Cyclic
Cyclic is a retired South Korean player, level creator, and hacker. Considered the best player of his time alongside Riot, he was best known for creating the infamous Extreme Demon level Sonic Wave, which became the hardest level in the game, alongside his completion of many of the hardest Demon levels, ICE Carbon Diablo X, Poltergeist, Necropolis, Acropolis, UltraSonic, and The Ultimate Phase. He also verified Galactic Fragility.
History
[edit | edit source]Cyclic created his YouTube channel in 2012 but did not upload Geometry Dash content until 2014. He uploaded basic level completions and made a video on the GW YouTube account showing him beating Super Cycles. At the start of 2015, Cyclic began improving as a player and progressing on some challenging levels.
Before he went by Cyclic, he was a sparsely posting user under several names, such as GW Frozen. He was an avid star-grinder and posted pictures of himself in the Top 100, along with others like saRy, who also documented his star rating because they were so close in the rankings. Cyclic began dominating the scene in April 2015.
On 19 April 2015, he posted his first screenshot of Cataclysm, reaching 50%, which was seen as groundbreaking at the time. He continued to progress, but along the way he started grinding a few Demons, including Windy Landscape and Blue Marine, which were still seen as monumental achievements at the time. On 28 April, he finally beat Cataclysm after over 15,000 attempts, becoming the first victor of the level. That same day, he achieved 69% on Necropolis, one of the hardest Demons at the time. He completed it quickly; on 10 May 2015, he beat Necropolis in almost 4,000 attempts.
Even more surprisingly, he quickly took on The Ultimate Phase and beat it in five days, taking almost 5,000 attempts on 15 May. Four days later, he completed DeCode, Breakthrough, Dr Raszagal Phoenix, and Alphabet X, all of which were considered Hard-Insane Demons at the time.
Before May 2015, Cyclic uploaded a Q&A to his YouTube channel, and one notable question he answered was, 'What's your hardest demon?' A seemingly obvious question to many: Cataclysm, of course. However, he had responded with 'The Hell Zone'. No one remembered this level, as it existed only during Update 1.4 through Update 1.5, shadowing many newer mobile and PC players' introductions to the game. The level was eventually remade in February 2016.
On 21 May 2015, he beat Swing Squad and The Shredder, two notably difficult Demons at the time. Starting on 23 May 2015, he began grinding ICE Carbon Diablo X and reached 66%. When Riot beat it, Cyclic wrote in a forum post that he was happy he had completed it, showing that, even in the rivalry, both were friendly. Two days later, he beat ICE Carbon Diablo X, taking over 7,000 attempts. He was the third to complete it, behind Riot and Andromeda (at the time, it was still considered legitimate). Before Sonic Wave appeared, Cyclic kept grinding Demons, including UltraSonic, and worked on verifying his collaboration level Demon Fortress from 31 May to 19 June.
On 20 June 2015, Cyclic began progressing in beating Sonic Wave (light blue). He reached 30% and, the next day, posted a forum post showing he had verified the level and showing the comments page. The verification video was reportedly lost after Cyclic posted a cut video and noted in the description that it had been cut. The verification was later found to have been hacked. He did not stop with Sonic Wave, but before that, he completed a few more Demons, including Death Moon and verified his level Lunar Intoxication.
Cyclic then held a poll to choose the new update's colours for Sonic Wave, with dark blue winning by a wide margin. Cyclic now had a new level to tackle, achieving 31% on 16 July 2015. He quickly made progress and eventually beat it on 20 July 2015, making it the hardest Demon at the time and taking the throne from Bloodbath pre-verification.
Cyclic began receiving hate comments thrown at both his video and level due to the rampant hacking suspicion during the latter half of July and August. After grinding more levels, Sonic Wave was inexplicably changed to a Back on Track remake (commonly known as Cyclic on Track) and deleted every unrated level. Due to the sudden change, Sonic Wave was promptly unrated, and Cyclic deleted it shortly after the second week of August.
While Sonic Wave was gone, he still played the game, verifying Galatic Fragility for TeamSmokeWeed. However, his playtime ended when he quit in early September 2015, posted a final video, and closed his YouTube account.
He did not resurface until 16 November 2015, when Water posted a video about his return, and many others praised Cyclic for coming back.[1] He played for a while before posting on his community page that he had to quit for studies, which did not last long. He still played Demons in the final days of December 2015, and in January 2016, he fully returned to high gear, supposedly verifying A Bizarre Phantasm on 19 January 2016. He then rebeat Cataclysm for the new update on 24 January.
Cyclic started grinding Demons again, notably beating Fake A Doom, Sparklic Ocean, and getting 98% on Night Terrors.
On 23 February 2016, Cyclic began to preview The Hell Zone, a remake of the ill-fated 1.2 level of the same name by Sohn0924. He made fast progress and 'verified' it on 25 February.[2] However, many people noticed cuts in the video after slowing down the footage at certain parts.
