Here’s the problem with Super Hexagon: Technically, it does everything correctly. I just can’t do it for any substantial length of time. It’s addicting and I can understand why people keep coming back for more punishment. My longest playing session was about eight minutes. This makes it nearly impossible to play for any length of time. The game is made exponentially harder by the fact that this game will give you a headache and make you dizzy, possibly even nauseous. I’m sure that quick reactions necessary from the walls closing in on the centre of the screen would make it difficult enough. While the chiptune soundtrack is quite good, the loud electronic beats don’t help the disorientation that the visuals cause.Īnd that’s where most of the difficulty comes from. The colours and tilt perspective of the screen also change. In action, the walls that close in on you change rotation speed and direction while pulsing in time to the music. In still images, Super Hexagon looks rather tame. The real battle for survival in Super Hexagon is you versus the sensory overload that this game throws at you. I think that it’s more of a survival game but I’m not talking about the survival of the triangle you control. Developer Terry Cavanagh describes it as an action game. Similarly, there are no graphical hiccups that will cause you to get a game over.įrom the screenshots, it’d be understandable if you thought this was a puzzle game as it almost looks like navigating through a maze. Your triangle always rotates at the same speed so you won’t get caught off guard. The controls are simple (left arrow rotates counter-clockwise and the right arrow goes clockwise). The idea is to rotate the triangle around the centre of the screen so as the top point doesn’t come in contact with one of the walls moving inward. You control a small triangle that spins around a hexagon at the centre of the screen while walls converge on the middle. You get a ten second tutorial the first time you play before getting thrown in head first. Super Hexagon eliminates what would be superfluous story in this game. However, I wasn’t sold on what appeared to be such a simple game so I had to pick it up and give it a go. In a year where small indie games were more fondly thought of and better reviewed than many triple-A releases, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the one-man development team of Terry Cavanagh was able to produce a critically acclaimed game. One of the surprise entries on many year-end lists was Super Hexagon.