Gameplay Objects
Gameplay Objects
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This guide explains how every orb, portal, and letter block (D, J, S, H, etc) works in Geometry Dash, and goes over all of their Extra and Edit Special options.
Made by Sparktwee and Xplode
Required Guide: Object Types
Easy Difficulty
Short (4-6 Minutes)
It can be argued that Geometry Dash stood out from its inspiration, The Impossible Game, partly due to its unique gameplay objects. While static objects serve as the foundation of gameplay, gameplay objects serve to spice up a level’s gameplay. For example, If you were to compare Stereo Madness with Clutterfunk, you can see and feel how Clutterfunk has more variation in its gameplay. Most of these objects are located in Tab 6 with the yellow orb symbol, and this guide will explain how each of these objects function in Classic Mode & Platformer Mode.
Orbs & Pads
Orbs & Pads
Orbs activate when the player clicks while touching them, while pads activate if the player touches them. You can also keep jumping after touching an orb or pad, provided you hold down the input button after interacting with them. These are the possible types that you can place:
Pink orbs and pads give the lowest jump boost to the player; the pad’s boost is slightly shorter than a normal cube jump.
Yellow orbs and pads boost the player; the orb boosts equally to a normal cube jump. The pad was first introduced in Back on Track, while the orb was introduced in Poltergeist.
Red orbs and pads give the highest jump boost to the player; the orb boosts equally to the yellow pad.
Blue orbs and pads flip the player’s gravity.
Spider orbs and pads instantly teleport and flip the player’s gravity, acting like the Spider gamemode.
Originally proposed by OmegaFalcon, Robtop liked the idea so much that he implemented the orb for this update. There are two features that separate the spider orb & pad from the others:
This is the only pad that stops the player from holding the jump button after touching it, acting similarly to a J block which will be explained later.
Rotating them sideways doesn't work.
Green orbs combine the properties of both the yellow and blue orb, where the player gets a jump boost, while also flipping its gravity.
Black orbs rapidly send you downwards.
When the player holds on a dash orb, the player will travel in a straight line in the direction of the orb’s arrow. The green variants dash normally while the pink variants dash while also flipping the player’s gravity. Like the spider pad, you cannot hold your input button after using these.
By default, these orbs and pads listed above can only be used once; this made sense before 2.0 introduced move triggers allowing you to reuse gameplay objects. To that effect, 2.1 gave these objects the option in Edit Special to enable Multi-Activate which allows you to use them repeatedly.
For 2.2’s Platformer Mode, however, the feature is reversed. Multi-Activate is already on, while the Edit Special menu disables it.
Dash orbs in Platformer Mode have a different Edit Special Menu that allow the creator to tweak a few factors.
Speed changes how quickly or slowly the orb dashes the player.
End Boost adds some force when the player stops dashing. This force is applied in the direction of the dash orb.
Max Duration sets how many seconds the player can dash. This is infinite if set to 0.
Stop Slide limits the end momentum provided by End Boost.
You can even type in negative numbers to create opposite effects.
However, even with infinite duration, the player stops dashing when they collide with a block’s side. You can tick Allow Collide to make the player keep dashing under those circumstances.
Toggle Orbs activate a group ID. Depending on how you set this orb’s Edit Special, it can act as a Toggle trigger or Spawn trigger. The Touch guide further explains their features.
Teleport Orbs customize how the player can teleport throughout the level. This is especially useful for platformer levels. This UI is identical to the teleport trigger’s setup menu which is covered in this guide.
Note: If you check the Edit Group’s Extra Menu, orbs and pads have the Reverse option, which is explained in the Editing Objects guide.
Portals
Portals
The next set of gameplay objects are portals, which activate if the player goes through them.
Gamemode Portals
Gamemode Portals
As of Update 2.2, there are eight gamemode portals that change the player’s overall mechanics. Some gamemodes need you to click while others need you to hold:
Cube: Tapping makes the player jump from the ground. Holding allows the player to auto jump.
Ship: Holding midair makes the player fly, while releasing makes them slowly fall.
Ball: Tapping changes the player’s gravity.
UFO: Acts similarly to the cube but you can click while the player is mid-air.
Wave: Holding midair makes the player fly at a straight 45° angle, while releasing makes the player fly 45° downwards. This creates a trail that forms a zig zag pattern. This is not available in Platformer Mode.
Robot: You control the robot’s jump height depending on how long you. Tiny holds lead to micro jumps while long holds lead to large jumps.
Spider: Click to instantly switch gravity.
Swing: Acts similarly to the ball but you can click while the player is mid-air creating a curved path. This is not available in Platformer Mode.
By default, some gamemodes are affixed to a border such as the ship and ball gamemode. If you click their Edit Object, you can enable Free Mode to remove those borders.
