Geometry Dash is a music-based platforming game. Your player automatically goes forward so you can’t stop your character. In the game, you control an icon that has to avoid all of the obstacles. You have to click on the screen or your mouse, space bar, up button, or controller to jump. The game was released for iOS and Android on August 13, 2013, by a developer that was named “Robtop”. At the time of the release the game only had 7 main levels (Levels made by the creator of the game) The element that made the game so interesting was that it had an editor system where you can make your own levels. You could also customize your icon. (The player you can control)
The game wasn’t that popular at the time of its release. And there weren’t many mobile games for the new phone of the day. The game had risen to popularity because of its challenging gameplay. The challenge is the aspect that made the game good, this is because when you die you are sent back to the very beginning. There is a rush of happiness when you beat a level that is almost addicting. The game also had catchy music that would keep you playing. During 2014 Geometry Dash rose to the top of Apple’s paid iPhone App. Later 3 sequels to the game were made, one being “Geometry Dash Meltdown” which was released on 19 December 2015. “Geometry Dash Subzero” Released on 21 December 2017. “Geometry Dash World” Which was released on 21 December 2016.
The game started with
2 game modes. Game Modes are different objects your player can become after going through a portal. When the game was first released it only had 2 different game modes: Cube and Ship. The ship is controlled by how you click. If you hold you go up, if you don’t hold you would be affected by gravity. You also have a limited amount of space you could go as a ship because a ceiling forms above where you went through the portal. There were also gravity portals that flipped your gravity when you went through them.
In update 1.1 it introduced the mirror portal. The mirror portal would flip your screen when you went through them. If you were going right, the whole level flips backward. This makes it so it would be a bit harder to play going backward. Creators could use this portal to make their level harder. Mirror portals are highly disliked by the community because the players say they are annoying to deal with. With this update comes a new level. This level is called “Time Machine”; it uses the mirror portal gimmick throughout the level. Finally, this update added 2 new icons that you could unlock to customize your character.
In the second update after the release of the game update 1.2, it added a new game mode. This new game was called The Ball. If you have ever played “Gravity Run” the ball plays like how the player in Gravity Run plays. When you click your gravity switches, you are sent to the opposite side of your screen (Vertically). You don’t get instantly teleported to the opposite side of the screen, it takes a bit of time to get there. Also, like the ship, the ball has a ceiling from above to keep the icon from going too high; in which you die. This update also can with a new level called “Cycles” This level utilizes the ball in its gameplay. This made the level challenging and fun.
Another update called update 1.3 added pads. Pads are glowing flat ovals on the ground, they can do a variety of things. There was only one pad before this update. It was the yellow pad, the yellow pad boosted you upwards, it boosted you a little more than the cube and ball as a ship because the ship has less gravity affecting it. This update introduced the blue pad. The blue pad didn’t
boost you upwards, it flipped your gravity. There was also a new level, it was called “Xstep”. It uses blue pads as an obstacle in a ship part because many people think that upside-down ships are harder than normal ships. It includes new decoration items on the level. This update adds a leaderboard, a star system, and the demon difficulty. The star system was an item that was given to you for beating a rated level. A rated level is a level that has gone through a tough rating system. It has to be seen by a moderator of the game, and then it has to be checked by the creator of the game before being rated. The amount of stars given for beating a level is determined by what difficulty it is rated. The hardest difficulty during 1.3 was the demon difficulty. The difficulty scale is Easy, Normal, Hard, Harder, Insane, and Demon as of the 1.3 era. The leaderboard tracked the top 100 players with the most stars. Later the Demons are expanded to Easy Demon, Medium Demon, Hard Demon, Insane Demon, and Extreme Demon being the hardest.
The 1.4 update introduced size portals, size portals can make your icon small and back to normal size. The pink-sized portal made you small. The green size portal puts you back to normal size. With this new feature, a new level was created by Roptop. It was called “Clutterfunk,” and it used the new size portals with the gameplay. It also used the new saws that were added. It added clouds and fake gear decoration too. Smaller spikes were added too to mix with the new style this level had.
