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Home / How to Use the on Death Trigger in Geometry Dash

How to Use the on Death Trigger in Geometry Dash

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Expect more spikes. A lot more spikes.

In the wide, weird world of The Impossible Game clones, one of them somehow got more popular on YouTube than the original, and that's how a community was born.

Geometry Dash came out on iOS on August 13, 2013, and was ported to PC on December 22nd, 2014. In and of itself, it is quite simple. Dodge the spikes. Jump on platforms. Don't hit the walls or the ceilings or, heck, avoid the saw blades as well.

There are several modes of play: the simple Impossible Game-based jumping square, a spaceship that you must fly up and down, a rolling saw blade that can change gravity, a Flappy Bird-like UFO, a "Wave" which can only move diagonally, a Little Stomper-like robot, and a spider that flips between the floor and ceiling. A new picture teasing Update 2.2 showcasing a spherical gamemode with three rockets attached to its back was released on March 8th, 2017.

There is a lite version containing the first few levels. There are also several sequels on mobile platforms, called Geometry Dash Meltdown (2015), Geometry Dash World (2016) and Geometry Dash SubZero (2017).

This game provides examples of:

  • Aerith and Bob: There are only really two prominent characters in Geometry Dash (the vaultkeepers) as a whole (three with the Gatekeeper), being known as Spooky and the Keymaster, them having named their secret coins "Sparky" and "Glubfub" respectively. Spooky lampshades this trope post-Update 2.1:

    Spooky: (after the Keymaster calls the player out for taking Spooky's Secret Coin) "What does "Glubfub" even mean?"

  • Alternate Reality Game: During the official 2.0 Rewards, an ARG called "Octocube" was started. Beginning with a hidden image of a tentacled 2.0 monster on top of a series of glyphs and messages, it's noticeably more serious than even the outer narrative of 2.1's characters, and features someone trapped in a place that they only call the Vault, stuck with the demon that owns it. They mention that the demon's unstoppable and that there's no way they can only get out by themselves. All this suggests that there's more to one of the game's Vaults than we can see.
    • Shortly after, a follow-up called "Cod3breaker" began. It adds some time-travel themes to the ARG which suggests that the "Vault" and its keeper correspond to the prison inside the Keymaster's basement. Because of the entity's Slasher Smile, it may very well be the Eldritch Abomination depicted in the glyphs.
    • Both ARGs, however, only led to two 2.1 codes for the Vault of Secrets, which of course only gave icons once entered.
  • And Your Reward Is Clothes: All the achievement rewards are purely aesthetic, except for two of them.
  • Author Avatar: RobTop exists influencing the few characters in Geometry Dash. He was responsible for trapping the Demon Guardian inside of the Keymaster's basement, and seems to be looking for Scratch and his black market.
  • Automatic Level: The player can create automatic levels in the level editor and the difficulty rating for automatic levels is "Auto".
  • Auto-Scrolling Level: Every level. Even the ones that don't seem to move are actually moving at the same speed as your character.
  • Bottomless Pits: More like a Ceilingless Sky. If you fall out of the level while in reverse gravity, you fall until the sixty block height limit, where the screen stops scrolling and you die.
  • Big Bad: The now-insane and evidently disgraced Demon Guardian.
  • Broken Bridge: The Demon Gauntlet doesn't open until you find the missing key to it. To quote the Keymaster:

    "It's no use, that Gauntlet's locked. The Demon Guardian was the only one who could open it. Not sure what happened to him. He was always a bit crazy."

