Something that you should’ve corrected is that most frame perfect counter videos count on 60FPS, rather than 360, so there aren’t any timings in avernus that have less than a 300th of a second, because of this: 60FPS is slower, and 360FPS is 6x the framerate of 60FPS, so at least one of those extra frames will probably be one that you can click on. 360FPS are generally much too hard put in actual levels. Also, the practice checkpoints are vanilla, but make it so that completing a level in practice won’t count as a valid completion. All Zbot does is allow for recording and replaying macros. Very good for something that doesn’t play GD though, since there weren’t any other mistakes. Sorry if this seems a bit rude, though.
As the person that was SpaceUK’s best friend throughout all this, I can say that this video covers it very well, I am very disappointed that this happened and that I trusted everything without applying logic, however I am glad it came to light at the end regardless of how rough it is. Again, very great job on the video :)
Well, as someone who isn't in the community, but does understand how much it can damage it... I hope space is doing ok, people cheat all the time in all walks of life and with various levels of severity. We all want to get ahead and we all have our reasons.
From your point of view, did his behavior substantially change after the scandal broke? Had he said or done anything to indicate guilt or remorse for his choices? Apologies if this is too personal a question l, I only mean to get context as to what happened after the events in the video.
@@jellywillreturn i don’t know how to explain it because he did show immense regret and is willing to improve and attempt to fix the situation, however hes always been good hearted despite his addiction and this didnt change
I really tried to stress how hard this game is at the top level, lots of people that have heard of it get the impression that a one button game can't be difficult, but that's far from the case with GD.
Just a correction: Zbot isn’t what allows you to place checkpoints in levels. That’s a base-game feature called Practice Mode. Without it, most levels would be several times harder, if not impossible. ZBot does indeed create macros, though.
@@ls190v2 Alright, first off, I don’t use zbot. I do know how it works, though. Second off, Zbot is not intended to be used as a cheating tool. Its use is in creating showcases (Think along the lines of TAS). That’s why it has the watermark in the first place. Almost every Extreme Demon and Impossible Level showcase on TH-cam uses zbot.
@@Zeropointill The thing is, that the list team changes a lot, since the entire list is run by the community. Another thing is that old hacking methods tend to be forgotten fairly fast, and a thorough analysis on every record is virtually impossible, even a 5 minute clip could be turned into a >3 hour long analysis session if you wanted to check for every known hacking method. And with thousands of records to check, it would take years to do a thorough review, which as I said is virtually impossible. So since the new team is practically entirely different to the one that was around when Space started becoming a prominent player, the new team pretty much just saw a player already approved by the old team, maybe checked his records with newer methods, and then accepted his records.
@@millenial8212i get that feeling, one way to not feel overwhelmed is to not see the level for what it is but rather a series of inputs, forget about the visual stuff and only think about when you need to click.
what always amuses me most about non-GD players covering GD situations is how they paraphrase our insane vocabulary. thanks for covering this, it was a shock to most of the community
Its always a pain to see people understate the difficulty of GD, it cant really be put into words how hard it is 😭but its just what we have to deal with and its kinda dumb how they get so many facts wrong but its fine :/
@@whammautgd first off, what the fuck is a bounce, I've never heard a GD player call that shit bounce. (find it in the slaughterhouse part of the video) and zbot doesn't even place the damn checkpoints, it's called practice mode. It's in the base game. but it's still a good video, even if I can't overlook that shit
It's always like this, the best at a game is a cheater and the community is like "eh couldn't be, him trustworthy!" and flames people WITH EVIDENCE of cheating. I'm surprised it keeps happening and these communities keep ignoring suspicions coming up and instead bully the people who bring them up.
Well the previous top player who was caught cheating was Cyclic back in 2015, people tend to get caught way before they even get to be this high up on the list, hell most people get caught with a single list record, it just so happens Space had the god of luck on his side
We didnt thought he hacked because we blindly trusted the demon list team. They usually do a good job and take down 99% of hackers. Unfortunately things like this happen and SpaceUK isnt the only one who slips through; however this guy slipped for 2 years meanwhile other cheaters only last like a month
@@elion4245 OF course not anymore, but for things like this with speedrunning communities people blindly trust the runner and attack anyone coming up with either suspicions or evidence. Just look at every "Cheater exposed" video Karl Jobst has.
@@ectothermic hm, i thought you were correlating this situation to something like dream, where basically the income, the fans and "fame" were basically fine after the exposion and more over a lot of people were defending him. Basically, not only the demonlist did a bad job detecting hacks, but it's "alternative opposition" called "global list" also failed to expose him early enough. And i don't think that people felt somehow wrong about him, they just didn't know and that's it. It's really late here, i should've been asleep like 4 hours ago so i can and I'm probably do interprete your comment incorrectly but i hope i answered it in at least some way UPD: OK got it. You've said that "people attack other people with evidence", i interpreted it incorrectly, because basically the only evidence there is came the day he was exposed. So nobody was attacking anyone with evidence beforehand, that's why i though you meant that there are still supportive people of him now. Basically there was literally 0 people talking about his illegitimatacy with at least some form of evidence before paqoe touched it. But it was so easy to expose, his cheating method is pathetic even for cheating standarts, like people can fake beliveble mouse cams without delay difference and with click sounds on stream with donations with some conditions. Level to hack should be created by YOU, allowing you to record clicks while creating macros for a level. Then use that macros to make a gameplay. Then you have a working level, macros and even perfect clicks and perfect mouse cam That's just a more advanced example of hacking, which as far as i know wasn't used yet
I never understand people who lie after being caught. If he’d just shut his trap after admitting to the hacks the first time, instead of doubling down on deleting his vods and releasing a twtlonger, I guarantee he would’ve gotten so much less backlash attention
If someone's gonna make what is essentially a TAS tool, and have the forethought to make an obvious cheated-run indicator, i feel like the mods should've almost immediately put in place a system that checks for the size discrepancy. It's so easy to do, I don't get why they wouldn't have done it day one of being informed by the creator that it's part of the program.
@@anti7654 okay and? Those few people still included part of the moderation team. You've just been told of the simplest and easiest way to detect a cheater, and even if you don't want to tell the rest of the team, you're not manually checking for that? That's bad moderation.
this video was really well put together, the level of detail you went into easily clears any other video ive seen on the matter from someone outside of the GD community. the only important distinction i can think of is that "verifications" are usually closed off / private instead of being public, usually the level stays private until it is verified by a set verifier instead of it being a race for any player to beat the level.
Those "people" who can play those levels aren't really human, they're gods walking amongst us mortal souls. Looking at some of the footage should confirm that theory.
I would add the reaction of the other top players, especially that of Zoink who until then was the top 2. On TH-cam he posted that he had always seen SpaceUK above him every time he managed to get a new achievement, either because SpaceUK was the first win or because he did it in fewer attempts. Zoink got better and better to beat SpaceUK when he gets the news that his rival has been cheating all along and that he was always the best. Incredible
What is it with cheaters going 'oh yeah I cheated, but only in a few runs..." Like, every single one of these I've ever seen, that's what the cheater has said, but in reality they faked all of their runs. Just come clean, man. You got caught.
I feel like everyone who gets called out for cheating and then act like “they’re done with this game” are insecure they aren’t good enough and cope with denial into knowing they aren’t the gods they were anymore. It’s sad but Power corrupts people
14:00 I'm moreso wondering why Kolo got so much heat for questioning top scores. Why is the crowd so quick to demonize someone raising suspicions rather than taking them seriously?
A few technical things about frame rate/frame perfect. Its not only if you're running at 60fps. Its only if youre running in the game modes *intended* fps. In this case, 60 just happens to be a fraction of 360.
Also in the beginning you said " Today we'll figure out how he did it" when You are just recapping the work other people did. I understand what you were going for it may seem like semantics but yeah, I appreciate you putting the video together Cheers.
I absolutely cannot stand the lies and ego on people when they shit like "I got bored and just wanted to fuck with the mods" or some dumb shit like that. Be an adult, own up to it, and lets move on. Either way, great video! very interesting.
10:32 out of the thousands of mistakes in the video (which i dont blame u for) this is probably the biggest, zbot doesnt have practice mode as a feature instead it just uses the built in practice mode in the game to make a macro by playing the level in practice mode, and using checkpoints so zbot peice the clicks from checkpoint to checkpoint
Space was such an inspiration to our whole community, and breaking the games barrier just for money is just mocking of all the hard work our top players have put in.