1.5 was an update that added a new
game mode, the UFO is similar to the cube. It has one main difference, it can jump in mid-air. This game mode is used like a flying game mode. A flying game mode that doesn’t need floors to work. An example is the ship because it can fly up and down. A new main level “Theory of Everything” was created. It uses this new game mode. It also made split paths. Split paths are things you can create in the editor. When you create 2 paths with blocks. Usually one of the paths is correct and the other would be something that kills you.
The update 1.6 was big; this update contained secret coins. Secret Coins are collectibles in levels. The golden coins are from the main levels, if you die on the attempt you collect a secret coin you lose it and have to get it again.
There are also silver and bronze coins, they are both from the user level but they are different. The bronze coin is from an unrated user level. Roptop has to go over the coins and if he likes how they are placed he can make them silver. Silver coins are user coins. You can have up to 3 secret coins in a level. With this update, it also added map packs. Map packs are packs that hold 3 levels. When you beat all 3 levels you get a reward. At this date, map packs are highly disliked in the Geometry Dash community. This is because the levels in map packs are very low quality and make the game look bad. This update also added 2 new levels. The first level is “Electroman Adventures.” It utilizes new decorations that were added. The second level was important. It was the first demon-rated level that Roptop made. The name was “Clubstep”. Many people enjoy this level of difficulty and beat the level.
1.7 was a fast update, it introduced speed portals, and it made the level go at a different speed when you went through the portal. There is a 0.5x speed portal and a 1x speed portal which is normal speed. 2x speed portal, 3x speed portal, and finally a 4x speed portal. This made it so the level could be made harder because you would have less time to react. This update came with “Electrodynamix” This level was hard because it used a lot of speed changes and many players will struggle with this. Many argue that this level should be a demon instead of an insane (Difficulty before demon) It also added many new decorations that you can add onto the sides of blocks.
Update 1.8, this update added some improvements to the level editor. The most important one though was that you can test your level inside the level editor instead of having to go out of the editor to play it. This update also added a dual portal, it duplicates your icon with a second one with opposite gravity and opposite colors of your normal icon. This new level “Hexagon Force” used this game well and engaged the Geometry Dash community in their online levels. Many amazing levels use this mode. The level “Hexagon Force” also added a new background that had many connecting hexagons.
The 1.9 had a new gamemode! This gamemode was originally named “Dart” but it was changed to “Wave”. The name was first dart because the gamemode looks like a dart. This gamemode is like the ship but it only goes diagonally up and down. This gamemode is used in hard levels because
you can make tight corridors for this gamemode. This update had 2 new levels “Blast Processing” and “Theory of Everything 2” This level is a sequel to “Theory of Everything”. “Theory of Everything 2” was much different than the first one. It was also the second demon main level. Theory of Everything has many tough jumps, but easy enough for new players to get a little far. The second level “Blast Processing” used the wave gamemode the most of the level. This level made it so the wave gamemode was very easy to learn. It also used a block design that some levels use today. They call it a “1.9 Level”. Lastly, this update put the difficulty of the first 9 main levels down because the Geometry Dash community was getting bigger.
2.0, this update brought another new gamemode: The Robot. The robot gamemode acted like a cube. Besides, the longer you click the higher you go, this has a limit though. This update came with 2 more levels again. “Geometrical Dominator” and “Deadlocked”. “Geometrical Dominator” introduced you to the robot gamemode. The start of the level is grassy and it goes into a rainbow part. It also had monsters. “Deadlocked” is the 3rd main level demon, it uses many monsters and the new Move Trigger. Triggers are objects you can place in the editor and they do an action. It’s similar to coding. “Deadlocked” had an extremely hard wave part around 10 seconds into the level. Because the wave gamemode was new this was really hard for the Geometry Dash community.
