if we are close enough to the spawn, are we allowed to just walk back to level 1 and retry

for example: lets say i'm on level 3 and i die, could i just go to back to level 1 and try again

yes

@Ozsef yes, but if you die before getting to that level, the run is invalid.(Unless you are doing any%).

Ok thanks :)

Then the run would be moved to ng++