The inhuman skill ceiling of Geometry Dash

When I tell people I play Geometry Dash, they think of a mobile game about a cube jumping over spikes that you play on the toilet to kill time. People can’t fathom taking a mobile game seriously, so I wrote this to show how the skill ceiling of GD actually rivals real esports games. That is a bold claim, so let’s take a look at the difficulty of a bunch of levels both quantitatively and qualitatively, starting with the first level in the game and working our way up to the hardest level that has currently been beaten.

Each level has a difficulty value, which is taken from from The Difficulty of Geometry Dash, Visualized. It is derived by comparing the relative difficulty of two levels, where if completing level A is equivalent to reaching 80% on level B, then level B is 1/0.8 = 1.25 times harder than level A. By averaging the opinions of pro players, we can set the easiest level to a value of 1 and calculate up from there.

These numbers have a huge margin of error since they are inherently subjective, but the thing is, the difficulty range from the easiest to hardest levels is so immense that I can tell you Bloodbath is an extremely hard level, and Slaughterhouse is on another planet compared to Bloodbath, and you wouldn’t actually have any idea of the scale without any numbers.

You will also see comparisons to other games. These are from How Hard Geometry Dash Actually is (Full Analysis) | Mdog5 as I have not played other games seriously enough to judge their relative difficulty myself. So let’s get started with the first official level.

If you are more of a visual learner, I also made this post into a graph!

Stereo Madness

Difficulty value: 1.0. (YouTube)

This is the first level of the game and has the lowest difficulty rating of Easy. A new player should be able to beat the first couple of levels within a few days.

Polargeist

Difficulty value: 1.7. (YouTube)

This is the third level of the game and has the next rating of Normal.

Cant Let Go

Difficulty value: 4.8. (YouTube)

This is the sixth level of the game, having the next difficulty of Hard, and the first one I remember me and my classmates actually found hard, as in, struggling to get past a few percent. (Yes, the school iPads had GD on them for some reason. I don’t know if the teachers thought it would have educational value because it had the word “geometry” in the name.) By the time I completed all the main levels, it felt absurd I ever struggled with this. One could say that goes to show the skill gap between even a relatively inexperienced player and a brand new player.

Also, before you point out that I forgot the apostrophe in “Can’t”, let me say that this is the canonically correct spelling because the in-game font comically doesn’t support apostrophes.

Time Machine

Difficulty value: 7.0. (YouTube)

This is the eighth level of the game, having the next difficulty of Harder.

Clutterfunk

Difficulty value: 13. (YouTube)

This is the eleventh level of the game, having the next difficulty of Insane. This is the last difficulty before the demon difficulties.

Clubstep

Difficulty value: 21. (YouTube)

This is the first official demon level and the first significant jump in difficulty a new player might face. The demon difficulty is the highest level in the game and is itself split into five subratings: Easy Demon, Medium Demon, Hard Demon, Insane Demon, and Extreme Demon. I remember the first time I opened the level I thought it was impossible. Clubstep was the first level that took over a thousand attempts to beat for the first time, but at my current skill level it is trivially easy.

Deadlocked

Difficulty value: 34. (YouTube)

Arguably the hardest official level. It took me three or four thousand attempts to beat Deadlocked. A casual player might need a couple of weeks to reach this skill level.

B

Difficulty value: 56. (YouTube, GDBrowser)

This marks the entry point into medium demons and is also the first custom level on this list. Medium demon is the hardest difficulty I have beaten on mobile before switching to the Steam version. From here on out, all the levels are made by the community.¹ I have linked them in GDBrowser if you want to try them out in-game.

Nine Circles

Difficulty value: 95. (YouTube, GDBrowser)

This is the first hard demon on this list and one of the most famous, inspiring a trend of Nine Circles-inspired levels that includes Sonic Wave and Sakupen Circles later on this list. This is the hardest level I have beaten on 60hz. A casual player would likely need at least a month if not several to get to this level, which puts games that are known for their difficulty such as Dark Souls at “only” hard demon difficulty with respect to time to beat.

