Maelstrom (Luminescence)

I hope you enjoy this whirlpool filled level! >:3

**Maelstrom** is an Expert difficulty level created by Luminescence. The level was originally created for the 2021.4 “Themes” level contest, but was released early and disqualified from it. It uses one of the themes supplied, as well as using a general underwater theming.

## Layout

### Start

After the screen fades from black to blue, bubbles appear. Text also appears saying "The theme I'm using doesn't have black aaaa". bombs with fast, warned bullets appear as well. This repeats as yellow bullets start falling from the bottom and top of the screen.

### Checkpoint 1

More bombs appear, beams come up from the bottom of the screen as well, soon after that a whirlpool starts building up in the middle of the screen as bullets start flying out of it. bullets stop coming out of the whirlpool after it has finished building up as beams start getting sucked into it. a countdown also appears which counts down with the song. Once it has reached 1 the whirlpool disappears as the screen fades to black.

### Checkpoint 2

The screen fades to white, and the white quickly fades away, revealing a massive whirlpool at the bottom of the screen as the screen starts moving up. Yellow beams come from the whirlpool as the whirlpool also start moving up alongside the screen. a massive beam comes out of the whirlpool, followed by blue circles appearing at the top of the screen before dropping to the bottom. A small decoration then comes out of the whirlpool and floats upward, turning into another big whirlpool as the screen starts moving down. The whirlpool follows the screen while firing yellow beams, before a yellow circle drops out of it and fires some bullets before firing some beams. After this the screen fades to black

A blue visualizer appears at the left of the screen and fires some bullets, another visualizer appears on the right and fires some more bullets after the left has disappeared. A small vertical beam appears on the screen before it grows into a visualizer and fires bullets on both sides. Several beams of the visualizer then grow wider until they hit the edges of the screen. A massive visualizer then appears on the bottom of the screen before text appears which says "**DASH IN** [Countdown]" As the countdown reaches 0, it says "**NOW!**" and another visualizer quickly appears on the top of the screen after the bottom visualizer has disappeared. After the top visualizer has disappeared, a hexagon appears before rapidly increasing in size as the screen fades to white.

### Checkpoint 3

The screen fades to normal as five big beams appear. After that, two circles appear in the middle of the screen before going to the left and right respectively. Walls made out of circles then appear on the left and right of the screen, and soon fire some beams. a circle appears in the middle and fires several bullets. After the circle then disappears, beams appear. After that, a very small whirlpool appears in the middle of the screen and fires some bullets, the whirlpool soon disappears as the screen fades to black.

The screen fades to normal as two tornado-shaped whirlpools appear on the left and right of the screen respectively. They both fire beams and bullets at the player before shrinking and converging. They both grow back to their full size before firing more bullets. They then shrink and go to the left and right again, before they fire beams at the player, they repeat this after they converged back in the middle. Then walls appear on the sides of the screen as the whirlpools consume the player as the screen fades to white.

### Checkpoint 4

The screen returns to normal, revealing two whirlpools on the side of the screen as it's moving down. bubble bombs appear, followed by yellow bullets that appear from the top and fall to the bottom of the screen. After that the player is right in the middle of a whirlpool as beams are fired at the player, the same bombs from the first checkpoint also appear here as well.

### Checkpoint 5

A short credits sequence appears, crediting Enchart, DXL44, Ol666 and MoNsTeR. And text that says "**To my Minced Garlic friends :)**"