Uploaded June 2021 | Updated September 2026, 40 minutes ago

---

Heya, I have been beating some wacky demons lately and I have a big announcement coming up on Friday, so I wanted to start a Wacky Demon Week mini-series today to commemorate some charming and arguably underappreciated levels, albeit a little scuffed. All of the levels I'll upload this week will float around hard demon difficulty, Stalemate being the most difficult of them.

Contrary to what I say in the video about not having beaten 10 insane demons, Stalemate is actually my 11th insane demon, following Rebellion, Hyperchasm, Sonic Boom, Night Terrors, Sleepless, Psychosis, Windy Landscape, CONK, Lit Fuse, and Interstellar Infant, in that order.

Surprisingly, despite how laughably awful this level is by today's standards of both gameplay and design, it's the insane demon I've struggled with the least, although thanks to its memory sections and jank timings I'd consider only Psychosis to be easier out of the aforementioned 11 levels. The overly simplistic conventions of early 1.9 allow you to use the sparse present decoration as reference points for position-based memory, like the checkerboard wave at 25%, where I sought out individual squares based on their distance from the circle indicators. The last ball, however, takes that resource away from you, and isolates your pattern-and-sync-based memory in a way that was groundbreaking at the time of its release. While it has certainly aged past its prime, Stalemate is an eccentric, but iconic landmark in GD history.

ID: 4545425
Song: newgrounds.com/audio/listen/482872

Have opinions about Stalemate you want to discuss? Join my Discord server at discord.gg/rNAZeDh and spark up a conversation! We'd enjoy your company.