I didn't expect obscure level pack Rayman Designer to be my biggest nostalgia trip of the year, but it's become the highlight of this anniversary collection for me

A zoomed in screenshot of Rayman 30th Anniversary Edition showing Rayman punching a Dark Rayman copy in the cake world — (Image credit: Ubisoft)

The original Rayman is notoriously hard. So imagine how difficult the bespoke level packs were that were designed to be even more challenging, with new, trickier platforming mechanics. Well, imagine no longer – Rayman 30th Anniversary Edition doesn't just include five versions of Ubisoft's original mascot platformer, but also multiple level packs for the MS-DOS version, including Rayman Designer.

For years as a child, I coveted the Rayman Designer disc. I'm not sure why, as I definitely wasn't good at or able to even finish Rayman itself. But the prospect of being able to fool around with a level editor definitely appealed until, after getting it, I realized I wasn't very good at that either. Still, to show off how to create levels, Rayman Designer also came with 24 bonus levels (and it's these, not the full level editor, in Rayman 30th Anniversary Edition, to be clear). All of them are rock hard – "for expert players" – but, snappier than Rayman's own stages, and from the original's level designers, this became a further way for me to poke and prod at Rayman's world even if I would taste more failure than success.

On the level

Rayman charges a punch while hanging from a ledge in the Dream Forest in Rayman 30th Anniversary Edition's Rayman Designer level pack — (Image credit: Ubisoft)

Returning all these years later – and not afraid to use the added rewind function when a particularly dicy jump goes astray – I'm now finding Rayman Designer's levels more fun than the main game itself. It helps that instead of being 5-years-old I now have decades of platforming experience under my belt, and these tightly designed levels built around time trial play scratch an itch to boot up the game and dive in for one more go.

It also helps that I now know more about Rayman's occasionally arcane rules and controls. For some reason, I think it was conceptually beyond me as a child that Rayman Designer's stages, as opposed to the main game's, are built around collecting orbs to progressively open up gates to go deeper into each level. To my memory, I just wandered around as a child until magically finding the way forward.

Starting with all of Rayman's powers, every stage in Rayman Designer is built around using all of his moves, from smartly hanging from ledges to check for safe drops, aim a ranged punch at a magical hidden spot, or to wait for enemy patrol cycles, to teasing out Rayman's helicopter hair glide to navigate legions of spikes. And even the most advanced trick in the game: remembering that you have to press the jump button while Rayman is crouched on the ground to have him crawl forward. Definitely intuitive.

Rayman glides towards a cake ledge in a food level in Rayman 30th Anniversary Edition's Rayman Designer level pack — (Image credit: Ubisoft)

For years I had come to terms with the fact that these levels would remain in obscurity tucked away in my old PC disc wallet from the '90s in storage. It's been a genuine delight to revisit these evil levels from my past and find I appreciate them in new ways all this time on – and the satisfaction of finally cracking stages I could never beat when younger (looking at you, Cake World's Chocolate Trap) trumps mastering anything brand new. Rayman Designer is my IT.

It's been a genuine delight to revisit these evil levels from my past.

On top of the 24 levels from Rayman Designer released in 1997 (presented as Rayman's New Levels in the collection, though the box art retains the title), is 1998's Rayman By His Fans – 40 fan levels created via Rayman Designer's software – and 1999's Rayman 60 Levels – more levels from the Ubisoft design team.

Rayman is the kind of 2D platformer that built a strong foundation with a unique cadence of platforming like little else, so I'm thrilled that these level packs are also being given their chance to shine. Through these mix of levels – some better than others – you can get a taste of the iterative and often community-driven that ran through '90s gaming (also seen with classic Doom, Tomb Raider, and Sonic fan games to this day), a vibe that's long overdue a return in my book in a world dominated by console-generation-long development cycles.

The Rayman 30th Anniversary Edition is neat and all, but I'd still recommend playing the PS1 original on original hardware

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