Hot take: still think Cyclic was, in general "Bigger" as a hacker (more long lasting impression on the community, more memorable, arguably bigger of a scandal, etc)
The lengths people will take to make sure that cheaters get caught always impresses me. It's like an Ace Attorney case: bluff until you find an actual lead, then follow the lead until you discover the truth. Now... some real talk about this situation: I've been in this community since 2015, and this is undoubtedly the biggest scandal of its kind, given how long Space was taking advantage of the trust of others. Worse than that, other amazing players went under the radar because of his actions. Through cheating, he was crowned "Best Player" by the community not once... but TWICE. That's why people are so enraged about this scandal.
its complicated but basically people refer to a timing as "frame perfect" if it can only be done in 1 frame on 60hz, but on higher rates like 360hz, some timings become way easier or way harder than just a simple 1/60 due to how the frames align (some timings can even be 1/360 but on 60hz youd only be able to tell they are 1/60)
The challenges are even worse… There is one, called VSC, where almost every input is frame perfect . And there’s another one called TTV that had over 15 360 fps frame perfects which has around a 3 millisecond window of success.
Considering TTV is broken as every click is treated as if you are on 60fps regardless of whether you play on higher fps, VSC is the only one that is credible here. Weird thing is SKOE99, who was the supposed verifier of TTV, didnt actually hack, because thats how the game works. Robtop is cool lol👍 Good point though.
Lol it’s crazy to deny cheating at first then when you get caught say oh I actually don’t care I was just seeing how long it would take for people to notice
No it's definetly not because another community player (FNM04) designed one of the best possible PCs for space personally, and there's a post on the amazing specs if you look hard enough
This one actually makes me understand how the competitive players feel. As a GD player that has done only one demon level in his lifetime I would think this dude is trash lmaooo
The way you annunciate "to" sounds robotic, it's always been something I've noticed, already hearing it like 5 times in the first few minutes. If you go back and listen for it, you'll hear it. It's present in more miscellaneous words but most common in "to". Anyways, thanks for the video 😅
Someone said that how I pronounce the word "today" bothered them and that I should get speech therapy, so I made sure to say it three times in the opening of my last video. You should check out my live streams, they're on a playlist on my channel, a lot of people that tune in say my live voice is a lot different than my recording voice, but maybe I just say "to" funny 😂
@@Abyssoft I took speech therapy when I was younger and it helped a ton! Truly not trying to be mean, just wasn't sure if you were aware of that one different pronunciation of yours, I don't mind it tbh!
I think it’s worth noting for the sake of clarity that the attempt counts from Zoink are significantly below average. Most players who beat the top levels take many more attempts than him.
Just another speedrunning community being toxic as always. Someone calls out a runner, everyone flocks to the runners defense with them putting down the accusers skill as reason why its not cheated, it comes out as cheated, and all those assholes just move on to the next runner. Maybe someday accusations will actually be met with the scrutiny that top level play deserves.
Space UK is a good of a cheater he has skills but he was tempted to do it to become the best player in community rather than having a challenge with himself
extremely good video, im surprised to see so much nuance and accuracy of the situation from someone who doesnt do gd content, and how you include pretty much all the context needed, id go as far to say this is better than a lot of vids on the situation even from players in the community lmao, so yeah great work on this
I could not be happier that you covered this situation. As someone who's been a part of the gd community since early 2017, this is by far the biggest scandal I've ever seen. It's so disappointing to see all of these top players lose motivation because of the fact that they can't keep up with someone not playing fair. Even as a high level player, not top player, but someone who grinds list demons and ranks top 200, this also affects my pov on the community in the fact that we can't trust anyone anymore. Thank you so much for covering this :)
This is the biggest cheating scandal by far, but as a player who joined in 08/16, TeamHax was a bigger incident. It killed most (if not all) old accounts.
Thats wild that the ZBot creator added an anti cheat mechanism and nobody noticed it. You’d figure people would all be looking out for the smaller text
The creator kept it fairly under wraps for situations exactly like this. If it were all out in the open, someone would simply find a way to make the program not affect the end screen text. Also, SpaceUK is so much of a sociopathic manipulative loser that people didn’t even consider the possibility of him being a cheater for the longest time.
@@IzzyIsntReal Jesus, the amount of autism needed (well, to have a masturbatory obsession with people playing video games really fast) to declare someone a sociopath with such rage because they faked a video game high score is off the charts. Learn what words mean and get some help.
@@millenial8212 and so it was for every other cheater that uses this excuse: to cheat in a way that doesn't get detected you have to be good at the game yourself, only the best manage to get away with cheating and they ALL use the same excuses every time "I got fed up" "I totally would have done it eventually" etc... Yes, it was plausible...so? He said it to try to defend himself AFTER he was already exposed so...yes, he could have done it...and he didn't...and even if he did off camera he still didn't do it legitimately on the leaderboard so, your point?
@@scubasteve6175 Yes however he knows the Wasu and The Golden click pattern well. There is 0 reason for him to lie about such a random level like Kenos
This video is good for what it's trying to convey, but a lot of information has been missed that is relevant to perceive just how dominant SpaceUK was thought to be and how it ruined some players. As you can see in the poll for best player of 2021 SpaceUK won with over 70% of the votes, and looking from the perspective of any good player worth their salt, it was obvious he was the best player in the game by miles. The game was in the middle of a stagnation period due to the fact that new hardest demons take a lot of time to be verified, it takes thousands of (active playtime) hours to get good at this game and whenever a set of top players quit (they tend to all leave after a certain period of inactivity) it can take quite a lot of time for new top players to rise to the challenge and verify new top 1 demons. The hardest demon at the time was Tartarus, a level verified in January of 2020 by fairly good player, Dolphy, who took around 60k attempts, for context how a less good player compares, Mullsy had been attempting to verify Tartarus since I believe early 2019, maybe late 2018, and he was at around 200k attempts when Dolphy completed Tartarus, Dolphy's hardest was the then top 3 demon Zodiac, whilst I don't really know what Mullsy's hardest was when he started playing Tartarus, but somewhere along the way he beat a top 20 called "Bloodlust". [1] Anyway, after this a lot of good players quit, the dominant player in 2020 was Nswish, along with Rori, Technical and Wolvez. Nswish was a dominant player by miles similarly to SpaceUK because of one specific thing he did that no one before him had ever done, he had completed the entire main list of the Demon list, all 75 demons. Nswish, Rori and Technical all quit sometime in 2020, and the only one that remainder fairly active was Wolvez. Usually new top 1s get verified in about a year, Tartarus had been the longest lasting top 1 this game had ever seen, staying at #1 for a total of about 18 months I believe, during that time ONLY 26 people completed it. Let's now move onto why it takes so long to get good at this game. Completing Geometry Dash levels can be very difficult, and with every level you complete you get ever so slightly better, the harder a level you completed the more it'll improve your skillset (unless your skillset is perfectly tailored to the level, then it won't help that much). I used to be a top player and it took me about 3 years (2015-2018) to go from beating an easy demon, to completing a top 5 demon, with a total of about 3000hours on the game, with at least 50% of those being active playing hours. As time passes new and improved gear is made (mice with less latency, monitors with lower visual delay etc.), but so does the difficulty of levels increase. During the time between when Tartarus was verified and SpaceUK rose to prominence a new rule was allowed, that is, people were allowed to use "fps bypass" to play the game at 360fps, before that people were limited to their native monitor hz, so most good players were using 240hz, but sometimes you'd see some people climb to the top with 144hz, because 240hz was way too expensive. This rule made the game easier, explaining why would make this comment way too long, but in short, the more frames you have the easier this game is, if you don't believe me, try playing the game on 60fps and then switch 240 or 360fps and you'll see how much easier the game is, even if the timings you are doing are easy. Due to all of that happening the release of a new top 1 was expected to be delayed, and thus we waited, after a year passed people started playing hard levels again, the one I was most interested for was Firework, which ended up being verified by Trick (the guy who got #2 on the 2021 polls), not to confuse you, this level ended up being verified after Slaughterhouse (was hacked by SpaceUK)... a day later to be exact. Trick's hardest demon at the time was Bloodlust (same level I mentioned earlier with Mullsy), he had also gotten some runs on a different unverified top 1 (aod) whilst playing Firework. [2] Why SpaceUK was (considered to be) an absolute monster (skill wise): Looking at all this information, you'd expect SpaceUK to be an old player, playing for a couple of years at least. Well you'd be wrong, Space came from practically nowhere, completing The Golden (this wasn't mentioned in the video, but The Golden was the 2nd hardest demon in the game when Space beat it), as his 5th demon, for context on just how insane this is, even if you want to try jumping into this game and trying to recreate what