This guide is meant to be a short but hopefully effective way to help you deal with not just the basic enemies in Geometry Wars Retro Evolved but to be able to control waves of enemies in an effective manner. *(This is my first ever game guide, so forgive me if the quality is poor.)

A few basic practices to start with:

-Never hug a wall. Later waves will appear in a circle around you. If you're near a wall the circle will squish up against it and the enemies will have no room to appear and so will just appear right on top of you, killing you in the process.

-Try to focus your fire in front of you most of the time. It may be tempting to make a habit of running from oncoming enemies while firing at them in the process, but you'll likely be caught off guard by something that appears right in front of you. So focus on firing in front with occasional sweeps from side to side.

-Starting at 10,000 points your guns upgrade to either rapid "machine gun" fire or wave bursts. There isn't much difference in their effectiveness, but pay attention to the fire's spacing, as it could throw off your timing when firing at groups of enemies.

-The score multiplier effect continues growing until you die and then resets, so focus on keeping your momentum. If you die at 100,000 points with 6x, the first enemies you shoot afterwards will be giving you 50 points instead of 300, making the next 100,000 points more difficult to get to.

-The difficulty of the game ramps up simply based on time. The longer you play, the more enemies the game will throw at you. So like with the score multiplier, momentum is the key to having a higher score with fewer enemies to engage at once.

-Use bombs wisely, but sparingly. You get 0 points for detonating one, and they eliminate all scoring potential on the field, but using a bomb will give you some breathing room if you need to collect yourself.

Enemies and Groups

-Pinwheels: They just randomly float around. Just shoot them. There isn't much else that needs to be said.

-Blue Diamonds: They chase you slowly. When they encircle you shoot a path out of the circle and fire when the bunch up. When they keep coming from the corners, focus on one corner for awhile and then work on encircling them again.

-Green Squares: They chase you slowly and move away from your fire when shot at. Use this to your advantage with a technique I call the whip slam: Fire to one side of any group of greens and keep the line of fire straight in one direction, and then move towards a wall, cornering and crushing them between the wall and your fire.

-Pink squares: Move towards you quickly, and break into smaller squares if hit. The smaller squares move towards you slowly in a spiraling pattern. The best thing you can do with groups of these guys is keep your distance and try to encircle them.

-Circles: Create a black hole effect when fired at. Your shots will warp around then black hole and miss from a distance. If they come near another black hole, the gravity pull becomes stronger and more chaotic. If a black hole sucks in 10 enemies it will burst and send a bunch of small circles at you quickly. Don't let things get that chaotic. Get rid of them quickly by positioning yourself right outside their pull and firing straight at them. In later waves they appear in corners with Blue, Green, and Pink enemies. Immediately shoot your way into a corner and eliminate the circle, and proceed around the arena going after each circle as quickly as possible, and once the circles are all gone focus on the other enemies.

-Snakes(?): Red snakelike enemies with a bluish-purple head. The body will block your shots, so shoot the head. In large groups they are tricky, and appear in both encircling groups and appear from the corners. Either way, try to make a path to where you can start encircling them instead. Remember to stay off the walls, they can easily corner you against one and block you from being able to hit their head.

-Red chasers: Enemies that look similar to your ship, will rotate to face you and then charge. They have a force field in front that deflects most shots. The risky way to kill them is to try to hit them straight-on. This method doesn't always work. The best method is to move out of the way and let them overshoot you, and then fire at their back side.

-Small Triangle-ish guys: They only come in later in their own unique waves. They always come from the corners in very dense groups and move towards the center before giving chase. While they're pouring out into the arena, avoid them by cutting a small path through each "line" at an angle and move on to the next corner to do the same. Once they stop pouring out just encircle them and go to town on them. Do not hesitate to use a bomb if you're feeling overwhelmed. There will be plenty more to kill anyway. Later on random Blues will start appearing alongside these guys, so keep an eye on them as well.

I hope all of this info helps. There may be other, better ways to handle different situations and groups, but for what it's worth, this is how I've played the Geometry Wars Retro Evolved for years now, and it seems to work for me. Anyway, good luck and have fun!