    • That key comes from the basement. The Demon Guardian went off the deep end which led Rob to seal him off from the outside world.
  • Check-Point Starvation: There are none in normal mode. Averted in practice mode, where you get to place all the checkpoints you want.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The orbs, the pads and the portals are differently colored according to the type and intensity of their effects.
  • Cool Gate: One of the elements in the game is a portal that teleports you vertically.
  • Creepy Basement: The Keymaster has one, and tries to convince you to stay away from it (or at the very least not to touch anything after beating his level.) Why's he so anxious about keeping you out? A Man in the Iron Mask lies imprisoned down there. Heavily implied to be the former Demon Guardian turned insane, he seems like he's completely secured off from the world of Geometry Dash, but he has the location of the keys keeping him locked crystal clear in his mind. He tries to convince you to find the keys needed to release him. He succeeds.
  • Deadly Walls: If you touch the side of any block, you die. You also die in most instances if you hit the bottom of any block as a cube or robot.
  • Dem Bones: The icons you obtain while completing Update 2.1's mini-narrative are, in order, a skull cube with a gradient, a robot that's a straight-up skeleton, and a skeletal version of the default spider.
  • Downloadable Content: Any user created level.
  • Earn Your Fun: Some levels are incredibly difficult but incredibly satisfying when you beat them.
  • Easier Than Easy: Exaggerated with the Auto difficulty.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"/Spell My Name with a "The": One of the vaultkeepers is simply known as "The Keymaster".
  • Everything Trying to Kill You: Blocks. Gears. Monsters. Even the floor, on some occasions.
  • Fake Difficulty: Many harder levels have hidden obstacles, separate paths and traps that you can't know how to pass on your first play-through, although you can use practice mode to learn these beforehand.
    • A common complaint of updates 2.0 and 2.1 is that the introduction of complex graphics, moving objects, the z-axis, and the shake triggers are adding this to a large majority of featured levels.
    • The final cube sequence in Clutterfunk is... bugged, to say the least.
    • Levels of longer length (such as Electrodynamix or Blast Processing) have a tendency to lag on some devices.
      • Some newer player-made levels tend to use a heavy amount of detail, lagging mobile devices. Thankfully, most of these levels add a "low-detail mode" to reduce lag. Not that this always works 100%...
    • Spider sequences in general can be "guilty" of this. Often one will try to teleport from this platform to that one, only to find that they are instantly killed by an in - between sawblade or hazard. Especially in 3x or 4x speed, where it is very easy to get flustered quickly.
  • Fake Platform: A typical level component which can be found in the editor.
  • Final-Exam Boss: Not really a boss, but Theory of Everything includes every obstacle from the preceding updates. Averted with TOE 2, which doesn't have mirror portals.
  • Fragile Speedster: Most of the time, your square travels at a fast speed, but it can only stand one hit before exploding into a bunch of smaller squares.
  • Foreshadowing: In any update after 1.9, if you press the info button on the coming soon page, it remarks a hint about the update.
  • Gravity Screw: Some gameplay elements flip the gravity upside down.
  • Gravity Master: The character in ball or spider form can instantly switch gravity.
  • Guide Dang It!: Most of the Vault's answers contain "clues" that make little sense until you search up the answers.
  • Indie Game: Robert Topala has been the sole developer of the game.
  • In Name Only: Future Funk level has nothing to do with the Internet music genre of the same name and sub-genre of Vaporwave.
  • Invisible Block: User levels sometimes use these to make levels harder and occasionally for effect.
  • Last Lousy Point: A few of the achievements, which include liking/disliking 1000 levels and beating 1000 user created levels.
  • Leap of Faith: Sometimes a platform will appear out of the ground after you jump.
  • Level Editor: One feature of the game.
  • Made of Explodium: Death effects cause the player character to explode violently in one of fourteen ways upon crashing, ranging from electricity to collapsing in on itself. The last death effect plays it straight where crashing simply causes the icon to produce a large generic explosion.
  • Malevolent Architecture: A lot of the levels are comprised of bizarre structures and deadly traps.
  • Man in the Iron Mask: The Keymaster has the Demon Guardian trapped in his basement. He's a threat so big one can wonder why he even kept a chest (with an icon, no less) down there.
  • Misbegotten Multiplayer Mode: Two player mode is hardly ever used because of the controls and difficulty.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: By breaking all three locks in the jail, the Demon Guardian grins with a Slasher Smile and threatens to destroy the world of Geometry Dash. To top the magnitude of what you've done, the Keymaster comes down to the basement and discovers the jail open. Then he shifts to Non-Standard Character Design note The Keymaster's a reptilian whose face is designed to remain in one state forever, so changing his expression would require this trope. and begins screaming at you. The Demon Guardian escapes, leaving the narrative on a cliffhanger and leaving behind a blue chest containing a skull icon, a death effect, and a fourth key, to unlock the Demon Gauntlet so that the player can complete it to be ready for his return. To be continued.
  • Nintendo Hard: The 3 locked levels (Clubstep, Theory of Everything 2, and Deadlocked) WILL have you dying many, many, many times before beating them. Demons in general tend to revolve around this, of varying degrees.
  • No Plot? No Problem!: Just enjoy the music as you precision-platform.
    • Averted in Update 2.1, where there is a short storyline (which goes nowhere)
  • Non-Indicative Difficulty: Certain levels used to be rated far easier than they actually were. The most well known example was Fake A Doom which was rated harder 6 stars but was considered demon difficulty until it had its rating changed to demon.
  • One-Hit-Point Wonder: Your character. Averted in some fan-made levels where multiple lives are integrated using triggers such as toggle and count.
  • Platform Hell: Cube, robot, gravity ball, and spider modes. And occasionally UFO mode.
  • Player Nudge: If the player dies repeatedly on the first batch of spikes in Polargeist, the game tells them to "Tap while touching a ring to jump mid air".
    • If the player only taps the first dash orb in Fingerdash, the game reminds them to hold instead.
  • Properly Paranoid: The Keymaster. The Demon Guardian lies sealed away in his basement. He knows exactly how to get out, exploiting the player's likely thirst for more icons to accomplish this. Suddenly the purple demon's constant anxiety about his own basement is truly justified...
  • Really 700 Years Old: The Gatekeeper, RobTop's pet, reveals himself to be at least 1,000 years old when he mentions that his encounter with the player is the first he's had in 1,000 years of slumber. Which makes it odd that he seems to want a pizza for some reason.
  • Retraux: The music for Electroman Adventures is in chiptune.
  • Rhythm Game: Downplayed because some sections or levels are not timing based, especially in the spaceship mode.
  • Running Gag: Most characters introduced in Update 2.1 that has lines mentions a baked chicken long overdue in some way:

