By Joel Smart (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: October 3, 2012
There’s no story. There are no fancy graphics. There are certainly no mainstream artists providing the music for this game. Yet, Terry Cavanagh is a game designer with the clout to get the gaming world interested in his new game about a basic six-sided shape.
It’s going to be tricky to describe how this game works, so by all means, look up the trailer on YouTube and skip this description. Remember that scene in every action movie ever, where there is a slowly closing door/roof/gate and the hero needs to escape … and they do, at the last second. Well, that’s what happens in this game, albeit, in a much more abstract way. Instead of looking like Indiana Jones, you are merely an arrow. As the arrow, you must rotate around the edges of a hexagon at the centre of the screen. The aim is to avoid being crushed by an ever-encroaching series of objects that converge on the hexagon, generally leaving only one small space to escape. Oh, and it all happens … quickly.
It’s the type of game that could give someone a seizure just from hearing about it, with colours changing and shapes spinning and transforming at an ever-increasing rate as the game goes on. Yet, perhaps those who should be most excited for the game are Rubik’s Cube aficionados.
It’s very much a puzzler at heart, and as Cavanagh explained, it’s best suited to those who enjoy challenging themselves, obsessing and learning patterns in order to work out the mystery. “[It’s] about training you to recognize the things that happen and how to react,” he told Joystiq. “[Players wind up] between this alert state where [they’re] reacting to what’s happening, and this zoned out state where [they] know what’s happening because [they] recognize it. That’s where your head should be when you’re playing.”
The game has sold over 45,000 copies since its September 6 release. While it’s only available for iPod and iPad right now, it should be available for Android soon – with Mac and PC versions also upcoming. Although Cavanagh prefers the controls when played at a computer, he actually enjoys the mobile version the most. “It’s very suited to being a thing you carry around and play while you’re waiting for a bus or something,” he explained to Joystiq in an interview.
It’s because this game is all about trial and error, about beating your previous best. For most people, that means each turn is going to take about 10 seconds … 11 seconds … 15 seconds. Eventually improvement comes as you wrap your mind around the challenges. Before long, committed players will beat the game on the easiest mode, unlocking new modes with harder patterns to master. It may sound frustrating, but with retries at the touch of a button, it’s easy to try just one more time to pass your record.
The music is really a highlight in the game, the entire game throbbing and shifting according to the beat. The tunes come courtesy of Irish composer Chipzel, who makes music using a Gameboy as a musical instrument, creating 8-bit sounds and reworking them into pulse-pounding dance tracks.
Cavanagh’s previous game, VVVVVV, is also notoriously difficult, but also regarded as one of the best-designed platformers ever made. While Super Hexagon seems at the surface to be a simple game, perhaps one a few stages above a Flash game one might find for free online, there is a lot more lurking under the surface here.
It normally retails for $3, but if you’re quick you might be able to pick it up on sale for just $1.
