I've been playing this game probably since 1.9 on mobile, and only bought the game on pc a few years back. I probably have around 2-3k hours on this game in total across all platforms. It's my most played game by far. Though there's a lot I love about this game, it has some serious problems that really need fixing.

First of all, lets get to the good. By far the best thing about this game is the level editor. The level is editor despite seeming very daunting, is actually pretty easy to learn. Despite being somewhat easily accessible, it provides for near limitless possibility. You can make pretty much anything in the level editor, from motion graphics to animations to entire full length adventure games. Due this limitlessness, there is a near infinite amount of community content that you can play, and if you play levels that are rated personally by the creator of the game, you get stars and such. There's also Gauntlets which although aren't always the greatest, can contain very good levels of varying difficulties that usually share a common theme. The gauntlets peak at hard demon, so they aren't always the most accessible to new players but there are a lot of easy gauntlets that contain really well made levels. Map packs are similar although most of the map packs are complete garbage due to the fact that they are very old. However aside from all that, my favourite thing about this game is the game play. This game is extremely satisfying to practice and complete, especially for levels around easy to medium demon difficulty once you get good enough for that. Attempting to Sightread levels when your able to is also very fun. However the best thing in this game is when your attempting a new hardest level. The best moments I've had in any game ever is when I've practised an extreme demon for over 40 hours and I finally beat it, showing that all that practice didn't go to waste. It is by far the most euphoric, most exhilarating feeling I've ever felt when playing a game, and nothing even comes close. Now that doesn't mean I'd recommend other people to go through the same thing as some of the most miserable moments I've had playing any game also come from this game, because once again, practising a level for over 40 hours and still not being very consistent can be discouraging to say the least. However pushing the limits of what you can handle is apart of the fun, and when you finally end up beating that level, nothing is more satisfying. This game pretty much embodies delayed gratification, and it helps you improve your planning and persistence for not just games, but anything in life.

Now onto the bad, which I have a lot to say. If you haven't played this game or are new to it and trying to get into it, Geometry Dash hinges on one key mechanic that is pretty much required when you get into the harder levels: Practice Mode. I find that a lot of new players are easily frustrated and quit fairly quickly when trying to beat the main levels. The reason for this is usually very predictable, and that's because they refuse to use practice mode. And I don't blame them, practice mode in its default state is extremely boring, and that's largely because the practice music is very monotonous and boring to listen to, and the only way to change it so it actually matches the level your playing without mods is to unlock it with 2000 diamonds, which requires a fair bit playing already. By the time you've gotten 2k diamonds you've probably already beaten the main levels, which means you've probably already gotten used to the boring monotony that is the default practice music. It makes no sense that Practice music sync is locked behind getting collectables that take quite a bit of playtime to grind out, especially because practice mode is infinitely more enjoyable with it. The average player is not gonna try and install mods to unlock it like that either, so its either sit through the boring monotony of practice mode or grind the game until your used to it. This leads me to my second point is that the game is infinitely more enjoyable with QOL mods. It makes no sense why these mods aren't already in the game considering they are very simple to add in and have been around for forever. Lets take a mod called "Level thumbnails" for example. In Vanilla Geometry Dash when your scrolling through custom levels, all you see is the name, the length, and the song. That's it. Pretty much no information about the level itself. You have to go into the level yourself to see if it's worth playing. Level thumbnails shows a snapshot of the level beside the level name, making it way easier to select or filter things you wanna play, based on decoration for example. Why isn't this in the game? A few other examples include being able to remove the death effect or showing hitboxes on death, these are small things that vastly improved the quality of the game, it makes no sense how robtop worked nonstop for 7 years on the game and still has yet to implement these basic features while instead adding useless physics changes that make a bunch of old levels impossible. Not only that, but the rating is system is awful too. If you don't know, every single level is reviewed by robtop and rated based on what he feels like that day. Over 40k levels rated by one guy. I hope I don't even have to explain how inefficient this method is. If he doesn't like a level for a subjective reason like it annoys him he can easily just reject it. Now there are mods that send levels to robtop, but a lot of the time it can take him months to get to these levels. And how does one become a mod? Well simple, you just have to have robtop make you mod based on how he feels about you. On top of all that, demons have an entirely different system where instead of individual mods sending them to robtop they vote on it. Why? Don't ask me. Obviously, this system is absolutely terrible and makes getting your level rated an absolute nightmare. Even worse, there's a ton of corruption and favouritism behind this system. If your friends with a mod, you can your level rated easily. And if you're not? Tough luck. Not only this, but due to the fact that levels are rated based on robtop's whims, rated levels can vary drastically in quality. For example, there's a level in the NCS gauntlets called "WANNACRY". This level is terrible by every metric. Its pretty much unplayable and has one really good looking part in the entire level while the rest is straight up nausea inducing. Yet its rated mythic, the highest quality rating in the game. Why? Cuz rob felt like giving it mythic that day. On top of all this though, Rob does all this while working on updates for the game. Its no wonder 2.2 took 7 years to come out. Any other reasonable Dev would let high status mods rate levels or at least hire a team to help them develop the game. But either Rob is an egomaniac, or he just doesn't care. Rob also for some reason, has some sort of vendetta against the hardcore player base. Every time a new hardest demon comes out, for some reason he takes an eternity to rate it. Say what you want about the quality of these levels, they are not meant to be good, they are meant to be hard and they bring the most eyes to the game. The most notorious example of this is of a level called Crimson Planet, which despite being the hardest level in the game when it was verified, wasn't rated for an entire year. I'm sorry but that's just unacceptable, but unfortunately the community has become accustomed to it instead of demanding a new rating system. The game is riddled with these problems, that can be easily fixed, but unfortunately Rob doesn't care what anyone says.

Anyway that was a lot of complaining, but I'd be foolish to not recommend this game after spending so much time playing it. But these issues are seriously plaguing the game and they need to be fixed.

Thanks for reading.

I've been playing this game since I was probably around 5-6 years old. This game has always been fun to play, and recently as my skills have improved, the levels felt more fun to learn. GD introduces interesting game-play and challenges. The satisfaction of beating a difficult level is pretty nice, and even if this game has caused me to crash out in the past, I still enjoy it. Overall, if you like a challenge, and if you have a lot of patience, this game is for you!

Michigun spikes :)