    The Keymaster: "Which came first? The chicken or the egg?... The egg laid the chicken, and then the chicken said the password is on fire... I need to get some rest." (after the player types in "thechickenisonfire") "Indeed it is."

    Scratch : "...Do you smell burning chicken?"

    Demon Guardian : "RubRub promised me chicken. There was no chicken..."

    The Gatekeeper: "Can you smell it? Chicken, burning chicken... El pollo ardiente..." note He'd much rather eat a pizza instead of a chicken, which is odd since he's at least 1,000 years old.

  • Sandbox Mode: There's practice mode, where the player can set checkpoints (while the base game has Checkpoint Starvation on) in the levels, from which you instantly respawn. This makes it very useful for practicing all the hard parts of a level, and is outright vital if you wish to take down a demon level of any kind.
  • Schmuck Bait: There's a narrow pathway to the rocket ship in Stereo Madness. Try to jump to the ceiling now...
  • Sdrawkcab Name: The name of the shopkeeper for the Community Shop is Potbor, which is Robtop spelled backwards.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: The Demon Guardian lies imprisoned in the Keymaster's basement and threatens to destroy the world of Geometry Dash if ever released. The Keymaster's quotes also suggest he wasn't like this before.
  • Shout-Out: Many.
    • Icons:
      • The icons from some of the first levels resemble some of the lowercase letters from the Oxygene 1 font, which is also the title's font.
      • The icon for typing 'spooky' in the vault resembles a Shy Guy.
      • The icon for typing 'seven' in the vault resembles Finn the Human.
      • The icon for the Nice Shot achievement resembles a turn block from Super Mario World.
      • The icon for collecting 110 secret coins resembles Deadpool.
      • The icon for collecting 10 user coins resembles a mushroom from Super Mario Bros. 3.
      • The icon for collecting 60 user coins resembles BamBam.
      • The icon for collecting 110 user coins resembles Robocop.
      • The icon for collecting 150 user coins resembles Iron Man.
      • The icon for collecting 15 Lava Shards resembles a Thwomp.
      • The icons for opening 100 Treasure Room chests and for collecting 35 Poison Shards resembles Shoop Da Woop.
      • The icon for collecting 2,000 diamonds resembles Kirby.
      • The icon for collecting 3,000 stars resembles Meat Boy.
      • The icon for rating 2,000 online levels resembles Batman.
      • The icon for completing Stereo Madness, Back on Track, and Polargeist on the Steam version is the Companion Cube.
      • The icon for completing Jumper resembles Ogmo.
      • The icon for completing Clubstep on the Steam version resembles the Steam logo.
      • The icon for completing Hexagon Force resembles the Creeper.
      • The icon for collecting all the secret coins in Theory of Everything 2 resembles a Boo.
      • The icon for collecting all the secret coins in Deadlocked resembles Wolverine.
      • One of the secret shop icons resembles Kratos.
      • The icon for collecting all three keys resembles Punisher's logo.
    • Ships:
      • The ship for collecting 75 secret coins resembles Porygon.
      • The ship for collecting 30 user coins resembles Elliot.
      • The ship for collecting 800 user coins resembles the Jet Star.
      • The ship for collecting 35 of every kind of Shard resembles a Chain Chomp.
      • The ship for collecting 3,500 stars resembles the Mon Calamari.
    • UFOs:
      • The UFO for getting a star-featured level resembles Stitch.
      • The UFO for completing 30 map packs resembles Bowser's Clown Car.
    • Waves:
      • A wave resembling the all-seeing eye/illuminati symbol is obtained by sequentially typing Lost's numbers, multiplied by two, in the vault.
