Shiver (TNTz)

Shiver
Thumbnail by	glasses
Level Information
Creator	TNTz
Workshop Link	Steam
Upload Date	October 15, 2021
Difficulty	Master
Length	4:33
Checkpoints	7
Track Information
Artist	False Noise

Description
Welcome to CAP, enemy. We have a few attacks to offer.

Shiver is a Master difficulty level created by TNTz. The level takes place within the Center for Attack Production, a building housing an organization that manufactures and coordinates all of the attacks in the level (and presumably many others) to kill the player. Shiver features no boss and instead focuses on gameplay gimmicks, flashy distractions, and a high difficulty. The level uses a mostly monochromatic theme centered on black and white, although some sections contrast this with a variety of bright colors.

Shiver was teased with a trailer at the beginning of the August 2021 Workshop Direct, and released to the workshop around two months later.

Layout

Opening

The level opens with a structure made of rectangles on the right side of the screen. A laser sweeps down from the left soon after the beginning. As more slow-moving lasers appear the screen scrolls to the right, forcing the player to manuver through the structure and into the Center for Attack Production (which has its name revealed from a sign above the entrance).

Checkpoint 1

Welcome to C.A.P., Enemy. It is our duty to kill all nanobots.
- Unknown Speaker

A large beam closes off the entrance, as a zigzag laser attack fires from the right of the screen while the scrolling continues. The laser attack gradually gets smaller as it moves across the screen. To complicate this section further, the screen often shifts to darkness, with the gameplay and player being replaced with a visual of shapes or a message from an unknown speaker within C.A.P. This section ends with a brief pause from gameplay, featuring the level name and logo alongside a "GL /HF" message. An attack across most of the left side of the screen leads into the first checkpoint.

Checkpoint 2

[THE BACKGROUND IS NOT SAFE]
- Sign

Starting with this checkpoint the level has a "background" that damages the player, requiring the player to navigate it like a maze and pay close attention so as to not run into it and take damage.

The screen continues to scroll to the right, with walls appearing on all sides of the screen but the right. Horizontal lasers attack from the left wall, while angled lasers appear from the bottom and top walls. Occasionally, the walls on the top and bottom move to attack - pushing themselves and the screen upwards before returning to a normal position. This section has bombs that repeatedly send out bullets throughout, and also features a moving laser turret that moves back and forth to cover the top of the screen.

Checkpoint 3

You have received the following message: [STOP MOVING]
- Text

The player is abruptly teleported into a location indicated by a flashing square - requiring them to stay still to avoid drifting into an obstacle and taking damage. As the horizontal lasers continue as normal and bombs continue littering the level with bullets, the diagnoal lasers change to have warnings that only show around half of the area they hit, with an arrow at the end. The attacks from the top and bottom walls continue, gradually covering more and more of the screen and acting as distractions as well. The wall on the left side pushes itself forward, forcing the player to dash into a column with an assortment of bullets within to avoid it. This is followed with an attack from the bottom wall that completely covers the screen and forces the player to move within a small hole in the top to avoid it. The lasers from the left wall start to point in different directions, eventually focusing in on a giant bomb at the end of the hallway. Exploding and covering the screen in a darkness that is quickly followed by bright light, a dash in time with the text indication is required to avoid the next attack.

Checkpoint 4

You put yourself through this.
- Unknown Speaker

This checkpoint opens with a cutscene, showing the player come across a set of plans for different attacks. Reading them with the help of a flashlight, the player is quickly interrupted as C.A.P. detects them and immediately launches attacks.

The screen zooms out on an area with walls on the top and bottom. The zigzag laser attack from the opening of the level repeats, coming from the left.

Checkpoint 5

As the camera pans to the right, a spiked wall is revealed that starts to move towards the left as the screen follows. After scrolling for a few seconds, the wall on the top of the screen moves downward to form a second segment which has several rapid vertical laser attacks. This is followed by the bottom wall moving upwards to create a segment as well - this one with semicircles that rotate back and forth.

Checkpoint 6

[YOU KEEP BRINGING YOURSELF INTO THIS.]
- Unknown Speaker

The walls dissapear briefly as the player is moved to the center of the screen, and then slam back into place (damaging them if they don't move out of the way). This section continues scrolling left with multiple different segments in a similar manner to the last checkpoint, a total of five. In order from bottom to top, they each contain these attacks:

• The semicircles that rotate back and forth from the previous checkpoint.
• A line of diagnoal lasers that is indicated by a proper warning alongside an arrow.
• Circle attacks that appear on the edges of the segment and expand towards it's center
• The vertical lasers from the last checkpoint
• The zigzag laser attack from the last checkpoint

Checkpoint 7

Congrats. You've defeated it. We know you will, eventually. You'll keep doing this repeatedly. You're always determined. One thing is for certain. We will not-
- Unknown Speaker

After a rapidly flashing screen showing credits, the segments begin to shift downwards to the beat of the song. A sixth one on top comes into view, which features wide vertical lasers. Beyond this, the order of segments repeats. The final attack features a flurry of diagnoal lasers from the left side of the screen, alongside a zoom in of the camera. The lasers attack two times normally, and continue across the screen further on the third.

The level then transitions into a message from C.A.P. Before it can finish, it is abruptly cut off with darkness as a scene of the player looking at mountains from outside the building is shown. After this, the level shows a list of special thanks.

Gallery

• 

  First checkpoint

• 

  Second checkpoint

• 

  The attacks document in the middle cutscene

• 

  Camera-like scene

• 

  Ending scene

Trivia

• According to the Workshop Direct trailer for Shiver the camera movement, distractions, and background as an attack are all experimental techniques used by C.A.P. - a reference to how all three are used as unique gimmicks within the level.
• The YouTube video for Shiver on TNTz's channel features a conversation between Center for Attack Production employees hidden in its English captions.
• The logo in the level and level thumbnail is based on the song art for Shiver.