Space did, you'd quickly realize that jumping straight to The Golden is not a good idea, it's just way too hard. This is approximately how normal progression would look: - you beat the first couple of official levels - you beat an easy demon, or one of the official demons (Clubstep, Theory of Everything 2, Deadlocked) - you try a medium demon, it probably takes you around 1000 or so attempts - you beat a couple of medium demons, feel confident enough to take on a hard demon and beat it in probably less attempts than your first medium demon - you beat some hard demons or jump straight into an insane demon (this will probably take you a couple of thousand of attempts) - you beat a couple of insane demons, and then finally you undertake an *entry* extreme demon... Wait... An "entry" extreme demon? What does that even mean. Well as you would expect, when there's not enough difficulties levels that are not even close in difficulty tend to get clumped up pretty easily, there's currently almost *700* Extreme demons in existence. SpaceUK on the other hand, had a progression that looked like this: - beat a medium demon - beat an insane demon - beat an entry extreme - beat a top 20 demon - beat the number 2 demon in 60k-ish attempts Yeah, remember that Dolphy guy who had a top 5 demon completed and took 60k to verify a new top 1, imagine being compared to some guy who came out of nowhere and almost matched your skill after 5 demons. [3] Granted Space probably grinded lots of other levels (we know he got 77% on an entry extreme that he never beat), to get good at the game, whilst this is a valid tactic, it's a really roundabout way of going about gaining skill. Ignoring knowing that he hacked, this guy then proceeded to absolutely melt every level that was thrown at him, I don't remember how many demons he actually ended up completing, but if I recall correctly he had done at least half of the top 10 before setting his sights on Slaughterhouse. There were multiple people trying to verify Slaughterhouse, since it was so hard it went from being a normal to an semi-open verification. [4] SpaceUK, after getting verification rights proceeded to absolutely destroy the level in about week, and in about 40k attempts stealing the title for the verifier of the (at then) top 1. Other players that were attempting to verify it quickly lost interest and stopped playing it (except for Doggie, who ended up being the first victor (later verifier) of the level). The other level I mentioned earlier, Firework ended up being verified by Trick in whooping 200k attempts. The only players who could at the end of 2021 even say they were a competition for Space in skill were Crisis and Wolvez, but by that point both had started to lose interest, SpaceUK was just too much of a monster to contend with. After Slaughterhouse: Not much ended up happening with Space after Slaughterhouse, Space ended up becoming the 2nd ever person to complete the entire main list, right after Nswish, he did this sometime around the mid point of 2022 and it's the same reason why he ended up getting the award for being the best player of 2022 as well. If you ask me for my personal opinion on just how good Space was perceived to be by all the other players though, I'd say he was easily without competition in 2021, which ruined pretty much everyone's motivation to even try beating Space, in 2022 things took a turn for the better when new top players started appearing, mainly Zoink, Trick, Cursed, Doggie, Diamond, Baeru etc. Even then most of these weren't enough to overtake Space in skill, even after he had practically quit the game after completing the main list, the closest I'd say anyone got to actually becoming a real SpaceUK was probably Zoink, since he ended up being the 3rd person to ever complete the entire main list. Footnotes: [1] A top 1 level being verified by you doesn't necessarily make you a top player, you are definitely good if you can pull it off in a reasonable amount of attempts, and despite Mullsy taking over 200k I'd say he was more than good enough for his time. [2] There's plenty of levels around that are technically top 1, but they are unverified, left on the servers to someday be picked up by someone and verified. [3] We know the furthest Space got on The golden was 94, so I'd still argue that he almost matched his skill [4] A normal verification would constitute a single person having rights to verifying the level, whilst an open verification means anyone can attempt to verify it. I say semi-open, because it was given to a couple of people to attempt to verify it. Quick shoutout to people that I know got madly screwed by Space's existence: Wolvez, Crisis - The undisputably best players of 2021 Jeller (Laniakea) - Cheated out of being the #1 player on the stats viewer Doggie, Trick - Being cheated out of being the verifier of a top 1 Cursed, Trick (again), Doggie (again), Zoink - The best players of 2022 And everyone else that had their motivation destroyed by SpaceUK, I hope you can pick yourself back up after all this, and if you find the motivation to give Geometry Dash another try, I wish you luck :)
Also, just saying, but don't blame the list mods for not spotting this, it may seem incredibly obvious in hindsight, but checking for hacks in Geometry Dash is a long and arduous process. A lot of old methods tend to be quickly forgotten as there's simply too many ways to hack (Geometry Dash as you can imagine is very easy to hack). And since the list is run entirely by the community it's members tend to change a lot, consequently they might not even know about some super old methods, and even if they do it would take far too long to actually check every record using every method for every known hack, a 5 minute clip can quickly turn into a 3 hour long checking session and with thousands upon thousands of videos checking everything is simply not feasible. I see a lot of people blaming the list team, but I don't think they deserve even 1% of the blame they've been receiving. The current team is especially under a lot of scrutiny despite most of the current team members not even being around back when SpaceUK rose to prominence, and as time passed he became a well established player with multiple "verified" records, which made the current team just assume he was obviously legit.
I feel like meatius's post presents information that is inaccurate, lacking in evidence and context, and misrepresents the true nature of the game and the community around it. The following paragraphs will address these issues and provide a counter-argument. Firstly, the poll for the best player of 2021 that SpaceUK supposedly won with over 70% of the votes has not been sourced, and it is unclear where this data comes from. There is no mention of the poll in any of the official Geometry Dash channels, and no evidence has been provided to back up this claim. Without any reliable sources, it is difficult to take this assertion seriously. Secondly, the text claims that SpaceUK was the best player in the game by miles, which is not only subjective but also overlooks the achievements and skill of other players in the game. Geometry Dash is a game that requires both skill and perseverance, and it is not fair to dismiss the efforts of other players who have also invested countless hours into the game. There are many players who have completed the hardest levels in the game, and it is unfair to give all the credit to one player without acknowledging the skill and dedication of others. Furthermore, the text suggests that SpaceUK's dominance was due to the game being in a period of stagnation, but this is a flawed interpretation. The game has been consistently active, with new levels and features being added regularly. There are also many players who continue to play the game and achieve great things, so it is not accurate to say that the game is stagnant. Additionally, the text describes the game as being incredibly difficult, and claims that it takes thousands of hours to become a top player. While it is true that the game is challenging, it is not accurate to suggest that it is impossible for new players to become skilled. The game has a gradual progression system that allows players to improve their skills gradually, and many players have become skilled without investing thousands of hours into the game. In conclusion, the text about SpaceUK's dominance in Geometry Dash is flawed and misrepresents the true nature of the game and the community around it. It is important to consider multiple sources and perspectives when assessing the achievements of players in any game, and to give credit where it is due. The skill and dedication of players should be acknowledged, and it is unfair to give all the credit to one player without considering the achievements of others. Your post angered me so much that i felt the urge to write a short disstrack on you... nothing personal but, Ah, Meatius, the former Geometry Dash pro But now he's fallen, a sad and sorry foe With his dog by his side, he thinks he's tough But hacking Sakupen Realm is not enough He used to be skilled, now he's just a nerd No more fame, no more glory, not even a word He thinks he's got game, but it's all just a sham Meatius, you're done, you're just a one-hit wonder man You might have been good, once upon a time But now you're just a has-been, a shell of a prime You hack levels, but you can't hack the game Meatius, your legacy is nothing but shame So go ahead and try to come at me, bro But you'll always be a loser, don't you know I'll just sit back and watch you fail Meatius, you're nothing but a sad, sad tale. With all that said meatius. Please delete your comment
The watermark being 2 years old definitely contributed to the longevity of his records; by the time he started using zBot the method fell into obscurity
The levels do not ‘throw off your timing’. To beat one of these extremely hard levels, you need to practice every part, learn what visual cues to click to, and to engrain click patterns into your muscle memory. Since the level doesn’t change, you can always rely on making the exact same inputs to pass it. Going upside down does not mess with your muscle memory, because you will always go upside down every time, and you would have practiced the click patterns in practice mode. The majority of the difficulty of top levels comes from not just the nearly impossible timings, but also the awkwardness of the click patterns, with memory playing a much less part than this video implies. Awkwardness in click patterns comes from high cps and requiring the player to perform a sequence of holds and releases where the time you release is very specific and short. The last factor in difficulty is length of the level, which tests your ability to consistently perform at a high level and also your mental with nerves.
