| Geometry Dash | |
| Genre: | Platform, rhythm |
| Developer: | Robert Topala |
| Publisher: | RobTop Games |
| Platforms: | iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Microsoft Windows, macOS |
| Released: | iOS, Android 13 August 2013 Windows Phone 12 June 2014 Microsoft Windows, macOS 22 December 2014 |
| Modes: | Single-player |
| Engine: | Cocos2d-X |
| Programmer: | Robert Topala |
| Designer: | Robert Topala |
Geometry Dash is a 2013 side-scrolling rhythm platform video game developed by Swedish game developer Robert Topala and published by his company RobTop Games. It was released for iOS and Android on 13 August 2013, Windows Phone on 12 June 2014, and on Steam on 22 December 2014. The player controls an icon and must navigate through levels while avoiding obstacles. The game includes 26 full-length levels created by the developer: 22 are auto-scrolling, and 4 are platformer levels. The game includes a level editor, enabling players to design custom levels, share them online, and play levels created by other users. Players can collect in-game currencies from official and user-generated levels or chests to unlock customization options for their icon.
Topala released his first game, Bounce Ball Thingy, on Newgrounds in June 2010. As he continued to develop games, he quit his civil engineering course to pursue his career as a game developer, releasing a handful of games prior to Geometry Dash. He began development of the game in early 2013, being inspired by other titles such as The Impossible Game and Super Meat Boy. He published Geometry Dash in August 2013 and it quickly gained popularity. Since its release, the game has seen numerous updates that have added new gameplay and design elements, levels, icons, and features.
The game has received mostly positive reviews from critics, highlighting the large variety of music, colorful visuals, and extremely difficult but rewarding gameplay. The level creation feature has also been the subject of high praise, and has spawned a large and growing community that has created many millions of online levels, including challenges, art projects, and even recreations of other video games.
A free version of the main game, Geometry Dash Lite, was released a month after the original that removes certain features such as levels and icons, the level editor, and many other online ones. Three spin-off games accompany the main series: Geometry Dash Meltdown, Geometry Dash World and Geometry Dash SubZero, featuring their own levels and music.
Geometry Dash is a side-scrolling platformer. The player takes control of an icon and must navigate through levels until reaching the end. Standard gameplay uses an auto-scrolling camera, requiring the player to use a single button to complete each level. The level restarts from the beginning if the player collides with an obstacle, such as a spike or wall. A practice mode option allows checkpoints to be placed that the player can restart from, though this mode doesn't reward completion.[1] In platformer levels, players can move left or right without the auto-scrolling camera and can access preset checkpoints without using practice mode.[2] [3]
Various gameplay elements can affect the movement of the player icon, including portals, jump pads, and orbs that can change the player's gravity, speed, size, direction, and gamemode.[4] The player's gamemode, or vehicle, determines the motion of the player icon; for example, in the "cube" gamemode, the player jumps a predetermined height upon a single input. The "ball" gamemode lets the player change gravity on input, while the "ship" gamemode allows the player to fly by holding and releasing.[5]
Each level has an accompanying song. Timing and rhythm are crucial, and the music often synchronizes with a level's gameplay and design elements.[6] [7] Geometry Dash includes 26 main levels, four of which are platformer levels located in The Tower section of the game. Each level is assigned one of six difficulties: "easy", "normal", "hard", "harder", "insane", and "demon".[8] Each main level contains three secret coins, requiring the player to take an alternate pathway or complete a task to obtain them. There are three demon levels among the main levels, and the player must obtain a certain number of secret coins before they can be played.[9] [10]
Beating levels or opening chests will reward the player with various collectibles, such as stars and mana orbs.[11] Mana orbs, diamonds and keys can be used to unlock customization options for the player's icon, including the icon's design, colors, and death animation. Outside of levels, there are also shops and secret areas where customization options and other rewards may be purchased or unlocked.[12]
The game features the ability to upload and play user-created levels. These levels may use music from the official levels or feature custom music imported from Newgrounds. In the 2.2 update, 10 artists were gradually added to a new music library,[13] as well as over 1,500 songs from the British record label NoCopyrightSounds.[14] User-made levels of sufficient quality may be "rated" by Topala, which will set the official difficulty rating of the level.[15] Levels may be rated one of the six difficulties the main levels have, or given the "auto" difficulty if user input is not required to complete the level.[16] Only rated levels award collectibles. Certain user levels are featured in collections known as "gauntlets" and "map packs", or individually as "daily levels", "weekly demons", or "event levels", which will reward players additional collectibles upon completion.[17] Some user levels also contain user coins, which are similar to secret coins.[18] User-made demon levels are divided into five additional difficulties: "easy demon", "medium demon", "hard demon", "insane demon", and "extreme demon", many of which are significantly more challenging than the three official demon levels.[19]
Through the level editor, players have created over a hundred million online levels. Many players have created levels as artistic or creative projects. Some players have recreated entire video games within the level editor, including Super Mario Kart, Five Nights at Freddy's, and Celeste, among others.[20]
Some parts of the community are dedicated to making levels as difficult as possible. The community maintains a list of the 150 hardest rated levels in the game (known as the "demonlist"), which is regularly updated. The verification and completion of these levels are inspected by the list's moderators to ensure that they are not done illegitimately.
