Super Hexagon is a fast-paced twitch game in which the player controls a triangle on a hexagonal grid in the center while walls come from the edges of the screen. The controls are simple: the player must pivot the triangle to the opening in order to survive. The pace of the game progressively gets more difficult the longer the player has survived and to distract players, the game features a chiptune soundtrack, a background that regularly changes color, and walls that occasionally change direction. The game contains six different difficulty levels, beginning at hard (Hexagon), harder (Hexagoner), and hardest (Hexagonest). Additional, "Hyper" difficulty stages can be unlocked by surviving for over sixty seconds on a level. Super Hexagon started off as a smaller game prototype titled Hexagon, made and released in one day for the late February 2012 game jam Pirate Kart V. As the game's designer Terry Cavanagh saw potential in the project, he decided to increase the game's difficulty and expand upon its concept. Cavanagh has stated that he is "not much of a visual artist," thus settling on a minimal look quickly. The visuals of Super Hexagon are barely different from its original Hexagon iteration. It stops the learning curve, trying to give the hardest possible to the player. Over the course of developing Super Hexagon, Cavanagh had played through it a large amount of time, becoming particularly experienced with the mechanics. Hexagonest (Mais Hexagonal, ) is the third stage included on the game Super Hexagon. During the development of the game, Cavanagh made various changes based on "what felt good", before starting the beta testing process. Cavanagh found that anyone could beat the game once they get better reflexes and a better understanding of the game's mechanics. Super Hexagon is voiced by journalist Jenn Frank. Cavanagh had intended to use a professional voice actor, but did not like their results and returned to Frank, the voice of Hexagon, to reprise the role. #SUPER HEXAGON SOUNDTRACK DOWNLOAD FULL#įrank stated that, when a game like Super Hexagon is almost entirely created by a single person, it can become a very personal piece of work "a product of thousands of tiny decisions, and every one is the reflection of the person who made it, what they're like, and what they think about." Music Super HexagonĪfter Cavanagh used Chipzel's track "Courtesy" in the original Hexagon game, he again sought to use her music in the full game Super Hexagon.That Terry consistently updates the game and ensures we as its players can continue to go cross-eyed in the pursuit of a seemingly impossible high score is a blessing, and one unfortunately not shared by many of the other apps I loved from that era. To this day I have a shockingly vivid memory¹ of finally surviving a run for one endless minute in the blistering “Hexagonest” difficulty level after weeks of attempts, a feat I just tried and failed to replicate while writing this.Īnd it’s a miracle I can try to beat “Hexagonest” at all in 2022 given the ways in which Apple has slowly eradicated the App Store’s own legacy through forced deprecation and obsolescence over the years. In retrospect I can identify an eventual fan of FromSoftware’s particular brand of masochistic game design through the lens of my score-chase-driven obsession with proving I can master a video game that uses a majority of its sparse copywriting to telegraph its own insurmountable difficulty. Even my brief foray into working on smaller indie game projects was in some ways brought about by the simple fact that I couldn’t put Super Hexagon down, and I dreamed of creating something that would make others feel the same way. Visually, the bold and geometric art style influenced my own design sensibilities. Chipzel’s unreal soundtrack inspired a track of my own as I started to experiment with creating chiptune music. Even back in 2012 I remember its aesthetic directly changing my relationship with games and the kinds of works I wanted to create. I consider Super Hexagon to be one of my more formative game experiences, and without it I’m not sure I’d be writing blog posts like this or hosting podcast episodes about video games on a weekly basis. I would never have imagined that anyone would still be playing it 10 years on. I didn’t expect any kind of reaction to it, let alone the one it got. It was a game that just sort of came along, while I was working on something else, a game I very much made for myself, tuned to my own reflexes. I still don’t really know how to think about Super Hexagon, sometimes. I don’t have any big plans today, sorry - but I wanted to mark the occasion here. So, hey! Today is the 10th anniversary of Super Hexagon’s original release. Game designer Terry Cavanagh via this blog post:
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