It's funny how doggie was originally the verifier of slaughterhouse (but a heavily nerfed version), gets beaten by spaceuk, becomes first Victor, hacker gets caught, and he becomes the rightfully deserved verifier he should've been all those years ago.
I couldn't help but laugh when Abyssoft kept saying stuff like "This might not look difficult" I'm not really familiar with this game at all and it looks literally unplayable from the clips shown lmao
so, imagine this, you have to do like 5-10 frame perfects a second in the drop of slaughterhouse, then like 5 seconds into the drop you have to spam alot then straight fly for like 5 seconds straight and then with all of the pressure of almost beating the hardest part, you have to straight fly but go up abit which is much harder than normal straight fly and at the end do like 5 frame perfect jumps in a row
Great video! It really is hard to grasp the amount of damage this has done to the community. I'm willing to say that this goes in the top 5 worst cheating scandals in any video game because the sheer amount of damage he caused. take Trick for example, who spent 200k+ attempts and over a year to verify Firework, with the promise of verifying a top 1. Just for space to swoop in and ''verify slaughterhouse'' and steal the top 1 spot that shouldve gone to Trick. and poor Crisis who was FRIENDS with space, who got demotivated after he wasn't as good as space (he wouldve probably been THE space with all the attention and praise etc). theres of course many more examples. I care a lot about this game so this whole thing hurts a lot. These are the REAL top 1 players that wouldve been top 1 if it wasnt for space: -Spiritex - Crisis - Wolvez - ThunderBT - Laniakea / Jeller - Snowballer - Zoink And some real first victors: Firework - Crisis Aerial Gleam - Zoink Oblivion - Skyzl Abyss Of Darkness - Trick Acheron - Doggie Slaughterhouse - Doggie (verification)
i don't wanna be that kind of asshole cuz i've gone around the GD community here and there, but idk if this counts as a top 5 worst cheating scandal for a video game ever mainly cuz a: there was no insane cash prizes (if we were talking in the thousands or officialised competitions with cash prizes at stake then yes that's insanely scandalous) and b: so far no one has genuinely gone and lost their life because of this that being said, this incident is absolutely mind boggling cuz i am fully aware that in spite of what i said, spaceuk practically destroyed the legacies of many skilled players who DESERVED his fame and respect, and that is my biggest frustration with this too the cash also sucks and so does the other points that you made
@@alephzero1984 i guess the most they could amount to is if they were a cash prize handed to them i'm not saying this to invalidate whoever won the award because it is extremely prestigious for any GD player to receive one, but i meant prize as in actual cash prize, and that would be insanely immoral
Which is funny because either this guy stole the video from Karl or the Karl stole this video. I haven’t checked the dates but the order of the video is pretty much identical.
It is unfair that you showed proof and no one believed you because you were not known. Thats just sad from those people by denying everything because "SpAcEuK iS LeGiT" while they dont even know that themselves
Check out my Patreon where there's a one month FREE trial for tier 2!
www.patreon.com/abyssoft
nice gg
Something that you should’ve corrected is that most frame perfect counter videos count on 60FPS, rather than 360, so there aren’t any timings in avernus that have less than a 300th of a second, because of this: 60FPS is slower, and 360FPS is 6x the framerate of 60FPS, so at least one of those extra frames will probably be one that you can click on. 360FPS are generally much too hard put in actual levels. Also, the practice checkpoints are vanilla, but make it so that completing a level in practice won’t count as a valid completion. All Zbot does is allow for recording and replaying macros. Very good for something that doesn’t play GD though, since there weren’t any other mistakes. Sorry if this seems a bit rude, though.
@@Periwinkleaccount super rude.
@@WhatisAPaladin well, I really didn’t mean to.
Me getting 67% on stereo madness ye I can beat a demon 😎
I did NOT have Abyssoft making a geometry dash video on my bingo card for this year
Anything else you need to fill the card?
@@Abyssoft a video on Crash Team Racing Any% No Major Glitches would personally make my bingo card complete
@@Abyssoft Death Road To Canada?
Now you know how the Guitar Hero/Clone Hero community felt about Schmooey 😂😭
@@paydaygh9388 GD 🤝 CH
Abyssoft covering cheaters
As the person that was SpaceUK’s best friend throughout all this, I can say that this video covers it very well, I am very disappointed that this happened and that I trusted everything without applying logic, however I am glad it came to light at the end regardless of how rough it is.
Again, very great job on the video :)
Well, as someone who isn't in the community, but does understand how much it can damage it... I hope space is doing ok, people cheat all the time in all walks of life and with various levels of severity. We all want to get ahead and we all have our reasons.
From your point of view, did his behavior substantially change after the scandal broke? Had he said or done anything to indicate guilt or remorse for his choices?
Apologies if this is too personal a question l, I only mean to get context as to what happened after the events in the video.
@@jellywillreturn i don’t know how to explain it because he did show immense regret and is willing to improve and attempt to fix the situation, however hes always been good hearted despite his addiction and this didnt change
@@swiborg I certainly hope he's able to turn himself around, and get out of his self-destructive habits.
@@ASMCourtney nah man fuck space
"You might be thinking this doesn't look hard." Right. I'm thinking it looks SUPER HARD, lol
I really tried to stress how hard this game is at the top level, lots of people that have heard of it get the impression that a one button game can't be difficult, but that's far from the case with GD.
@@Abyssoft oh this game is no joke your right. The 5th hardest level Kyouki took the verifier 500k attempts
@@Abyssoft Agree. And i need to say, your video is amazing!! ;D
@DJ1482. then again demisiao did want to be the sole creator and verifier, and they weren't necessarily a top player so this is understandable
i have put more hours than i would like to imagine into this game and have still only beaten 2 hard demons... thats saying something
Just a correction: Zbot isn’t what allows you to place checkpoints in levels. That’s a base-game feature called Practice Mode. Without it, most levels would be several times harder, if not impossible.
ZBot does indeed create macros, though.
How do you know about that?
@@ls190v2 Because I play the game lol
@@bird_obsession, I hope you know only through research and not use.
@@ls190v2 Alright, first off, I don’t use zbot. I do know how it works, though.
Second off, Zbot is not intended to be used as a cheating tool. Its use is in creating showcases (Think along the lines of TAS). That’s why it has the watermark in the first place. Almost every Extreme Demon and Impossible Level showcase on TH-cam uses zbot.
Well, @@bird_obsession, it seems my suspicions were pretty accusatory. Sorry about that.
This video is so high quality. Thank you for covering and i’m so happy i could help you a bit
Thanks for walking me through all the intricate parts of the game, wasn't possible without you.
oink
funny how you actually outdone a fucking cheater this entire time
oink
oink
I really like the inclusion of such subtle differences like smaller text to prevent cheating 😄
Yeah, it's a nice addition to the bot, it's just sad that it took 2 years for someone to notice the subtle difference
@@thebrave9971 Yeah that's what i don't get, 2 years and all that analysis before anyone thought to check.
@@Zeropointill The thing is, that the list team changes a lot, since the entire list is run by the community.
Another thing is that old hacking methods tend to be forgotten fairly fast, and a thorough analysis on every record is virtually impossible, even a 5 minute clip could be turned into a >3 hour long analysis session if you wanted to check for every known hacking method.
And with thousands of records to check, it would take years to do a thorough review, which as I said is virtually impossible.
So since the new team is practically entirely different to the one that was around when Space started becoming a prominent player, the new team pretty much just saw a player already approved by the old team, maybe checked his records with newer methods, and then accepted his records.
how does that work exactly?
I've never heard of that method before but it sounds clever!
