Stereo Madness Walkthrough: Level One, Stretch by Stretch

Where Stereo Madness sits

This Geometry Dash build has three levels, and Stereo Madness is the first card you see on the level menu, ahead of Back On Track and Polargeist. Press Space or click the card to start it. The left and right arrow keys, or a click near the left or right edge of the screen, move between the three cards. The track that plays under the level runs for about a minute and a half, so a clean run takes about that long.

Stereo Madness is the plainest of the three. It has no jump pads and no jump orbs at all: every jump is your own button press. Back On Track adds yellow pads, and Polargeist adds yellow orbs. So level one is the place to learn plain jump timing before anything bounces you for you.

Stretch 1: the long cube run

Almost the first half of the level is cube. Space, the Up arrow, W or a click makes the cube jump. If you keep the button held, the cube jumps again the moment it lands, which is how you clear spikes that come in quick rows without having to time each press. Let go as soon as the row is behind you, or the held button will throw you into whatever comes next.

Partway through this run the background colour changes, then dims for a short while. Nothing changes in how the cube handles there; it just marks where you are.

Stretch 2: the first ship

A little before the halfway point the cube becomes a ship. In the ship, holding the button makes you climb and letting go makes you drop. Neither happens at once: the ship picks up speed upward while you hold and falls more slowly when you release, up to a fixed top speed in each direction. Short presses work better than long holds.

Two things are worth knowing from the way the port handles collisions. Sliding along the floor or a ceiling does not kill the ship. Flying into the front of a block does, and so does touching a spike. So if you are unsure, staying low along the floor is safer than climbing toward a gap you cannot see yet. This first ship stretch takes up roughly a tenth of the level.

Stretch 3: back to the cube

After the ship you are a cube again for a long stretch, under another background colour. This is the longest part you have not practised yet, because a death anywhere sends you back to the very start of the level. There are no checkpoints in this build.

Stretch 4: the ship to the finish

The level ends in the ship, not the cube. The last part of the level is a second ship section, and when you reach the end the cube spins off the right of the screen and the game shows a "Hooray - Well done!" card before it returns you to the level menu.

The three secret coins

Stereo Madness, like the other two levels, has three secret coins placed in it. Fly or jump through one to collect it. Each coin adds 25 to the score shown at the top of the screen. The rest of the score is distance: you get one point for each block-width you travel. A full run with all three coins scores 75 more than a full run without them.

A practical order to learn it in

• Get through the first cube run with held jumps on the spike rows and single presses everywhere else.
• Treat the first ship as a floor-hugging exercise until you know where the gaps are.
• Watch your score when you die. Because it counts distance, the number tells you how far you got, so you can see whether a session is moving you forward.
• Go for coins only once you can finish the level, since a detour for a coin can cost you the run.