On 5 March 2016, he confessed to hacking The Hell Zone and Sonic Wave with this message:[3]
“Sorry that I can't make a confession video because this computer doesn't have windows moviemaker.I used verify hack to verify The Hell Zone. Both 1st and 2nd version. For the video, I used 4 cuts. One at Koreaqwer's first part (the transition), one at 31%, one at 36%, one at the end of the level (just before the icon disappears) (this was to make look like verified with the same attempt as the beginning)
Now I verified the 3rd version legit but I don't have a video cause I gave my laptop to my sister and I can only use a computer which all my family members use it and I can't record it cause of lag.
You don't have to believe me because I don't deserve it.
I'm very sorry that I tried to trick all geometry dash players and I'm especially sorry to my collab members: 1234, Koreaqwer, and Ryan LC.
I had only 3 days left till my sister takes my laptop so I tried to verify in 3 days but I couldn't so I used verify hack. And for sonic wave. Yes I hacked that level too. I was so scared about what will happen if I admit it so I kept denying. First and second version were both hacked but the stream was real. (First version was verify hack and second one was speedhack)
I lied about this for many months and I'm very sorry.
I'm really regretting now and again, I'm so sorry for what I have done.
My YouTube channel will be inactive until I come back after highschool graduate. (My activity on geometry dash will be only beating secret way levels when I see them on YouTube or gmdw) I will be streaming after I come back with a new computer.
And again, I'm very sorry to all geometry dash players and all people who believed me.~ Cyclic
The day after, Riot posted a screenshot of a Skype chat between him and Cyclic. Cyclic said he hacked or cut every video or level on his YouTube channel and that all his streams were pre-recorded. After the confession, he deleted his YouTube, Skype, and Twitch accounts and renamed his Geometry Dash account to a string of random letters. His confession may have been a lie, as there were no signs of illegitimacy in his completions, except for Sonic Wave and The Hell Zone. Riot thinks he lied about hacking everything to leave the community after feeling guilty about hacking the two levels.[4] Cyclic said he would get a new computer and start streaming when he returns.
In July 2016, Cyrillic, Wabbit, and Aquatias gave his original name back, as requested by Cyclic.
On 16 July 2016, Cyclic revamped his YouTube channel.
As of January 2017, Cyclic officially returned with a 144Hz monitor and started streaming on Twitch. He had gotten Sonic Wave Infinity from Riot, who had quit around this time. He ended up dropping it. The verification went through several verifiers before Xanii finally verified the level on 30 May 2021.
Once again, Cyclic quit Geometry Dash with a comment left on his last Geometry Dash video titled 'beating Aqueous by WOOGI1411 on stream'. In the comment, he stated his reasoning for quitting (written mostly in Korean; this is his English translation):
“You must have heard that I'm quitting this game if you saw N2's video. There are lots of reasons for this and I don't have a video to upload so I will just list it here.1. Geometry Dash is too boring.
2. This game has very nice security. [Sarcasm]
3. Robtop gives advantages to his friends. (You guys might not understand but lots of Koreans think this a big problem)
4. I'm not sure but I might retake the Korean SAT test. I didn't go to a bad university but I just want to get in to a better university~ Cyclic
As of November 2020, Cyclic returned to the game, streaming himself playing Bloodbath and posting completions of levels like Free Stars by Sminx and Wily by pg1004.
When Update 2.2 was released on 20 December 2023, Cyclic uploaded his completion of the new main level Dash,[5] as well as a video of him getting all secret coins in The Tower.[6]
Levels
[edit | edit source]- Unrated levels
- Unnamed 0
- Virtual World
- Hard Demon levels
- Lunar Intoxication (Star-rated) - A level he created after being accused of beating Sonic Wave illegitimately. It was reverified on 14 January 2017.
- Insane Demon levels
- Ice cream (Star-rated) - His first Demon level that was deleted but reuploaded in 2021 and rerated in 2022 when Cyclic returned to the game.
- Extreme Demon Levels
- Sonic Wave (Star-rated on Sunix's account) - The former hardest Nine Circles level and formerly the hardest level in Geometry Dash, Cyclic made the entire gameplay and decoration of it. Cyclic originally hacked it, and Sunix verified it legitimately.
- Verified levels
- Cataclysm (Featured) - A hell-themed Extreme Demon, originally hack-verified by Ggb0y, later verified by Cyclic; however, it is currently unknown if he beat it legitimately or hacked it. If he hacked it, Giron would be the legitimate verifier. It was later update-verified by Riot.
- Collaborations participated in
- Demon Fortress - An unrated collaboration level.
- Gust Dive (Featured) - An Insane Demon mega collaboration hosted by WOOGI1411.
- The Ultimate Phase (Featured) - An Extreme Demon mega-collaboration hosted by Andromeda; it was originally hacked by Andromeda and verified legitimately by GMDElite, and was later update-verified by Andromeda.
- Artificial Ideology (Featured) - A Team N2 Extreme Demon mega-collaboration verified by knobbelboy.
- The Hell Zone (Featured) - An Extreme Demon collaboration that Cyclic originally hack-verified. It has now been reverified and published on Stormfly's account.
- Dance of the Violins (Star-rated) - An old 2.0 Extreme Demon mega-collaboration published by DrayTM. WatchPiggy verified it, with improved decoration and visuals in some parts.