@@MeatiusGaming Yeah the trust basically got grandfathered in an he just kept doing it.
"You might be thinking: Hey, this doesn't look hard!"
nope, it definitely looks insanely hard :')
And its like 100x times harder than it looks when u actually play it lmao ☠
@@millenial8212i get that feeling, one way to not feel overwhelmed is to not see the level for what it is but rather a series of inputs, forget about the visual stuff and only think about when you need to click.
It's advanced hard
Utmost Definition of "Easier Said than Done"
Right it looks humanly impossible lol
Cool video! Thanks for covering this and thanks for the shoutout in the desc!
🐐
Trick, did space ever give you the ad revenue like he said he would?
Ph hi trick
Gmd trick
what always amuses me most about non-GD players covering GD situations is how they paraphrase our insane vocabulary. thanks for covering this, it was a shock to most of the community
Its always a pain to see people understate the difficulty of GD, it cant really be put into words how hard it is 😭but its just what we have to deal with and its kinda dumb how they get so many facts wrong but its fine :/
@@whammautgd first off, what the fuck is a bounce, I've never heard a GD player call that shit bounce. (find it in the slaughterhouse part of the video)
and zbot doesn't even place the damn checkpoints, it's called practice mode. It's in the base game.
but it's still a good video, even if I can't overlook that shit
@@alephzero1984 yeah the bounce thing was super fucking weird especially, never seem a singles person EVER call it that
"..it was a shock to most of the community." Why most? Shouldn't it have shocked the whole community?
@Ramsey Doon well inevitably there was a loud minority who suspected him for a while leading up to the exposal
It's always like this, the best at a game is a cheater and the community is like "eh couldn't be, him trustworthy!" and flames people WITH EVIDENCE of cheating.
I'm surprised it keeps happening and these communities keep ignoring suspicions coming up and instead bully the people who bring them up.
Well the previous top player who was caught cheating was Cyclic back in 2015, people tend to get caught way before they even get to be this high up on the list, hell most people get caught with a single list record, it just so happens Space had the god of luck on his side
We didnt thought he hacked because we blindly trusted the demon list team. They usually do a good job and take down 99% of hackers. Unfortunately things like this happen and SpaceUK isnt the only one who slips through; however this guy slipped for 2 years meanwhile other cheaters only last like a month
I disagree, i literally haven't met a person justifying or arguing that he is legit. Community seems to be very one sided on this thing.
@@elion4245 OF course not anymore, but for things like this with speedrunning communities people blindly trust the runner and attack anyone coming up with either suspicions or evidence.
Just look at every "Cheater exposed" video Karl Jobst has.
@@ectothermic hm, i thought you were correlating this situation to something like dream, where basically the income, the fans and "fame" were basically fine after the exposion and more over a lot of people were defending him.
Basically, not only the demonlist did a bad job detecting hacks, but it's "alternative opposition" called "global list" also failed to expose him early enough.
And i don't think that people felt somehow wrong about him, they just didn't know and that's it. It's really late here, i should've been asleep like 4 hours ago so i can and I'm probably do interprete your comment incorrectly but i hope i answered it in at least some way
UPD: OK got it. You've said that "people attack other people with evidence", i interpreted it incorrectly, because basically the only evidence there is came the day he was exposed. So nobody was attacking anyone with evidence beforehand, that's why i though you meant that there are still supportive people of him now.
Basically there was literally 0 people talking about his illegitimatacy with at least some form of evidence before paqoe touched it. But it was so easy to expose, his cheating method is pathetic even for cheating standarts, like people can fake beliveble mouse cams without delay difference and with click sounds on stream with donations with some conditions. Level to hack should be created by YOU, allowing you to record clicks while creating macros for a level. Then use that macros to make a gameplay. Then you have a working level, macros and even perfect clicks and perfect mouse cam
That's just a more advanced example of hacking, which as far as i know wasn't used yet
I always find it funny how non gd players talk about gd, "the rocket" lmao
What has Flappy bird become
geometry bird
flappy ufo
I never understand people who lie after being caught. If he’d just shut his trap after admitting to the hacks the first time, instead of doubling down on deleting his vods and releasing a twtlonger, I guarantee he would’ve gotten so much less backlash attention
4:07, WHO IN TF IS THINKING THAT??
If someone's gonna make what is essentially a TAS tool, and have the forethought to make an obvious cheated-run indicator, i feel like the mods should've almost immediately put in place a system that checks for the size discrepancy.
It's so easy to do, I don't get why they wouldn't have done it day one of being informed by the creator that it's part of the program.
They didn't do it because the developer of zbot only told a couple of people
@@anti7654 okay and? Those few people still included part of the moderation team.
You've just been told of the simplest and easiest way to detect a cheater, and even if you don't want to tell the rest of the team, you're not manually checking for that? That's bad moderation.
this video was really well put together, the level of detail you went into easily clears any other video ive seen on the matter from someone outside of the GD community. the only important distinction i can think of is that "verifications" are usually closed off / private instead of being public, usually the level stays private until it is verified by a set verifier instead of it being a race for any player to beat the level.
4:50 "games would be unplayable without vsync" wha- excuse me???
Those "people" who can play those levels aren't really human, they're gods walking amongst us mortal souls. Looking at some of the footage should confirm that theory.
I would add the reaction of the other top players, especially that of Zoink who until then was the top 2. On TH-cam he posted that he had always seen SpaceUK above him every time he managed to get a new achievement, either because SpaceUK was the first win or because he did it in fewer attempts. Zoink got better and better to beat SpaceUK when he gets the news that his rival has been cheating all along and that he was always the best. Incredible
What is it with cheaters going 'oh yeah I cheated, but only in a few runs..." Like, every single one of these I've ever seen, that's what the cheater has said, but in reality they faked all of their runs. Just come clean, man. You got caught.
I feel like everyone who gets called out for cheating and then act like “they’re done with this game” are insecure they aren’t good enough and cope with denial into knowing they aren’t the gods they were anymore. It’s sad but Power corrupts people
you made a better video describing the situation than some people who actually make gd content, holy gj!
14:00 I'm moreso wondering why Kolo got so much heat for questioning top scores. Why is the crowd so quick to demonize someone raising suspicions rather than taking them seriously?
Talking about Schmooey, he is back on account called KristenFatty playing legit this time. Id advice paying him a visit.
would like to point out that practice mode is a base game function, and zbot only adds macros
other than that, great video
A few technical things about frame rate/frame perfect. Its not only if you're running at 60fps. Its only if youre running in the game modes *intended* fps. In this case, 60 just happens to be a fraction of 360.
Also in the beginning you said " Today we'll figure out how he did it" when You are just recapping the work other people did. I understand what you were going for it may seem like semantics but yeah, I appreciate you putting the video together Cheers.
So people make visual clusterfuck levels and pretend they’re good?
lmao its so funny how cheaters always come up with the same excuses when they get caught, you can make a bingo out of them
I absolutely cannot stand the lies and ego on people when they shit like "I got bored and just wanted to fuck with the mods" or some dumb shit like that. Be an adult, own up to it, and lets move on.
Either way, great video! very interesting.
wow, the nuances of the game and community explained perfectly. idk how you got some of the obscure info but damn this was an amazing video
Reminds me of the Trackmania Cheating Scandal
This is crazy but i dont think anything will be more insane than cyclic getting outed
11:48 what a crazy excuse. “i beat the level legit even though i had noclip”. how would you even know you didn’t hit anything?
I like that the levels are classified like they’re monsters in One Punch Man.
10:32 out of the thousands of mistakes in the video (which i dont blame u for) this is probably the biggest, zbot doesnt have practice mode as a feature instead it just uses the built in practice mode in the game to make a macro by playing the level in practice mode, and using checkpoints so zbot peice the clicks from checkpoint to checkpoint
me: can we have prochara
mom: we have prochara at home
prochara at home:
that endscreen feature is actually brilliant props to the dev
Space was such an inspiration to our whole community, and breaking the games barrier just for money is just mocking of all the hard work our top players have put in.
You may think “hey this doesn’t look hard.”
No. None of us were thinking that 😂
bro just explained the entirety of gd
Hot take: still think Cyclic was, in general "Bigger" as a hacker (more long lasting impression on the community, more memorable, arguably bigger of a scandal, etc)
The lengths people will take to make sure that cheaters get caught always impresses me. It's like an Ace Attorney case: bluff until you find an actual lead, then follow the lead until you discover the truth.