Rupture

Difficulty value: 310. (YouTube, GDBrowser)

This is the first insane demon on this list. All the levels I have beaten of this difficulty or higher have been on 120hz. One sign that a game has a high skill ceiling is the usefulness of high refresh rates. I myself noticed an instant marked improvement when I bought my first high refresh rate monitor, going from a hardest of hard demon to extreme demon in a couple of months. See how top player Doggie says there is even a noticeable difference going from 240hz to 360hz:

“I quickly realized within a few days of playing that I had reached a point in difficulty where 360 was necessary to compete, and necessary to beat these levels in a reasonable timeframe. After my 2nd Slaughterhouse stream, it really did seem implausible to beat. Off stream that night, I played it a bit on 360fps, just as a test. Upon switching, the first thing I noticed was how responsive it felt. Particularly, the two long straight flys and the iris wave spam (~64%) felt so much better. Of course, everything else did too, but these are good examples of things that change the most with high FPS (wave control and straight fly). This is why only the people that play at a high level can attest to how good 360 really is…”

“I dropped Firework to play Sakupen Circles, which had just come out. There was no question, I had to switch back to 360fps for this. While I also thought this was top 1 at the time, it’s just the type of level where you REALLY notice the benefits of 360fps. The incredibly precise gaps in the waves, and the control required for the 57% downwards spam, coupled with the double clicks at 66% after, made me realize just how much better 360 was than 240. Again, as much as people say there’s not a big difference from 240 to 360, they fail to understand what it’s like to play these levels.”

Mere mortals would be hard pressed to distinguish 240 and 360 hertz, but the fact that it’s essentially a requirement to compete at the top level shows the raw precision top players demand.

Red World

Difficulty value: 1,600. (YouTube, GDBrowser)

This is the entry point into extreme demons, the highest tier of the highest difficulty in GD. Out of the millions of people that have paid for the full version of the game, I estimate the number of people that have beaten to be an extreme demon to be no more than ten thousand,² or less than 1% of the active playerbase. If you count the over half a billion people that have downloaded the free version, that puts an extreme demon victor in the top 0.01% or one in ten thousand players. This is rarer than achieving the highest rank in many esports games such as Challenger in League of Legends at 0.016%, Radiant in Valorant at 0.05%, and Supersonic Legend in Rocket League at 0.02% with respect to percentiles.³ The crazy thing is, we have barely begun in terms of true difficulty.

Cataclysm

Difficulty value: 2,700. (YouTube, GDBrowser)

From here on out, GDBrowser will show the level’s position on the Geometry Dash demonlist, which is a ranking of the top 150 hardest levels in the game by the consensus of top players. The next couple of levels are in the legacy list, which means that they were formerly in the top 150 but got pushed off over time as harder levels came out. At time of writing, GDBrowser shows Cataclysm in the 500s, though be aware that positions lower than #150 are not actively validated by the demonlist team and are approximate. As harder levels come out, every levels’s ranking will eventually fall, which is why there are so many “at time of writing” and “currently” qualifiers in this post.

This is my current hardest level, taking about 16000 attempts and a couple dozen hours of playtime over a month or two. Once a player reaches the extreme demon level, they can expect to spend more time going for a new hardest than most people spend completing entire games. When it was first published, some considered it to be humanly impossible. Now it is one of the easiest extremes.

Bloodbath

Difficulty value: 5,700. (YouTube, GDBrowser)

Bloodbath by far is one of the most influential levels in the game. It is the third most downloaded level, second most downloaded demon, and most downloaded extreme demon. Its legendary status stems from being a collaboration between the top creators of that era, a highly publicized verification race, unprecedented use of technical straight-fly gameplay, and of course, setting a new benchmark for difficulty far beyond any other level when it was released in 2015.

This is the last level I have significant progress on (75% at ~20K attempts). Yet, for truly dedicated players, it has simply become a rite of passage; a stepping stone; the gateway to high level play. This was the top 1 hardest level when I first started playing, but now, top players can beat this level on their first try as easily as I can beat easy demons with my current skill level. Another insane fact is that as legitimately hard Bloodbath is, it is closer to Stereo Madness in terms of difficulty than current top levels.

Black Blizzard

Difficulty value: 15,000. (YouTube, GDBrowser)

From here on out, you may see “verified” in the YouTube video title. Verification is the process whereby a player is required to complete a new level before uploading it to the servers to prove it is possible. People will pour dozens of hours and tens or hundreds of thousands of attempts into verifying an extreme demon, so it’s a big deal when they succeed and why verification videos are a thing.

