I'd like to thank Kz04 and Jakalope for helping playtest the final update, and the latter for creating an LDM as well! If I missed anyone, I'm terribly sorry!