Now... some real talk about this situation:
I've been in this community since 2015, and this is undoubtedly the biggest scandal of its kind, given how long Space was taking advantage of the trust of others. Worse than that, other amazing players went under the radar because of his actions. Through cheating, he was crowned "Best Player" by the community not once... but TWICE. That's why people are so enraged about this scandal.
5:44 it’s 60 hz frame perfect so it would be 1/60 of a second though
its complicated but basically people refer to a timing as "frame perfect" if it can only be done in 1 frame on 60hz, but on higher rates like 360hz, some timings become way easier or way harder than just a simple 1/60 due to how the frames align (some timings can even be 1/360 but on 60hz youd only be able to tell they are 1/60)
The challenges are even worse…
There is one, called VSC, where almost every input is frame perfect .
And there’s another one called TTV that had over 15 360 fps frame perfects which has around a 3 millisecond window of success.
Considering TTV is broken as every click is treated as if you are on 60fps regardless of whether you play on higher fps, VSC is the only one that is credible here. Weird thing is SKOE99, who was the supposed verifier of TTV, didnt actually hack, because thats how the game works. Robtop is cool lol👍
Good point though.
I like these types of videos. It's a bit like true crime except fraud is as far as it gets
Lol it’s crazy to deny cheating at first then when you get caught say oh I actually don’t care I was just seeing how long it would take for people to notice
i didnt know this was on the universe's bucket list for videos that needed to be made, but lo and behold it truly was
I would be more into Geometry Dash if it weren't so difficult..
It depends on the person of course, but I think most people could get pretty good.
Anyone can get good at it tbf
you don't have to play the hardest levels, just play what's challenging but attainable for you!
There are easier levels, there are only around 650 extreme demons in the game
We don't need to know how the game works for half the vid big bro
Geometry Dash always makes me feel super anxious and stressed, specially those incredibly hard levels, I haven't played it in a long time.
Once a cheater - always a cheater. Scum like this must be banned for life, otherwise moderation of this game is a joke.
This is what moist critical should have watched
People don’t know that people can take it seriously if there’s a buffer in the video they will go frame by frame by that buffer to see what happened
Yoo it's the mario exposer guy
well covered. Some slight inaccuracies, but very good job!
9:00 it may have been a hardware error, I would get up to full second input lag moments on my old laptop.
No it's definetly not because another community player (FNM04) designed one of the best possible PCs for space personally, and there's a post on the amazing specs if you look hard enough
This game looks tough. Cuphead and especially Crash 4 took me weeks and tried my sanity. Don't think I'd have the patience for this.
The title cut off, and it said “the biggest cheater in geometry dash was…”
Can't believe those guys didn't believe Kolo
from within the gd community i can assure you most members arent the brightest
Geometry dash players are something else when I think it was Riot’s level was beaten calling them a cheater lol
How fast things collapse…
STOP saying that. Not at one point I thought something like "this is simple".
fyi the links to the youtube channels in the description aren't working
4:39-4:53 Okay chief, if you say so. LOL
It seems one of kolo's vids was taken down for "violating community guildlines"
He reuploaded it with an edit, I've re-linked it so it should be fixed now
The worst part is that even without cheating, he plays better than me
This one actually makes me understand how the competitive players feel. As a GD player that has done only one demon level in his lifetime I would think this dude is trash lmaooo
Nobody knows how to say subsequent correctly anymore
31% could be some fishy stuff
The way you annunciate "to" sounds robotic, it's always been something I've noticed, already hearing it like 5 times in the first few minutes. If you go back and listen for it, you'll hear it. It's present in more miscellaneous words but most common in "to".
Anyways, thanks for the video 😅
Someone said that how I pronounce the word "today" bothered them and that I should get speech therapy, so I made sure to say it three times in the opening of my last video.
You should check out my live streams, they're on a playlist on my channel, a lot of people that tune in say my live voice is a lot different than my recording voice, but maybe I just say "to" funny 😂
@@Abyssoft I took speech therapy when I was younger and it helped a ton! Truly not trying to be mean, just wasn't sure if you were aware of that one different pronunciation of yours, I don't mind it tbh!
@@gnardawgyt no offense taken, I've never heard it said off of TH-cam, so it's probably just a quirk of my recording voice
@@Abyssoft people who say to get some sort of therapy over the slightest things really piss me off.
SpaceUK is a hacker
So that must mean that EarthUK is a legit player
Your explanation of vsync was quite lacking
[Hammer Dance - Slaughterhouse]
I think it’s worth noting for the sake of clarity that the attempt counts from Zoink are significantly below average. Most players who beat the top levels take many more attempts than him.
This guy had no remorse for his actions, even though he has hurt so many gd players' will to play the game in the first place
Just another speedrunning community being toxic as always. Someone calls out a runner, everyone flocks to the runners defense with them putting down the accusers skill as reason why its not cheated, it comes out as cheated, and all those assholes just move on to the next runner. Maybe someday accusations will actually be met with the scrutiny that top level play deserves.
Space UK is a good of a cheater he has skills but he was tempted to do it to become the best player in community rather than having a challenge with himself
6:50 This didnt age well
10:33 aa yes zbot added practice mode
I'm bothered by how he pronounces "Avernus"
This man deservers 100k lets get him to it!
Abyssoft and Karl Jobst collab, anyone?
“And you might think “hey, this doesn’t look hard”…”
Uhhhh what?!?! This looks INSANE lol wtfffff
10:34 hold up, placing checkpoints is a vanilla feature, and zbot is just for botting. Just a quick correction.
In practice mode
@@dartsandmonkeys you play through the level in practice mode, then use the playback macro in normal mode
Ham sndwch
extremely good video, im surprised to see so much nuance and accuracy of the situation from someone who doesnt do gd content, and how you include pretty much all the context needed, id go as far to say this is better than a lot of vids on the situation even from players in the community lmao, so yeah great work on this
hi septagon
Most videos on this situation felt like they were pumped out in 5 seconds to capitalize off the news
@@ewetwentythree i agree
@@octopuswindow not just with this situation too, just in general whenever something big or interesting happens
@@ewetwentythree I think the best ones were Aeon's and Vortrox's
I could not be happier that you covered this situation. As someone who's been a part of the gd community since early 2017, this is by far the biggest scandal I've ever seen. It's so disappointing to see all of these top players lose motivation because of the fact that they can't keep up with someone not playing fair. Even as a high level player, not top player, but someone who grinds list demons and ranks top 200, this also affects my pov on the community in the fact that we can't trust anyone anymore. Thank you so much for covering this :)
was here during the cyclic and andromeda days, it was insane just like this
@@spelv1104 duuude that shit was in sane i remember like it was yesterday
This is the biggest cheating scandal by far, but as a player who joined in 08/16, TeamHax was a bigger incident. It killed most (if not all) old accounts.
@@cheapgorillas all the teamhax comments man
@@spelv1104 you know that was real
Thats wild that the ZBot creator added an anti cheat mechanism and nobody noticed it. You’d figure people would all be looking out for the smaller text
The anti cheat mechanism wasn't made public until that incident, it was most likely only known by the Demon List team
The creator kept it fairly under wraps for situations exactly like this. If it were all out in the open, someone would simply find a way to make the program not affect the end screen text.
Also, SpaceUK is so much of a sociopathic manipulative loser that people didn’t even consider the possibility of him being a cheater for the longest time.
@@IzzyIsntReal Jesus, the amount of autism needed (well, to have a masturbatory obsession with people playing video games really fast) to declare someone a sociopath with such rage because they faked a video game high score is off the charts. Learn what words mean and get some help.
Very clever move if you ask me!
Ah Yes, the classic:
"I totally did it then the footage got bugged then I faked it because I could have done it again anyways"
He got 96% on The Golden tbf, its harder than Kenos so its definetely possible he actually completed it off camera
@@millenial8212 and so it was for every other cheater that uses this excuse: to cheat in a way that doesn't get detected you have to be good at the game yourself, only the best manage to get away with cheating and they ALL use the same excuses every time "I got fed up" "I totally would have done it eventually" etc...