Sonic Wave

Difficulty value: 42,000. (YouTube, GDBrowser)

Levels around this difficulty will start having 60hz frame perfects. This means that if the game is running at 60 frames per second, there is a window of just a single frame for the player to execute an input to not die. That’s 1/60th of a second or 16 milliseconds. For reference, blinking takes about 100 milliseconds, so that is quite literally multiple times more precise than the blink of an eye! However, most players at this skill level will be using high refresh rate monitors, which makes 60hz frame perfects easier as there are now multiple frames where an input can be successfully performed.

Not coincidentally, this is around the current hardest level beaten on 60hz. At time of writing, every level after this has only been beaten on high refresh rates.

Bloodlust

Difficulty value: 94,000. (YouTube, GDBrowser)

Bloodlust is the sequel to Bloodbath and was made to take the throne as a new top 1. It was released a mere 3 years after Bloodbath, but is considered to be 5–10 times harder. This is due to the fact that Bloodlust is a buffed version of Bloodbath with an extension that is almost a minute long tacked to the end. Therefore, a Bloodlust victor will typically have beaten the Bloodbath portion of the level tens of times. Bloodlust took 1000 hours and 121,296 attempts to verify, which puts it in the top echelons of video game accomplishments with respect to the time it takes to get this good, and we’re not even in the top 150 levels yet.

SUPERHATEMEWORLD

Difficulty value: 130,000. (YouTube, GDBrowser)

At the time of writing, this is the first level where we have moved from the legacy list to the extended list, which is the 76th to 150th hardest levels in the game. A player who completes an extended list demon can submit their record to get demonlist points and get on the demonlist leaderboard, which is an unofficial ranking of the most elite players in the game.

Kenos

Difficulty value: 260,000. (YouTube, GDBrowser)

You probably have seen npesta’s hyperventilating scream when it went viral as a reaction clip, but you might not know what he was actually reacting to: his verification of Kenos. His apparent breakdown was due to many unlucky deaths near the end of the level, forcing him to spend a six-digit number of attempts to finally reach 100%.

npesta’s reaction is a good showcase how at this level of GD, it is no longer just about the raw technical ability to consistently execute hundreds of inputs with incredible precision, but the mental strength to persevere in the face of setbacks and lock in when the most momentary loss of focus can end a promising run. There is a infamous phenomenon in the community known as mental block where you die to a spot you usually pass. The next time you reach it, you are more nervous, so you die to it again. This starts a downward spiral of anxiety that kills your performance. A previously consistent part can turn into cruel RNG, or at its worst, an insurmountable barrier, with the development of a mindblock. I myself have experienced this more and more as I have played harder levels, and I can only imagine it is more pronounced for top players.

The Plunge

Difficulty value: 900,000. (YouTube, GDBrowser)

This is currently the transition into the main list, which is the top 75 hardest levels in the game.⁴ Unlike the extended list where only completions give list points, a player with significant progress on a main list demon can submit a partial run and receive points.

poocubed

Difficulty value: 2,000,000. (YouTube, GDBrowser)

This is not the only top level with a goofy name. Other examples include “Dry Out Copyable 2”, “limbo but uwu ig idk”, and a whole series named after Breaking Bad characters. All of those are verbatim real names of extreme demons. It is a funny reminder of much Bloodbath, an already hard level, former top 1, and many players’ career goal, is eclipsed when there are joke levels hundreds of spots above it.

Sakupen Circles

Difficulty value: 3,500,000. (YouTube, GDBrowser)

This is currently the transition to the top 25.

Slaughterhouse

Difficulty value: 4,100,000. (YouTube, GDBrowser)

Slaughterhouse may be the most recognizable top level outside of the GD community, with the showcase video having 30+ million views and xQc and other streamers having done reactions on it. Even though it has dropped all the way down to #21 from #1, it is considered to be one of the best showcases of difficulty to non-GD players, owing to its dark music, hellish visuals, and ultra-fast gameplay.⁵

Andromeda

Difficulty value: 12,000,000. (YouTube, GDBrowser)

This is currently the transition to the top 10.