Ticking Free Mode allows you to enable “Edit Camera Settings which affects how the screen moves vertically:
Easing changes the smoothness of the camera movement. Low easing makes the camera more responsive and snappy, while high easings make the camera more delayed.
Padding sets how far away from the screen center the player must be to activate the camera’s movement.
Gravity Portals
Gravity Portals
The editor provides 3 types of gravity portals:
Yellow gravity portals flip the player’s gravity upside down.
Blue gravity portals return the player’s gravity to normal.
Green gravity portals swap the player’s current gravity.
Size Portals
Size Portals
The pink size portal shrinks the player to 0.5x size, altering its physics and hitbox.
The green size portal returns the player to normal size.
When the wave gamemode enters the pink size portal, not only does it shrink, its wave pattern is much more jagged, resembling the shape of a spike. A mini wave will move up and down at around a 63.4° angle.
Mirror Portals
Mirror Portals
The orange mirror portal flips the screen so the player travels from right to left. This is only visible in-game, not in the editor. These mirror portals were first introduced in Time Machine. Oddly, if you activate “Show Hitboxes”, they disappear once the player passes through this portal.
The blue mirror portal returns the screen back to normal so the player travels from left to right once more.
Speed Portals
Speed Portals
Currently, the editor provides five types of speed portals which affects how quickly or slowly the player moves in the level:
Yellow 0.5x is the slowest default speed that the player can move in a level, at 8.368 blocks/second.
Blue 1x is the default speed of 10.376 blocks/second.
Green 2x increases the default speed, being about 12.903 blocks/second.
Pink 3x increases the default speed even further, to 15.595 blocks/second. Prior to Update 2.1, this was the fastest speed available.
Red 4x is the fastest default speed for a level, at 19.185 blocks/second.
Dual Portals
Dual Portals
The yellow dual portal splits the player into two different icons. The creator can choose whether these icons activate together or separately by enabling 2 Player Mode.
The blue dual portal merges the icons back back into one.
The Edit Special UIs for both portals also let you enable Free Fly Mode for borderless dual gameplay. However, when switching gamemodes in the duals, you will need to also tick Free Fly Mode for that gamemode portal, unless you placed a Camera Mode trigger with Free Fly Mode ticked before the duals start. The Making Duals guide describes more possibilities for building duals.
Teleport Portals
Teleport Portals
Teleport portals (or teleportals) teleport the player from the blue portal to the orange one; it’s pretty straightforward.
Because 2.2 allows horizontal teleportation, these portals can come together or separately. The difference lies in whether you would need a group ID as a spawn point. However, setting up the teleport menu in Edit Special has more factors that you can consider.
This menu is used to teleport the player to a specific location based on a Group ID. It is identical to the teleport trigger which is covered in this guide.
Special Letter Blocks
Special Letter Blocks
As of 2.2, there are six special blocks that affect how gamemodes function:
D blocks let the player safely touch blocks when in the wave gamemode.
J blocks disable auto jump on horizontal blocks. They don't work with the ground nor slopes.
S blocks stop the player from dashing.
H blocks let the player touch the underside of blocks in the Cube/Robot/Spider gamemodes, where they usually get killed.
Force blocks push the player in a direction with a level of force. It comes in two shapes: square force blocks and circular force blocks. You can modify how much force they exert through the Edit Object menu.
F blocks let the player flip gravity by touching the underside of a block.
These special blocks are valuable for levels especially when it comes to bugfixing. For example, to prevent the cube from accidentally jumping after tapping a black orb, J blocks can be placed. Additionally, D blocks are amazing for giving the wave gamemode more room for error. As a result, these blocks are also excellent for making transitions, but that will be for a later guide.
However, they come with one problem: they’re invisible in-game. This makes them unintuitive for gameplay unless you add an object to mark their locations. This is why gravity portals were used in Fingerdash to indicate where S blocks were placed. But you can use other objects to mark these blocks and integrate them to your decoration.
Platformer-Specific Objects
Platformer-Specific Objects
The checkpoint object is the only one that works specifically for Platformer Mode. Clicking this object’s Edit Special leads to the Setup Checkpoint UI, which contains the following features:
SpawnID activates a group when the checkpoint is reached.
TargetPos sets a spawn point for the player to teleport after death. This point needs to be a one-object group.
RespawnID activates a group if the player respawns at that specific checkpoint.
Placing this object in Classic Mode is redundant unless you intend to use it as a detail object. While you can build a checkpoint system for classic levels, that requires a custom trigger setup which is outside of this guide’s scope.
With all of this variety in gameplay objects, it can get intimidating to read and understand all of them. Therefore, you can use this video or play the ID 114203114 as a reference.
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