Yes, it was plausible...so? He said it to try to defend himself AFTER he was already exposed so...yes, he could have done it...and he didn't...and even if he did off camera he still didn't do it legitimately on the leaderboard so, your point?
@@dondrake8443 nothing lol im just saying he prob did it legit?
@@scubasteve6175 Yes however he knows the Wasu and The Golden click pattern well. There is 0 reason for him to lie about such a random level like Kenos
@@scubasteve6175 also he used mouse cam before
zBot authors really had some 200 IQ moment with this end level font size decrease.
This video is good for what it's trying to convey, but a lot of information has been missed that is relevant to perceive just how dominant SpaceUK was thought to be and how it ruined some players.
As you can see in the poll for best player of 2021 SpaceUK won with over 70% of the votes, and looking from the perspective of any good player worth their salt, it was obvious he was the best player in the game by miles.
The game was in the middle of a stagnation period due to the fact that new hardest demons take a lot of time to be verified, it takes thousands of (active playtime) hours to get good at this game and whenever a set of top players quit (they tend to all leave after a certain period of inactivity) it can take quite a lot of time for new top players to rise to the challenge and verify new top 1 demons.
The hardest demon at the time was Tartarus, a level verified in January of 2020 by fairly good player, Dolphy, who took around 60k attempts, for context how a less good player compares, Mullsy had been attempting to verify Tartarus since I believe early 2019, maybe late 2018, and he was at around 200k attempts when Dolphy completed Tartarus, Dolphy's hardest was the then top 3 demon Zodiac, whilst I don't really know what Mullsy's hardest was when he started playing Tartarus, but somewhere along the way he beat a top 20 called "Bloodlust". [1]
Anyway, after this a lot of good players quit, the dominant player in 2020 was Nswish, along with Rori, Technical and Wolvez.
Nswish was a dominant player by miles similarly to SpaceUK because of one specific thing he did that no one before him had ever done, he had completed the entire main list of the Demon list, all 75 demons.
Nswish, Rori and Technical all quit sometime in 2020, and the only one that remainder fairly active was Wolvez.
Usually new top 1s get verified in about a year, Tartarus had been the longest lasting top 1 this game had ever seen, staying at #1 for a total of about 18 months I believe, during that time ONLY 26 people completed it.
Let's now move onto why it takes so long to get good at this game.
Completing Geometry Dash levels can be very difficult, and with every level you complete you get ever so slightly better, the harder a level you completed the more it'll improve your skillset (unless your skillset is perfectly tailored to the level, then it won't help that much).
I used to be a top player and it took me about 3 years (2015-2018) to go from beating an easy demon, to completing a top 5 demon, with a total of about 3000hours on the game, with at least 50% of those being active playing hours.
As time passes new and improved gear is made (mice with less latency, monitors with lower visual delay etc.), but so does the difficulty of levels increase.
During the time between when Tartarus was verified and SpaceUK rose to prominence a new rule was allowed, that is, people were allowed to use "fps bypass" to play the game at 360fps, before that people were limited to their native monitor hz, so most good players were using 240hz, but sometimes you'd see some people climb to the top with 144hz, because 240hz was way too expensive.
This rule made the game easier, explaining why would make this comment way too long, but in short, the more frames you have the easier this game is, if you don't believe me, try playing the game on 60fps and then switch 240 or 360fps and you'll see how much easier the game is, even if the timings you are doing are easy.
Due to all of that happening the release of a new top 1 was expected to be delayed, and thus we waited, after a year passed people started playing hard levels again, the one I was most interested for was Firework, which ended up being verified by Trick (the guy who got #2 on the 2021 polls), not to confuse you, this level ended up being verified after Slaughterhouse (was hacked by SpaceUK)... a day later to be exact.
Trick's hardest demon at the time was Bloodlust (same level I mentioned earlier with Mullsy), he had also gotten some runs on a different unverified top 1 (aod) whilst playing Firework. [2]
Why SpaceUK was (considered to be) an absolute monster (skill wise):
Looking at all this information, you'd expect SpaceUK to be an old player, playing for a couple of years at least. Well you'd be wrong, Space came from practically nowhere, completing The Golden (this wasn't mentioned in the video, but The Golden was the 2nd hardest demon in the game when Space beat it), as his 5th demon, for context on just how insane this is, even if you want to try jumping into this game and trying to recreate what Space did, you'd quickly realize that jumping straight to The Golden is not a good idea, it's just way too hard.
This is approximately how normal progression would look:
- you beat the first couple of official levels
- you beat an easy demon, or one of the official demons (Clubstep, Theory of Everything 2, Deadlocked)
- you try a medium demon, it probably takes you around 1000 or so attempts
- you beat a couple of medium demons, feel confident enough to take on a hard demon and beat it in probably less attempts than your first medium demon
- you beat some hard demons or jump straight into an insane demon (this will probably take you a couple of thousand of attempts)
- you beat a couple of insane demons, and then finally you undertake an *entry* extreme demon...
Wait... An "entry" extreme demon? What does that even mean. Well as you would expect, when there's not enough difficulties levels that are not even close in difficulty tend to get clumped up pretty easily, there's currently almost *700* Extreme demons in existence.
SpaceUK on the other hand, had a progression that looked like this:
- beat a medium demon
- beat an insane demon
- beat an entry extreme
- beat a top 20 demon
- beat the number 2 demon in 60k-ish attempts
Yeah, remember that Dolphy guy who had a top 5 demon completed and took 60k to verify a new top 1, imagine being compared to some guy who came out of nowhere and almost matched your skill after 5 demons. [3]
Granted Space probably grinded lots of other levels (we know he got 77% on an entry extreme that he never beat), to get good at the game, whilst this is a valid tactic, it's a really roundabout way of going about gaining skill.
Ignoring knowing that he hacked, this guy then proceeded to absolutely melt every level that was thrown at him, I don't remember how many demons he actually ended up completing, but if I recall correctly he had done at least half of the top 10 before setting his sights on Slaughterhouse.
There were multiple people trying to verify Slaughterhouse, since it was so hard it went from being a normal to an semi-open verification. [4]
SpaceUK, after getting verification rights proceeded to absolutely destroy the level in about week, and in about 40k attempts stealing the title for the verifier of the (at then) top 1.
Other players that were attempting to verify it quickly lost interest and stopped playing it (except for Doggie, who ended up being the first victor (later verifier) of the level).
The other level I mentioned earlier, Firework ended up being verified by Trick in whooping 200k attempts.
The only players who could at the end of 2021 even say they were a competition for Space in skill were Crisis and Wolvez, but by that point both had started to lose interest, SpaceUK was just too much of a monster to contend with.
After Slaughterhouse:
Not much ended up happening with Space after Slaughterhouse, Space ended up becoming the 2nd ever person to complete the entire main list, right after Nswish, he did this sometime around the mid point of 2022 and it's the same reason why he ended up getting the award for being the best player of 2022 as well.
If you ask me for my personal opinion on just how good Space was perceived to be by all the other players though, I'd say he was easily without competition in 2021, which ruined pretty much everyone's motivation to even try beating Space, in 2022 things took a turn for the better when new top players started appearing, mainly Zoink, Trick, Cursed, Doggie, Diamond, Baeru etc.
Even then most of these weren't enough to overtake Space in skill, even after he had practically quit the game after completing the main list, the closest I'd say anyone got to actually becoming a real SpaceUK was probably Zoink, since he ended up being the 3rd person to ever complete the entire main list.
Footnotes:
[1] A top 1 level being verified by you doesn't necessarily make you a top player, you are definitely good if you can pull it off in a reasonable amount of attempts, and despite Mullsy taking over 200k I'd say he was more than good enough for his time.
[2] There's plenty of levels around that are technically top 1, but they are unverified, left on the servers to someday be picked up by someone and verified.
[3] We know the furthest Space got on The golden was 94, so I'd still argue that he almost matched his skill
[4] A normal verification would constitute a single person having rights to verifying the level, whilst an open verification means anyone can attempt to verify it. I say semi-open, because it was given to a couple of people to attempt to verify it.