Tidal Wave

Difficulty value: 19,000,000. (YouTube, GDBrowser)

Although I first started playing in 2014, I stopped after a couple years. What inspired me to try it out again was hearing that Update 2.2 finally came out. This was huge news because 2.2 had been in development for almost seven years, over twice as long as the duration between Update 1.0 and Update 2.1. Tidal Wave was the top 1 around this time when I picked the game back up and started seriously improving. It is the first level to have a triple-digit number of frame perfects. In fact, it more than doubled the previous record, with a staggering 200 compared to the previous holder’s 82. (Mandatory disclaimer that frame perfects alone do not determine a level’s difficulty; Thinking Space II has less than Tidal Wave despite being harder. However, it is a useful proxy.)

Thinking Space II

Difficulty value: 37,000,000. (YouTube, GDBrowser)

Thinking Space II is the current top 1 hardest level. At this point, levels will not only have dozens of 60hz frame perfects but also multiple 120hz and the occasional 240hz frame perfect. Being able to click in a 1/240th-second or 4 ms window sounds absolutely inhuman but that is the level top players are at going into 2026.

Aeternus

Difficulty value: 190,000,000. (YouTube, GDBrowser)

Aeternus technically does not belong on this list because it hasn’t actually been beaten yet. It is far harder than today’s top 1s and was created to be the baseline for the “human limit” or the theoretical skill ceiling of the game, to maybe be verified one day in the far future. Aeternus has as many 120hz frame perfects as top levels have 60hz frame perfects today.

The longest runs are currently in the 20% range. There is debate in the community on whether Aeternus will be ever be verified. To me, it seems borderline humanly impossible, but we have to consider that levels as “easy” as Cataclysm were once considered to be impossible too. So nobody really knows what the true human limit is. That might be an unsatisfying conclusion, but to me, that’s an exciting thing. I personally look forward to being amazed by at how far people can push this game.

Recap

Let’s summarize all the evidence we have found so far for why Geometry Dash is one of the hardest games in the world.

Time commitment

Top players have thousands of hours in the game and can spend hundreds of hours just to beat one hard level. As mentioned in the commentary for Bloodlust, knobbelboy took a thousand hours to verify the level, and it’s not even in the top 150 anymore. This metric alone puts GD far above games that are known for being hard such as Dark Souls and Cuphead.

Mechanical precision

Tidal Wave has 200 frame-perfect clicks on 60hz. Bloodbath has at most one. That is the magnitude of the difference between a really hard level and top levels. The abundance of such frame perfects has made specialized low-latency input devices with polling rates of 1000hz to 8000hz and 240+ hz monitors all but a requirement to be competitive at the top level.

Mental game

Top players need to have a special kind of mental toughness to break through mindblocks, since it’s impossible to avoid them completely. Perhaps the best example of this is Doggie’s ongoing verification of GRIEF, a contender to take the top 1 spot once it is verified. Doggie started practicing the level in May 2024. He reached 80% with 207K attempts on his 134th stream in November. Some expected the end to be near. But severe mindblocks caused him to lose consistency in the middle of the level. It would take almost an entire year to break the mindblock and get a new best of 83% on stream #286 in November 2025, well into the 300,000s in attempt count.

Compound interest

Throughout all twelve years of GD’s history, players have created top 1 levels that shattered the previous skill ceiling to heights never seen before, a recent example being Tidal Wave doubling the record for frame perfect count. Each top 1 being 20%, 50%, or double the difficulty of the last “compounds” the growth of the skill ceiling exponentially in a unique way compared to just improving against human opponents.

You can see this more clearly in my interactive visualization, where every level starts out taking up the full y-axis. But only 2 to 5 levels later, the difficulty value has increased by an order of magnitude and it shrinks to a miniscule blip.

Conclusion

It is for this reason I believe beating a top 1 GD level is possibly the hardest video game achievement in the world. The other contenders I can see having this title are winning an esports world championship and some maps in single-player games that allow users to create their own arbitrarily hard levels (osu!, Mario Maker). Other games have more skills that you need to master like game sense and teamwork, but I would claim a top 1 GD level, if not the absolute hardest video game challenge overall, is at least the hardest challenge in technical precision that exists. This is not considering pretty much every game in real life like chess or tennis which probably blow all video games out of the water just from the fact that it’s basically impossible to become a pro if you don’t start as a child.

So after all this, do you agree, or can you argue that your favorite game is harder? Educate me in the comments! Either way, thanks for reading all the way to the end. I originally didn’t know if I would have enough to say about this topic, but by the end I wrote so much I had to cut parts out.

Footnotes