Geometry Dash was created by Swedish video game developer Robert Topala, known professionally as RobTop. On 6 June 2010, Topala created his first video game, Bounce Ball Thingy, on Newgrounds, developing it while he was studying civil engineering. He abandoned his course because he became more interested in the video game industry.[21] Topala operated Rune Digital with Niklas Dennerståhl and Daniel Rocque Bengtsson, developing the games Forlorn and Kingdom Escape. Both were nominees for the 2012 and 2013 Swedish Game Awards respectively.[22] Forlorn ended up winning the award for Best Mobile Game, but it and Kingdom Escape were eventually scrapped.[23] Topala founded RobTop Games in 2012.[24] The first video game he produced under RobTop Games was Boomlings, a puzzle video game released on 17 May 2012 for iOS.[25] [26] Topala continued to create video games, releasing Memory Mastermind in January 2013[27] and Boomlings MatchUp in February 2013.[28]
According to Topala, Geometry Dash began as a platformer that could have moved in any direction. He wanted it to be a tribute to the "Super Mario Bros.–style" platformers he has played when he was young, and remarked "there really was no detailed plan. It simply started as a template with a cube that could crash and jump". Other games such as The Impossible Game, Super Meat Boy, and Bit.Trip Runner inspired Topala to make Geometry Dash. In the beta version, the game was called Geometry Jump.[29] It was developed on the Cocos2d game engine[30] and took Topala about four months to create. The official trailer was released on 2 August 2013,[31] and the game would release on iOS and Android on 13 August.[32] The game would later release on Windows Phone and Steam the following year on 12 June 2014[33] and 22 December 2014 respectively.[34]
Since its release, the game has received several updates, adding new levels, game modes, player icons and other features. In January 2017, update 2.1 was released, which would be the game's last major update for nearly seven years. The next update, update 2.2, had been teased since November 2017,[35] but was met with numerous delays.[36] Topala's progress on the update was largely kept secret, with only occasional sneak peeks being offered; one such sneak peek was released in August 2021, showcasing many new gameplay features and mechanics, including platformer mode. The update was teased again in August 2023 during a YouTube livestream celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the game, with the release date revealed to be in October,[37] though this was met with another delay, with 2.2 being released on 19 December 2023. It introduced the "swing" gamemode, the main level Dash, platformer mode with four platformer levels, numerous level editor additions, and more.
The game's music, along with its graphics, have been highly praised. IGC writes that, although seemingly simple, the design of each level can coalesce into an amazing or confusing experience, noting the amount of "visual power" that could be made "out of 2 dimensions and [a] basic color board".[38] An editor's review from Download.com similarly complemented the game's visuals, describing them as smooth, vibrant, and captivating.[39] David Ingrusee at Indie Hive said that the graphics have the potential to be "excessively beautiful", although that some levels' decoration was overly distracting. The in-game music has been met with critical acclaim; Andrei Dobra at Softpedia described the music as "phenomenal", further praising how it "flawlessly" complements the game's action and level design. Ingrusee further commented on the quantity of music available, writing that the player "could jump to the beat of literally any genre".
The gameplay was also met with generally high regards. Download.com described the gameplay as "addicting", with Ingrusee adding that players "would sink in hours into Geometry Dash in order to complete a level. Its high difficulty, however, has been criticized, with Download.com stating that the precise timing required can be frustrating, and Dobra finding the game potentially too hard for some players to enjoy. Ian Young at The Shield claimed that the challenge of the demon levels could often far exceed even the hardest Dark Souls bosses, a game infamous for its difficulty,[40] although still considered it enjoyable. Rob Rich at 148Apps also felt the game to be frustratingly difficult, although argues "that's sort of the point", and that the satisfaction of completing a level still made the experience worth it.[41]
The level editor feature and the user-generated content was met with approval. Ingrusee enjoyed the amount of variety, calling the amount of online levels "uncountable". Dobra commented that the level editor was "pretty solid" and that the online levels offered "really imaginative experiences". Download.com highlighted the new mechanics that many online levels offer, although stated that the game may become repetitive over time.
Geometry Dash quickly gained popularity after its release. In June 2014, it had already become the most popular paid iPhone app in Canada.[42] In February 2015, Topala reported the game had reached nearly 80 million downloads.[43] By September 2018, the mobile version had earned an estimated $21 million in revenue and received 242 million downloads.[44] By April 2025, it had earned an estimated $34 million in revenue and has surpassed 530 million downloads.[45] In 2019 Breakit reported that RobTop Games had earned in profit the previous year, and a total profit of for the previous four.[46] Despite its lack of promotion, Geometry Dash has retained a growing and stable player base over the years. Its large social media presence, along with its focus towards user-generated content, has helped it maintain relevance over its lifetime. Since 2020, the number of daily players on Steam has been steadily rising, reaching peaks of 15,000 in 2021 and 16,000 in 2022. Geometry Dash saw a particular spike in popularity after the release of update 2.2 in December 2023, pulling in over 88,000 concurrent Steam players after its release.[47]
Along with a free version of the game, Geometry Dash Lite, three spin-offs have been published by RobTop Games since the release of the original. Unlike the original, the spin-offs and Lite are free to play and contain ads.[48] [49] [50] [51]
Geometry Dash Lite is a free version of the game released on 12 September 2013. Lite only includes some of the levels in the full game and a few selected user-made levels. It also has a significantly more limited selection of character customization options, lacking many icons, colors, and other content in the full game.[52]
On 16 December 2015, Topala announced his first spin-off game, Geometry Dash Meltdown,[53] which was released on 19 December 2015 for iOS and Android. It includes three levels featuring songs by F-777.[54]
On 21 December 2016, Topala announced a second spin-off game, Geometry Dash World, saying it would come out on the same day.[55] It includes two five-level worlds featuring music from Dex Arson, Waterflame and F-777.[56] It also features a selection of levels created by other players, including weekly demons, event levels, and a select list of featured levels.
On 12 December 2017, Topala announced a third spin-off game, Geometry Dash SubZero,[57] which was released on 21 December 2017. It contains three levels with music from BoomKitty, MDK, and Bossfight.[58]
