GRIEF
149992717
icedcave (host and publisher)
- Contributors
RealVet, GD Iris, Doop, greafer, Triplash, DrCuber, GhostVandalf, NineDice, MercuryDT, Burgadahz, GrenadeofTacos, CDMusic, Rynoxious, and avalawns
GRIEF is a 2.0–2.2 Extreme Demon mega-collaboration hosted and published by icedcave, decorated by fourteen contributors, and verified by Doggie. It was published on 5 October 2026 after Doggie completed it on his 396th verification stream, ending a two-year-and-five-month effort totalling 436,879 attempts.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB8slBPlOjc
The level reworks icedcave's impossible 2015 version of Slaughterhouse, makes its gameplay humanly possible, and extends it by more than one minute. Although created after the rated Slaughterhouse, GRIEF is presented as its prequel. Its predominantly red, black, and white art direction expands the original level's hell theme through distorted faces, crosses, pentagrams, demonic imagery, and repeated visual references to the 2015 version.
GRIEF received an Epic rating shortly after publication and was placed at #1 on the Pointercrate Demonlist, above Society.https://www.pointercrate.com/demonlist/1/ Its release therefore made it the list's highest-ranked rated level at the time.
History
Origins and development
In late 2015, icedcave created the original Slaughterhouse, an impossible 2.0 level characterised by sparse hell-themed decoration and sustained wave spam. The level became widely known after ToshDeluxe uploaded a showcase on 3 October 2015.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csLA88xah4g The monster face appearing near its ending originated in an unfinished level by Cyrillic titled Death Angel River.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4-b4xXAcsU&t=728s
Icedcave considered producing a possible remake as early as 2019.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTFJsybcJog&t=5476 During the following years, he revised the original gameplay and built a new extension. In December 2021, Doggie asked to verify the project after hearing rumours of another level related to Slaughterhouse; icedcave accepted.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4PlhND44Nc&t=1064 The project was publicly announced as GRIEF in early 2022 and was framed as a prequel to icedcave's rated 2021 Slaughterhouse.
The layout was completed in April 2022.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd2qPxNi6Zw Its decoration was distributed among a group of creators, with a preview released on 15 April 2023.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCHbxxWhgSI The decorated level was showcased on 11 August 2023 after approximately sixteen months of production.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQXnREyaO34 Reception to the showcase was mixed: some viewers regarded the level as an effective expansion of its source material, while others criticised its close visual and gameplay resemblance to Slaughterhouse.
A dispute also developed over the extension. Burgadahz decorated two proposed sections, but the section from 65% to 75% ultimately used greafer's version. Icedcave stated that greafer's part had been made first and that Burgadahz's replacement had never been guaranteed; Burgadahz maintained that he had expected his version to remain.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUsebPNu9lM&lc=Ugw7qyzpYkjlI8lj7wF4AaABAg Icedcave temporarily cancelled the project amid the resulting criticism, but later resumed it and prepared the level for verification.
Leak and Update 2.2 conversion
Before verification began, Doggie accidentally displayed a Discord link to a GDShare file during a livestream.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDl8eQWrc5o&t=1191 A viewer subsequently distributed the file, and an unfinished build was uploaded to the servers as level ID 102422025.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDl8eQWrc5o&t=1261 The leaked copy predates later balancing and Update 2.2 revisions and is not the version eventually verified.
GRIEF had been designed around the high-refresh-rate physics used by top players before Update 2.2. The update standardised the game's physics at 240 steps per second, changing the behaviour and input timing of parts of the level. Doggie consequently delayed full verification while GRIEF was converted and balanced for the new physics.
On 8 April 2024, syzzi released Click Between Frames (CBF), a Geode mod that recorded an input's position between physics steps. Doggie adopted the mod for GRIEF, but RobTop stated in June 2024 that levels verified with the external implementation would not be rated. Doggie initially proposed completing the level with CBF and then repeating it without the mod, but found that the latter version would require changes he did not want to make.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tadA-qSrrjs&t=2255
The rating issue was resolved before verification concluded. Update 2.208, released on Steam on 19 January 2026, introduced the official Click Between / On Steps input options; Update 2.2081 revised their behaviour two days later.https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/322170/view/499469783108947285https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/322170/view/525366013426925584 As a result, GRIEF could be completed using precise between-step input without relying on the external CBF mod.
Verification
Doggie began streaming the verification on 1 May 2024. His first major goal was to complete the extension from 65% to 100%, which he achieved on 27 May during stream 16. He reached the first drop from 0% on 30 May and progressed to 41% on 14 July. During July he also completed 56–100% and 49–100% runs. His record advanced to 47% on 19 August, 49% two days later, 52% on 13 September, 54% on 16 September, and 56% on 25 September. He reached 68% off-stream the following day.
