Hard Machine
Not to be confused with H4RDMACHINE, one of famous community figure Vernam's aliases.
“quote~ originator
Hard Machine is a 1.8/2.1 Extreme Demon collaboration created by Komp and Nikrodox and verified by Varium. The gameplay for the level was originally built in 1.8. Komp created the level for the sole intention of being harder than Ice Carbon Diablo X, which most of the community thought was the hardest possible level in the game. He created the level to win a bet against his friend, who said he "couldn't make a level harder than ICDX without being impossible".[1] After the level died for quite a bit of time, Komp was reminded of it when going through levels on his old tablet. Later, Komp asked Nikrodox to decorate the level in 2.1 style to get the level to look more modern.[1] The level went through two verifiers before Varium verified the level on August 16, 2021. The level is expected to place in the Top 3-5 of the Geometry Dash Demonlist.
Gameplay
As the gameplay of Hard Machine was made in 1.8, the level contains no features added after Update 1.8. The level features extremely tight timings and straight fly. The level also contains a few memory-based gameplay sections. Much of the gameplay seems to have been inspired by some levels released around the time of its creation, such as Ice Carbon Diablo X, Necropolis, and Silent Clubstep.
- 0-7%: The level begins with two triple spikes before a short straight fly part. Next, the player must jump and hit three blue orbs extremely late and then wait for a short time before going through a ship portal. Throughout this ship part, the player must carefully straight fly while constantly changing gravity. The ship must then travel through a tight space between two sawblades before turning into a cube and falling upwards.
- 8-11%: After the cube lands, a few timings must be made before a mini ship straight fly that becomes a normal size ship straight fly.
- 12-21%: The player must then fly up and go through a yellow gravity portal before quickly flying downward to go through a blue gravity portal. An extremely tight straight fly follows. After is another straight fly; however, in this straight fly the player must fly between spikes above and cube portals below. If the player touches any of the cube portals except for the last one, they will crash on spikes below. To pass the part, the player must touch the last cube portal and fall through fake spikes to get to the next part, which contains tight cube timings.
- 22-29%: The next part is a memory cube with breakable blocks preventing the player from falling downward. The jumps are as follows: directly before the first blue orb, aligned with the red spike facing upward before the yellow orb, directly after the next spike directly overhead passes, while hitting the pink orb and directly after the pink orb, and directly between the green orb and the blue orb (although closer to the green orb) If these jumps are done correctly, the player will need to jump over a quadruple spike (with shorter spikes than normal) and then a triple spike before the drop begins.
- 30-39%: After a short black screen transition, the player must jump over one triple spike and hit a bunch of orbs. Next is a ball part with tight timings between spikes. The ball then goes into half speed and becomes mini. More timing ball timings must be made while going through mirror portals and hitting blue orbs late.
- 40-54%: Following the mini ball is a short mini cube with steps like a staircase. After hitting a pink orb at the end, the player must perform a tight straight fly while the text "EZ" appears in the background. Next is a UFO part where the player must make tight timings to avoid sawblades. The player then needs to spam with a mini UFO before turning into a cube. This cube part is a line of pink orbs where the player must hit the orbs at the right time to avoid hitting the spikes above and below. After is a tight ship part that starts out normal size and becomes mini. At the end of the ship, the player must fly upward; the path downward is fake.
- 55-69%: After going through some gravity portals in an automatic part, there is a cube memory part with gravity portals and orbs. Following this part is a few triple spikes and a ship part. In this ship part, the player must fly upwards, hitting the ceiling, while in normal size and dodging spikes above when the ship becomes mini. The player then suddenly becomes normal size again and must fly downward through fake spikes to reach the next part.
- 70-81%: The following ship part contains tight straight flying with gravity portals before a UFO portal where the player must spam into a cube portal to jump over a triple spike. After a tight jump, the player becomes a ship again and must perform more straight fly, this time with mirror portals. After this is a cube part with some spikes to jump over. The cube part ends with a chain of yellow and pink orbs; the player must hit only the first pink orb and the yellow orb in the middle.
- 82-84%: Directly before the second drop is a UFO segment where the player must collect skulls to pass, while the name of the level is displayed in the background. The player must collect the top two skulls on the M, both skulls on the A, the top skull on the H, and the top skull on the N.
- 85-90%: The second drop begins with a straight fly part with gravity portals before a tight ball segment. Another straight fly segment follows.
- 91-98%: Following the ship is a cube part that is slightly memory focused, before some orb timings. Two final triple spikes are next before two pink orbs that the player must hit late. After two last jumps, the level ends.
- 99-100% (End Screen): The end screen displays the level's name along with its two creators and the verifier.
Trivia
- The password for the level is 735560.
- The level contains 61,988 objects.
- The level is 1m 37s in length.
- In the editor, the text "Rate Vertigo II" appears above the first part of the level. The text is referring to Vertigo II by Levo, which is currently unrated.
- If the player does not fall into the last cube form portal during the flying part, a straight fly section will follow. If the player passes this, text will read "HAHA... TRAP!" before the player crashes on a wall of spikes.
- The level was rated on September 2, 2021.
- In the editor, 54 sawblades appear above the part of this level where the player must straight fly through mirror portals. This is most likely a reference to Devil Vortex, as exactly 54 sawblades appeared above a part in that level as well. These sawblades were later used as evidence against ToshDeluxe in the hacking controversy surrounding the latter level mentioned.
- It is possible for the player to get on top of the last cube section in the level. However, the player will crash on a wall of sawblades at the end.
- There is an upcoming sequel to Hard Machine made by the same two creators known as Banshee. The level is set to be the hardest timing level in the game if released.[2]