- Gloxina (Featured) - A Korean mega-collaboration started in 2022; it features early 2.1 style deco similar to Zodiac and Esfera.
- Cosmic Cyclone (Featured) - An Extreme Demon mega-collaboration being the official sequel to Sonic Wave.
- Tartarus (Featured) - A former Top 1 Extreme Demon mega-collaboration hosted by Riot and verified by Dolphy.
- Upcoming levels
- Misanthrope - An upcoming Extreme Demon mega-collaboration hosted by Brittank88.
- Cancelled/deleted levels
- Invisible Clubstep - An invisible version of Clubstep and Cyclic's first featured Demon. It was easy before 2016 when it got buffed.
- Invisible Clutterfunk - An invisible version of Clutterfunk.
- Invisible Time Machine - An invisible version of Time Machine.
- Invisible xStep - An invisible version of xStep.
- Sonic Wave - A blue-themed Extreme Demon remake of Nine Circles known for extremely tight spaces and difficult gameplay. He was exposed for hacking the level's verification, and the level was deleted. Sunix verified it legitimately on 25 November 2016, writing history. However, this has caused drama because Sunix made a deal that Riot would verify Sonic Wave first, which he later broke.
- The Hell Zone - A redesign of the original level by Sohn0924 by 1234, Koreaqwer, Ryan LC and Cyclic. Cyclic used verification hacks and spliced the video. He claimed he beat it legitimately but did not record it, then later admitted to hacking it. A player named Cypher pointed out all the cuts in the verification video. Stormfly verified it, and he published it on his account. He also slightly nerfed Cyclic's part, but it was not rated until February 2017.
Nominations and awards
[edit | edit source]- Placed 25th in Geometry Dash Today's list of 'The Top 100 Greatest Geometry Dash Levels of All Time' with Sonic Wave.
Trivia
[edit | edit source]- Cyclic used a rabbit-themed texture pack created by Gelt.[7]
- The rabbit cube icon from that texture pack, associated with Cyclic, was officially added to Update 2.2 as a reward for beating 500 Demons.
- Cyclic used to use the up key to play Geometry Dash on his PC, but it broke after a while, so he swapped to the spacebar instead (he said he did not have a mouse on stream). He said on YouTube that 'spacebars sucks for him'. He has since gotten a mouse and now uses it to play.
- Cyclic tend to put the tag '#RespectWOOGI' in the videos of his levels made by WOOGI1411, who tends to comment the tag '#RespectCyclic' in return.
- Cyclic used to make his video descriptions merely say '.' but no longer does this usually. One time, he put 'qqftt' instead of putting '.'
- Cyclic vs Riot has been a subject of debate for a long time.
- Cyclic was probably the first player to complete Cataclysm and The Ultimate Phase legitimately, but due to Cyclic's hacking confession, a lot of people believe Giron was the first person to complete Cataclysm legitimately; however, there were no signs or proof of illegitimacy in Cyclic's completion despite Cyclic claiming it was speed-hacked.
- As of 5 March 2016, Cyclic had made his levels free, but suddenly removed them altogether.
- Cyclic initially made a part in Yatagarasu, but due to his hacking scandal, he was kicked out and replaced by Manix648, who was then replaced by AbstractDark and won.
- Cyrillic uploaded an early, incomplete version of the level with Cyclic's part on his account.
- During the time he quit Geometry Dash from March to July 2016, Cyclic had probably played on another account named Kerwan. This instance appears in WOOGI1411's collaboration Gust Dive, where Cyclic's name appears, but in an earlier version, 'Kerwan' appears instead.
- Cyclic has, a few times, ranked first on the global leaderboards in 2015, usually swapping the Top 5 with earlier players. They include LunarSimg (who quit in early 2.0 but returned since), 3xotiC (possibly a hacker), zNymo98 (who is still somewhat active but has lost his stats in Update 2.0 and is now only playing for fun) and saRy (a well known, extremely skilled and somewhat mysterious player and creator of the notorious Red World; saRy had suddenly left in very early 2.0; however, he made an account proving that he tried Update 2.0, and there is some evidence suggesting that he had also hacked).
- Following Riot's retirement from Geometry Dash, Cyclic was given the task of verifying Sonic Wave Infinity, a buffed version of the original Sonic Wave with new decorations by Viprin. He dropped the verification. The project was then transferred to APTeam for a complete overhaul and went through several verifiers before Xanii verified the level on 30 May 2021.
- Cyclic had two old accounts, Egoist and MashiMario. Wabbit and Aquatias now own these accounts.
- Cyclic's last appearance online was when he was invited to ZenthicAlpha marriage.[8]
Gallery
[edit | edit source]-
The Skype conversation where Cyclic admitted to hacking and/or splicing all of his levels
Videos
[edit | edit source]References
[edit | edit source]- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ5pWh3-i8A
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0SGGIVzIH4
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqxE7agGfUY
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-G04pLsKws&t=89
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3iDo20bNIk
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLmZA-fked0
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRqD7D14dq4
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/post/Ugkx6vqs7vEQBooAW04IWLo_T47t3OK7w-df