      • The wave for collecting 5 Shadow Shards resembles an X-Wing.
      • The waves for collecting 2,500 stars and for typing 'Ahead' in the vault resemble Metroids.
    • Robots:
      • The robot for collecting 100 user coins resembles Master Chief's helmet.
      • The robot for completing Deadlocked resembles Iron Man.
      • One of the community shop robots resembles Zero.
      • One of the community shop robots resembles Stormfly.
      • One of the community shop robots resembles Guy Manuel De Homem-Christo's helmet.
    • Spiders:
      • One of the community shop spiders resembles Stakataka.
      • One of the Treasure Room spiders resembles Shoop Da Woop.
    • Geometrical Dominator is this to Super Mario Bros..
    • Deadlocked has a section resembling Jetpack Joyride.
    • Blocks:
      • Teleportation portals are blue and orange, just like Portal.
  • Spikes of Doom: All over the place. And after Clutterfunk there are saw blades!
  • Stuff Blowing Up: See Made of Explodium above.
    • The Keymaster's level, The Challenge counts as this both intentionally and unintentionally. It's a very short level that contains few elements from updates 2.0 and 2.1, save for the bare minimum of backgrounds, the spider, and some orbs. In addition, it appears the Keymaster hasn't learned the "Stop" trigger for dash orbs yet note Placing this trigger in the path of a dash orb will cut the player off if they continue dashing and touch the trigger., which seems to be the unintentional portion.
  • Tailor-Made Prison: Opening the Demon Guardian's prison requires some serious dedication. The three locks won't budge as easily as the doors to the other vaults:
    • The first key is hidden in a chest that can only be opened once 50 other regular chests have been unlocked. This requires 25,000 Mana Orbs.
    • The second key requires giving the Gatekeeper a rather rude awakening by tricking them into thinking you're RobTop.. This requires 500 diamonds to unlock Scratch's black market, where you can then purchase the Master Emblem, a key of Rob's identity, for 1,000 Orbs.
    • The third key requires completion of the Chaos Gauntlet. It is the hardest Gauntlet, not including the Demon Gauntlet.
  • Take That!: The above Running Gag about chicken is a reference to a throwaway gag made by RobTop (as in, the developer) that was misconstrued as a release hint for Update 2.1, which has suffered from many Schedule Slips.
  • Take That, Audience!: In the sneak peek for 2.2's second level, RobTop and Scratch (who seem to have since reconciled since 2.1) are discussing the level he just previewed when the latter pokes fun at the game's massive Spanish-speaking following:

    RobTop: Did they [the audience] like it?

    Scratch: I don't know, I don't speak Spanish.

  • The Tetris Effect: After playing for a while, you might imagine a wave going through zig-zag patterns.
  • Trial-and-Error Gameplay: A lot of the more difficult levels.
  • Unintentionally Unwinnable: At least one user-made level, Swiftness, was rendered impossible due to a change in orb mechanics. It used to be that placing two orbs on top of each other would allow one of the orbs to only be usable at the edge of the hitbox, creating timing challenges; this was called orb masking. The 2.1 update changed it so only one of the orbs would do anything, breaking any level that required it.
  • Unwinnable by Design: Silent levels are a group of levels that are created by the community to be deliberately impossible. Silent Circles, for instance, is made to be deliberately impossible, and it requires over 30 clicks per second to clear; most people can't even manage a third of that!

How to Use the on Death Trigger in Geometry Dash

Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/GeometryDash