After periods of declining consistency and breaks from the level, Doggie reached 80% on 24 November 2024. He continued practising both full runs and start-position runs throughout 2025, including a 25–100% run on a slightly easier practice copy on 26 February. In November 2025, he raised his record to 83%.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp8TSHLoW8Q
Doggie returned to a near-daily schedule in early 2026. On 28 April, he produced a practice version in which selected obstacles were moved by very small distances, using it to build consistency before returning to the verified copy.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffMCLmnhKC4 He reached 84% on 7 May.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLqlssP1Dxw On 14 June, during stream 361, he passed GrenadeofTacos's section from 0% for the first time but died at 97%.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Emd2tWP2FkI A second 97% death occurred during stream 390 on 21 September, followed by a 91% attempt later in the same stream.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nv9UsomBi0
On 5 October 2026, Doggie completed GRIEF during stream 396 after 436,879 attempts.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB8slBPlOjc The verification attracted approximately 40,000–50,000 concurrent viewers, and the surge of players attempting to access the published level was followed by outages affecting the Geometry Dash servers.https://sports.ndtv.com/us/us-streamers/geometry-dash-streamer-doggie-completes-grief-after-nearly-440-000-attempts-over-two-years-12139820 GRIEF was rated about 37 minutes after publication and was placed at #1 on the Pointercrate Demonlist later that day.
Gameplay
The gameplay was built by icedcave; the listed contributors primarily decorated their assigned sections. GRIEF lasts approximately two minutes and forty-five seconds and is dominated by wave gameplay, short mode changes, speed shifts, narrow corridors, and click-pattern endurance. The first 56% adapts the 2015 Slaughterhouse layout, while the remainder is the extension created for GRIEF.
Original section
- 0–11% (RealVet and GD Iris): The level opens at normal speed with wave corridors of changing size and gravity. Short bursts of spam alternate with controlled movements around sawblades and monster-shaped structures. A brief straight-fly section appears near 2%, and a cube timing closes the section.
- 11–25% (icedcave, Doop, and greafer): A long wave endurance sequence reinterprets the original Slaughterhouse spam. It begins at half speed before passing through normal-, double-, and triple-speed changes. Teleportation, gravity changes, and alternating corridors require the player to maintain distinct click patterns. A short cube sequence leads to a title card in which GRIEF changes into RIP.
- 25–35% (Triplash): The first drop begins with fast wave movements through alternating sizes and gravity states. The wave enters a tooth-like corridor before changing into a ship for short straight-fly inputs and then a UFO for a sequence of orb timings. A crescent above a castle provides a brief visual pause at the end.
- 35–44% (DrCuber, GhostVandalf, and NineDice): A triple-speed mini-wave repeatedly teleports between the upper and lower halves of the screen. Tight ship corridors and a yellow-orb timing follow before another wave sequence combines size changes with controlled spam.
- 44–49% (GD Iris): The pace decreases and the level cycles quickly through ship, wave, UFO, and ball. The wave portions use short, narrow corridors, while the UFO and ball rely on isolated timings.
- 49–56% (MercuryDT): Ship and UFO inputs lead into several wave passages, including a mini-wave corridor. The section ends with dual-cube timings modelled on the ending of the 2015 level. An automatic transition then displays the original red monster face and icedcave's name.
Extension
- 56–65% (Burgadahz): The extension begins with ship corridors, followed by wave, UFO, cube, ball, and another short ship sequence. Teleport portals and rapid mode changes divide the section into brief timing-based passages. A dual-cube sequence leads into the second drop.
- 65–75% (greafer): GRIEF first reaches quadruple speed. The section opens with eight rapid wave inputs divided between the top and bottom of the screen, then combines mini-wave movements, a monster corridor, ship control, and ball timings. Four cube inputs progressively reduce the speed while the 2015 drop appears in the background.
- 75–88% (GrenadeofTacos): Doggie identified this as the level's hardest section.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D7xBUdr6VA&t=4663 It alternates rapidly between straight-fly ship, UFO, ball, and wave, with the prominent Tacos Wave serving as its central obstacle. Distorted footage and imagery from the 2015 version cover much of the background and foreground.
- 88–100% (CDMusic, Rynoxious, and avalawns): The level slows to half speed and moves through ball, UFO, wave, mini-ship, and mini-wave passages as the visibility gradually decreases. The final obstacle is a controlled spam sequence inside the original monster face, where several spikes are decorative. The completion screen uses dragon artwork by avalawns.
Victors
| Status | Player | Date | Attempts | Furthest previous fail | Video |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Verifier | Doggie | 5 October 2026 | 436,879 | 97% ×2 | YouTube |
Trivia
- GRIEF's in-game description is "The End."
- The level was rated approximately 37 minutes after it was published and entered the Pointercrate Demonlist at #1 on the same day.
- GRIEF was the first Top 1 Demonlist level to use two-player mode.
- It was the third Top 1 to hold an Epic in-game rating, after Bloodlust and Digital Descent.
- Its placement moved Kenos from the Extended List to the Legacy List, leaving no level released during the 2010s on the active Demonlist.
- Doggie had also failed at 97% twice while completing Kenos. He formerly edited videos for Kenos's verifier, npesta.
- The red monster face shown at 54% and near the ending was originally designed by Cyrillic for Death Angel River and reused in the 2015 Slaughterhouse.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4-b4xXAcsU&t=728s
- The verification occurred almost eleven years after ToshDeluxe's 3 October 2015 showcase popularised the original level.
- An early version allowed the player to remain as a mini-wave and bypass the parts by greafer and GrenadeofTacos. The published version blocks the route with a spike wall and an image of the cat from pg clubstep.
- Kayoz X, the creator of "Stalemate", published a Newgrounds post responding to the verification.https://kayoszx.newgrounds.com/news/post/1666502