Geometry Dash is a game I started playing because my 11 year-old nephew was excited about it and wanted me to play. It cost like $3 over the holidays so I thought meh what the hell why not. However, it turned out to actually be a very enlightening design.
The game's demographics definitely seem to be tilted toward a younger generation. We can see here that I would certainly be considered one of the oldest players in the game. This game is also, shall we say, a bit neuro-spicy. You've got to be at least a little bit of an autist to play this game for any length of time. The levels are brutally difficult and extremely repetitive if you can't beat them quickly (which you never can because they are so hard). One single false move and you die and have to restart the entire level from the beginning. The memorization and hand-eye coordination are pretty intense.
As you can see it only takes like 2 minutes to beat a level, but if you make one single mistake you die and have to start from the beginning. It can take hours to beat a single level in this game, and when you do the feeling is a strange sense of accomplishment, and potentially peppered with rage because it took so long. There's a practice mode that lets you setup checkpoints so you can practice the hardest parts over and over, but it is still very difficult to get through the entire map without hitting a wall or some other obstacle randomly.
The game itself is interesting because it's essentially the simplest setup possible. You can only do one single thing: jump. That's it. You can't change your speed; you can't go in a different direction. All you can do is jump (or not jump as the case may be). You would think it would be a really boring game because you can only do the one thing, but I find it to be extremely unique based on the creativity of the levels and the music sync
Most levels have fast-paced EDM "video game music" constantly playing in the background. However, this is the first game I've played where the music itself often lines up exactly what the action that needs to be taken. The player can memorize what they need to do next based on the beat of the song at that time, making it an interesting mix of sound directly affecting actual gameplay in an extremely significant way.
In the practice mode it swaps out the song of the level with an extremely monotonous boring song that doesn't sync to what you're doing. This is extremely obnoxious as the practice mode is essentially a requirement for beating levels in a timely fashion. There's an upgrade in the game that allows you to play the normal music in practice mode, but it requires dozens of hours of grinding to get the resources in order to purchase it, and you can't use those resources for anything else. The NPCs refer to this resource as "shinies", and crypto degens will appreciate that these shiny rocks are really just diamonds.
We can see here that I've chosen the companion cube avatar (a reference to the Portal series) and I have 729 diamonds... I think I need 2000 diamonds to get the music upgrade, and Steam says I've played for 38 hours... which might include a lot of AFK time but still this gives enough context to show just how much of a grind this game really is. There are questions all over the internet about how to farm resources in this game and the answers are like "lol get good kid". It's wild.
Well because this model is actually the perfect candidate for crypto. While the community is small it is extremely dedicated, and the players create really impressive content (levels and music) for other players. If these players actually had a financial incentive to create content the game would be insane and reach a very high standard (it's already pretty high).
While most people will not be impressed with Geometry Dash on a personal bias, it's the first game I've seen to have three completely separate ways to generate player-created content. A game like this can have level/puzzle builders, music composers, and skin developers. And if it was attached to a cryptocurrency all of these little worker bees would be getting paid for their troubles.
They already have a voting system to propel the best ones to the top.
Which interestingly enough is exactly how Hive is supposed to operate.
Duckstep is particularly hilarious to me...
I haven't beaten it yet as it is bonkers.
Doesn't get much more autist than this:
Not even joking it takes like 30 minutes just figuring out how to get past the first few platforms after the "quacking" starts because it's so fast-paced.
Gotta love how it unlocks an avatar called "My Head Hurts". lol
I couldn't be believe that this was a custom player-made level.
It looks absolutely nothing like other levels.
The tools to make these levels must be extensive.
And these guys are just doing it for fun.
Imagine if they were getting paid and could even make a living off of creating content that millions of people enjoyed. And when I say millions I mean millions... the downloads on all of these levels are in the millions. AKA this Podunk game that nobody knows about has more users than Hive... which is a weird realization to come to.
Guy even has a wiki page.
Knots (formerly known as Rusto) is an American player and level creator in Geometry Dash. He is known for his distinctive modern styles used throughout the years. He is considered one of the best creators in the game by many. He was one of the first creators to popularize the "modern art" style, which consists of detailed art with simplified designs, alongside kips and Jayuff. Knots also uses BGA (background animation) often in his levels. Particular renditions of the modern art style have become synonymous with Knots, often referred to as "Knots style". He built Geometry Dash levels on mobile until around the summer of 2021, when he started building on the Steam version of the game. He is a member of GeoStorm and a former in-game moderator.
If Geometry dash was a game on Hive this kid would be getting paid thousands upon thousands of dollars for his trouble. Maybe more. Guaranteed.
One of the big reasons I would like everyone on Hive to pay attention to a "puzzle" game such as this one is that it completely negates and avoids all pay-to-win and pay-to-earn mechanics. You would not get paid to play this game and beat the levels. You'd get paid to CREATE the levels, songs, and skins. Because that's how it should work: you get paid to build value, not dick around like everyone else.
Once we can actually build sustainable models like this it will be much easier to avoid Sybil attack and AI exploits. Can an AI create songs and levels that people want to play? Good. That's a GOOD thing. Whereas on Hive if someone writes an AI generated post it's seen as a blatant attack on the network, and for good reason. Automation having value very much depends on context.
Geometry Dash definitely isn't for everyone. This is an extremely niche fast-paced game with large amounts of memorization and hand-eye coordination. What is more interesting than the game itself is the diehard community and the willingness to create content for little (if any) financial incentive. This is the kind of thing crypto devs need to be looking to adapt to our ecosystem to leverage the power of these young gamers with infinite time on their hands who are more than willing to help create the world they're playing in.