Quick shoutout to people that I know got madly screwed by Space's existence:
Wolvez, Crisis - The undisputably best players of 2021
Jeller (Laniakea) - Cheated out of being the #1 player on the stats viewer
Doggie, Trick - Being cheated out of being the verifier of a top 1
Cursed, Trick (again), Doggie (again), Zoink - The best players of 2022
And everyone else that had their motivation destroyed by SpaceUK, I hope you can pick yourself back up after all this, and if you find the motivation to give Geometry Dash another try, I wish you luck :)
Also, just saying, but don't blame the list mods for not spotting this, it may seem incredibly obvious in hindsight, but checking for hacks in Geometry Dash is a long and arduous process.
A lot of old methods tend to be quickly forgotten as there's simply too many ways to hack (Geometry Dash as you can imagine is very easy to hack).
And since the list is run entirely by the community it's members tend to change a lot, consequently they might not even know about some super old methods, and even if they do it would take far too long to actually check every record using every method for every known hack, a 5 minute clip can quickly turn into a 3 hour long checking session and with thousands upon thousands of videos checking everything is simply not feasible.
I see a lot of people blaming the list team, but I don't think they deserve even 1% of the blame they've been receiving.
The current team is especially under a lot of scrutiny despite most of the current team members not even being around back when SpaceUK rose to prominence, and as time passed he became a well established player with multiple "verified" records, which made the current team just assume he was obviously legit.
Thank you for submitting your English 12 final essay
wow, well thought out I had no idea just how dominant space was and how much that meant. I enjoyed hearing this from someone in the community!
I feel like meatius's post presents information that is inaccurate, lacking in evidence and context, and misrepresents the true nature of the game and the community around it. The following paragraphs will address these issues and provide a counter-argument.
Firstly, the poll for the best player of 2021 that SpaceUK supposedly won with over 70% of the votes has not been sourced, and it is unclear where this data comes from. There is no mention of the poll in any of the official Geometry Dash channels, and no evidence has been provided to back up this claim. Without any reliable sources, it is difficult to take this assertion seriously.
Secondly, the text claims that SpaceUK was the best player in the game by miles, which is not only subjective but also overlooks the achievements and skill of other players in the game. Geometry Dash is a game that requires both skill and perseverance, and it is not fair to dismiss the efforts of other players who have also invested countless hours into the game. There are many players who have completed the hardest levels in the game, and it is unfair to give all the credit to one player without acknowledging the skill and dedication of others.
Furthermore, the text suggests that SpaceUK's dominance was due to the game being in a period of stagnation, but this is a flawed interpretation. The game has been consistently active, with new levels and features being added regularly. There are also many players who continue to play the game and achieve great things, so it is not accurate to say that the game is stagnant.
Additionally, the text describes the game as being incredibly difficult, and claims that it takes thousands of hours to become a top player. While it is true that the game is challenging, it is not accurate to suggest that it is impossible for new players to become skilled. The game has a gradual progression system that allows players to improve their skills gradually, and many players have become skilled without investing thousands of hours into the game.
In conclusion, the text about SpaceUK's dominance in Geometry Dash is flawed and misrepresents the true nature of the game and the community around it. It is important to consider multiple sources and perspectives when assessing the achievements of players in any game, and to give credit where it is due. The skill and dedication of players should be acknowledged, and it is unfair to give all the credit to one player without considering the achievements of others.
Your post angered me so much that i felt the urge to write a short disstrack on you... nothing personal but,
Ah, Meatius, the former Geometry Dash pro
But now he's fallen, a sad and sorry foe
With his dog by his side, he thinks he's tough
But hacking Sakupen Realm is not enough
He used to be skilled, now he's just a nerd
No more fame, no more glory, not even a word
He thinks he's got game, but it's all just a sham
Meatius, you're done, you're just a one-hit wonder man
You might have been good, once upon a time
But now you're just a has-been, a shell of a prime
You hack levels, but you can't hack the game
Meatius, your legacy is nothing but shame
So go ahead and try to come at me, bro
But you'll always be a loser, don't you know
I'll just sit back and watch you fail
Meatius, you're nothing but a sad, sad tale.
With all that said meatius. Please delete your comment
@@jawis2836 It is so obvious that you just asked ChatGPT to create counter arguments towards Meatius´ comment lol
The watermark being 2 years old definitely contributed to the longevity of his records; by the time he started using zBot the method fell into obscurity
The levels do not ‘throw off your timing’. To beat one of these extremely hard levels, you need to practice every part, learn what visual cues to click to, and to engrain click patterns into your muscle memory. Since the level doesn’t change, you can always rely on making the exact same inputs to pass it. Going upside down does not mess with your muscle memory, because you will always go upside down every time, and you would have practiced the click patterns in practice mode. The majority of the difficulty of top levels comes from not just the nearly impossible timings, but also the awkwardness of the click patterns, with memory playing a much less part than this video implies. Awkwardness in click patterns comes from high cps and requiring the player to perform a sequence of holds and releases where the time you release is very specific and short. The last factor in difficulty is length of the level, which tests your ability to consistently perform at a high level and also your mental with nerves.
It's funny how doggie was originally the verifier of slaughterhouse (but a heavily nerfed version), gets beaten by spaceuk, becomes first Victor, hacker gets caught, and he becomes the rightfully deserved verifier he should've been all those years ago.
I couldn't help but laugh when Abyssoft kept saying stuff like "This might not look difficult"
I'm not really familiar with this game at all and it looks literally unplayable from the clips shown lmao
so, imagine this, you have to do like 5-10 frame perfects a second in the drop of slaughterhouse, then like 5 seconds into the drop you have to spam alot then straight fly for like 5 seconds straight and then with all of the pressure of almost beating the hardest part, you have to straight fly but go up abit which is much harder than normal straight fly and at the end do like 5 frame perfect jumps in a row
Great video! It really is hard to grasp the amount of damage this has done to the community. I'm willing to say that this goes in the top 5 worst cheating scandals in any video game because the sheer amount of damage he caused. take Trick for example, who spent 200k+ attempts and over a year to verify Firework, with the promise of verifying a top 1. Just for space to swoop in and ''verify slaughterhouse'' and steal the top 1 spot that shouldve gone to Trick. and poor Crisis who was FRIENDS with space, who got demotivated after he wasn't as good as space (he wouldve probably been THE space with all the attention and praise etc). theres of course many more examples. I care a lot about this game so this whole thing hurts a lot.
These are the REAL top 1 players that wouldve been top 1 if it wasnt for space:
-Spiritex - Crisis - Wolvez - ThunderBT - Laniakea / Jeller - Snowballer - Zoink
And some real first victors:
Firework - Crisis
Aerial Gleam - Zoink
Oblivion - Skyzl
Abyss Of Darkness - Trick
Acheron - Doggie
Slaughterhouse - Doggie (verification)
i don't wanna be that kind of asshole cuz i've gone around the GD community here and there, but idk if this counts as a top 5 worst cheating scandal for a video game ever
mainly cuz a: there was no insane cash prizes (if we were talking in the thousands or officialised competitions with cash prizes at stake then yes that's insanely scandalous)
and b: so far no one has genuinely gone and lost their life because of this
that being said, this incident is absolutely mind boggling cuz i am fully aware that in spite of what i said, spaceuk practically destroyed the legacies of many skilled players who DESERVED his fame and respect, and that is my biggest frustration with this too
the cash also sucks and so does the other points that you made
@@The_Jazziest_Coffee i was probably exaggerating a bit yeah but its still really bad
@@Faiilcat yeah that's all g
@@The_Jazziest_Coffee well I dunno if the gd awards count as having prizes
@@alephzero1984 i guess the most they could amount to is if they were a cash prize handed to them
i'm not saying this to invalidate whoever won the award because it is extremely prestigious for any GD player to receive one, but i meant prize as in actual cash prize, and that would be insanely immoral
As Karl Jobst has said, cheaters are thieves
Fellow Karl Jobst's Absolute Legend Viewer
Which is funny because either this guy stole the video from Karl or the Karl stole this video. I haven’t checked the dates but the order of the video is pretty much identical.
A bloody excellent video! Great script, montage and narration! Thanks for the credit too!
It is unfair that you showed proof and no one believed you because you were not known. Thats just sad from those people by denying everything because "SpAcEuK iS LeGiT" while they dont even know that themselves
The prophet himself is here
bri'ish
Insane work Kolo, good job!
Thank you for saying "Action Platformer" and not "Rhythm Game"
This man making a geometry dash video is wonderful
Yours is the the 69th comment
@@Abyssoft double nice