GraviMan INC.

100th: GraviMan INC. Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level

We believe in serving our eggs flipped, not scrambled.

Overview Creator(s): BoshyGo11 Composer(s): Tee Lopes Statistics Scores: 31 19 44 18 Total: 28 / 100 Rank: 100th Elements: 1 Box Items: Cocco Hari Harry Jamacy Gravity Flip Lever Enemies: Cocco Hari Harry Jamacy Gimmicks: Gravity Flip Lever Reflect Block Sub-Bosses: Hunter Type A Melody Response Cannon Bosses: Gravity Man Other Information: Skippable -2 Functionality Penalty

Theme Music Sonic Mania - Lights, Camera, Action! Sub-Boss: Sonic Mania - Danger on the Dance Floor Boss: Sonic Mania - Ruby Delusions Stage Order Location: Tier 1 Previous: Short Base Next: IHOPEIWIN

"Flipping gravity since 1992"

―Sign, on the first screen

GraviMan INC. is the 100th place entry in Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level. As its name implies, it draws heavily on Gravity Man's stage in both tileset and playstyle, with Mega Man needing to flip his gravity multiple times throughout the level. Unique to it is the presence of Levers, which often must be flipped (usually with the aid of gravity reversal) to make obstacles in the stage terrain appear or disappear. The level also loops back in on itself, leading to a particularly nasty trap towards the very end.

Strategy

The first three screens of the level establish the level's focus on gravity- and lever-flipping, while slowly introducing its primary two enemies, Cocco and Hari Harry (the latter of which is initially placed behind Reflect Blocks as a pseudo-turret). While upside down, Mega Man comes across a long corridor with spikes and pits lining the edges of the screen, and numerous ladders in the middle. He must jump across these ladders to proceed, but this is complicated by the inverted gravity and the nearby spikes. If the Rush Jet isn't used to fly over them entirely, jumping across the ladders often requires walking or jumping off the current ladder at its "highest" point. Some ladders are patrolled by Jamacys, which can be killed from a distance with weapons like the Rain Flush or Homing Sniper. By climbing "down" the first ladder, Mega Man can find a secret room with The Kid, and a single-use Lever that spawns an E-Tank, as well as large Health and Weapon Energy pickups.

After crossing the corridor, Mega Man reaches a checkpoint, and a battle against Hunter Type A. Defeating it opens a small room with a gravity flipper, and two alcoves with a large bolt each, an E-Tank on the left, and a 1-Up on the right. Entering either one before dropping back down requires holding left or right while falling upwards. The room beyond Hunter Type A's chamber contains numerous gravity flippers, a Cocco, and two Levers on either side, with the left one needing to be pulled down to access the right. Triggering said Lever will also cause a Hari Harry to spawn.

What follows is a tricky blue "puzzle room" filled with spikes, with a green question mark in the background. Near the spikes are invisible gravity flippers, and reaching the other side requires trial and error to determine where each flipper is located. The first gravity flipper is right next to the two spikes below the question mark. The second is close to the lone ceiling spike in the middle, but Mega Man must jump up into it – and move left to avoid landing onto the spikes directly below. The third covers a 32 × 32 square, and is between the two spikes on the floor. The fourth and final one is airborne, and requires making a leap of faith over the two top-left spikes, followed by some careful spike avoidance while dropping back to the ground.

The gravity flipping puzzle room, with the invisible Gravity Flippers clearly indicated.

The following few rooms are considerably easier than the puzzle room, featuring very simple lever toggling puzzles and non-threatening enemies. Care must be taken, however, as there are no checkpoints until the end, and dying will take Mega Man back to just before the puzzle room. Eventually, Mega Man reaches a room with a Melody Response Cannon. A large Lever below the cannon activates/deactivates a wall in front of two buttons on either side, but directly below it is another button, which can be triggered if Mega Man isn't careful. After destroying the cannon, the final major screen features three ladders over a pit on the left, with a sign warning not to fall down it. Doing so will bring Mega Man back to the very start of the level, which also triggers a checkpoint to prevent the Retry option from taking him back. Because of the danger of this trap, it's far safer to use the Rush Jet to reach the leftmost ladder, instead of trying to jump across all three. The only other obstacle afterwards is a lone Hari Harry, followed by a battle against Gravity Man.

Skip Status

The judges deemed GraviMan INC. skippable by virtue of its sudden difficulty spikes, chiefly the "question mark" spike room with invisible Gravity Flippers. Another significant cause was the booby trap pit near the end, which leads back to the start of the level and triggers a checkpoint – thus, the Retry option can't be used to go back, and the level must be replayed in its entirety.

Judge Comments

Judge Comments
ParmaJon  : 31 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 9 / 35 5 / 15 7 / 10 7 / 25 3 / 15 Dr. Wily should really just make a Gravy Man to be besties with Meatball Man. Uh...really though, please use a background, even if it's simple. I know running out of time happens, but this looks really, REALLY bad. Otherwise, a lot of the rooms just feel samey and tedious. You make the person run back and forth with the switches, but every room just feels like that with varying degrees of cramped. The upside down ladder section is pretty cool, but also too long, which means small mistakes are just frustrating instead of a good challenge. The level somehow feels like a mix of barren and cramped, which I didn't know was possible. Try again, but this level just missed the mark.
PKWeegee  : 19 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 5 / 35 3 / 15 6 / 10 2 / 25 3 / 15 Oh dear...this was a mess. Like, there was clearly some thought behind this, but...it just wasn't good. The best example is the room with the black background and the question mark. It's impossible to tell what you are supposed to do the first time around, and the fact that the checkpoint is in the room before that, which already takes a bit to get through...it's frustrating. And would it hurt to make a background?
M-Jacq  : 44 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 11 / 35 10 / 15 7 / 10 14 / 25 2 / 15 Y'know, maybe it's the funky fresh music, or maybe I just feel some sympathy for people who submit weird levels with a lot of gravity flipping, but I actually kind of enjoyed this one. And I'm not sure it's all that poorly designed, either. It's one of those levels like Cardinal Man, where even though the level "doesn't make sense" and scans as though it was designed by an improperly trained neural net, there actually seems to be a logic behind the choices here, even if it's more than a little wonky. There are also a couple of genuinely clever moments here. For instance: the realization that in reverse gravity and in a section two blocks high, you can be hit by Cocco's offspring and stray Jamacys, but you can't shoot them back without jumping? That's a smart find. And while at first I was totally flabbergasted by the "mystery room," I have to admit that on my second playthru[sic] it was kind of cool to breeze through it, once I knew the path. It's kind of hard to single out "problems" in this level without saying "well, you know, this is pretty weird" and then sort of vaguely gesturing towards the overall stage design. But unlike many of the "what?" levels in this series, this one actually kind of works from a play perspective.
Freems  : 18 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 4 / 35 5 / 15 7 / 10 1 / 25 1 / 15 There's a legitimate room in this level where the game says "You know, you can just fling yourself into these spikes 500 times cause there's no way to predict where the gravity will flip. Have fun". And then there's the rest of the level too which is also... not great. I mean, you and I played the same level just now. I think I can leave it at that.

Trivia

• GraviMan INC. was originally submitted with an NPC containing malformed creation code, which caused the level to crash upon startup. While the NPC was fixed, the level was consequently given a -2 functionality penalty.