The seven 50GC levels have since been rated! The way I see it, the goal of a 50GC version is to encourage players to explore every corner of the map and add new content/challenges to give a fresh experience. Every level except Sky Flower 50GC achieves this, in my opinion.
I would recommend the 50GC versions of Dark Sky of Wish Mountain, A Strange dream, and Shalev over the originals. In the former two, I really appreciated the choice to color-code map screens golden that contain a GC.
Sky Flower 50GC I would not recommend over the original, as there isn't an extra sense of exploration (you visit every screen in the original anyways) and the linear level layout isn't great if a player misses a GC at one end.
The 50GC remixes of A Walk at Night / Azure Serenity Lite+ / Little Gothic Doll are interesting to me as they are the most transformative but unfortunately I did not enjoy them as much as I wished. In all 3, every screen is a significant challenge (great), but those challenges often are a result of adding a bunch of random-projectile enemies (not great). This is compounded with how GCs are gated where the player often has to travel back and forth the span of the map every time a new key/powerup is obtained, "replaying" an already difficult level more times than preferred. The guide hub is a great mechanic, but is hard to decipher. The gameplay experience of these levels seems very much intentional and I would still recommend these to "fans of the genre".
Three takeaways that I'll be considering if I make a 50GC remix:
- what resources does the level offer a player who is "stuck" at e.g. 49GC?
- how "fair" is the discovery of every GC location?
- how many times does the player have to "replay" the level to collect all GCs?
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