The current update is 2.1 which was released 6 years ago. It added a new level “Fingerdash” which had a new gamemode: The Spider. It was similar to the ball but instead of taking time to go to the other side of the screen, the spider instantly went to the other side. “Fingerdash” was a rocky style. But, during this time period there were over 200 items in the Editor. This update also added many animated objects. This update was released in 2017, this is the latest update that was realesed. At this time of the article being released. 2.2 is coming soon.
The Demonlist became popular because it showcased the hardest demon that was beaten by a human around this time the level name “Sonic Wave” was the hardest demon. Currently it is placed at #145 on the Demonlist. But, going back in time, “Bloodbath” was released.
“Bloodbath” was a Mega-collab hosted by Riot. A Mega-collab is when many creators get together and create a level. All the creators in the Mega-collab were assigned different parts of the level to work with. “Bloodbath” is a hell themed level. It was different because when it was released, the community didn’t like many hard levels and usually disliked them. But, “Bloodbath” was different from the others. It had lots of effort put into it. “Bloodbath” started a change, the community started looking at harder levels and realizing how good players were at the game to make these achievements. Instead of disliking hard levels, the community started to want harder and harder levels. Geometry Dash was getting harder and harder.
The decoration of levels was getting much better and Geometry Dash was getting harder and harder. Players were getting better and better. At this time many tools were being released, tools like noclip, hitboxes, and bypasses. Megahack is a tool to assist players beating a level. Noclip was not allowed to verify levels. They had to be legitimate. They are looked over by Demon List Moderators to check for any cheats that were activated.
Cheating is common, it happens with everything. But, what about Geometry Dash? Players can cheat on Geometry Dash but you’re not allowed to verify or pass the level on as a legitimate completion. Usually, the Demon List Moderators can cheat, but sometimes they miss something.
One big cheating scandal was when there was a race to beat “Sonic Wave”. The creator Cyclic was racing against a player that goes by the name of Sunix. Cyclic eventually won the battle but it turned out to be all fake. Cyclic had cheated to beat his own level and Sunix won the battle. Cyclic was a well known figure in the Geometry Dash Community and it hit hard when it turned out he had cheated.
The second big cheating scandal happened to be a player named SpaceUK. When SpaceUK started playing Geometry Dash, he beat an Easy Demon named “DeCode” . It was one of the harder Easy Demons but many people had done it before. But, then he jumped a couple of difficulties. Jumping is a term that Geometry Dash Players use when referring to skipping difficulties from your initial hardest level you’ve beaten. SpaceUK had jumped from “DeCode” to “Windy Landscape”. “Decode was an easy demon and “Windy Landscape” was an insane demon. But then he beat “The Golden” which at the time he beat it, it was a top 2. It was the top 2 hardest demons. SpaceUK started getting attention after this. Then he beat the former impossible level named “Slaughterhouse” It was a brutal level that contained many frame perfect clicks. Frame perfect clicks are when you have 1/60th of a second or 0.016667 second to react. “Slaughterhouse” had 65 frame perfects. But, after many other Demon List completions. Paqoe made an exposing video on why SpaceUK is hacking Paqoe pointed out that on his completions of levels there was a 3 to -3 frame delay on his clicks. And also stated that there was an extra click about 20% into the level. This extra click might have been him starting a macro to beat the level for him. Later more evidence was found. The bot he was using was called Zbot. For anticheat purposes Zbot makes the level complete text a bit smaller. Demon List Moderators caught onto this quickly and banned him from the Demon List. Then SpaceUK stated that he was hacking.
Many students at Rio Norte also play Geometry Dash, A 8th Grader here at Rio Norte named Kathir Murugesan stated, “I like Geometry Dash because it is fun to watch Pro players beat extremely hard levels” Geometry Dash has been a big part of many people’s lives. Many players has made a Youtube career from this game. Geometry Dash may be just a game but if you go deeper it is a whole community.