Quick app review: Super Hexagon for iPad
I don’t know about yours, but my iPad is mostly a leisure device. I consume content of all varieties on it, including games. Many, many games.
One game that I found recently is called Hexagon. I don’t really know under what genre it falls – developer Terry Cavanagh calls it “a minimal action game” – but what I do know that it’s simply amazing. Keep on reading to see – and hear – what I mean.
The game starts out by giving you a completely silent title screen. A woman reads to you “Super Hexagon” and the game asks you to tap on the screen to continue.
Once you tap on the screen, you hear an 8-bit confirmation noise and you’re thrown into the level selection screen. Each level is a separate difficulty, starting at at Hexagon, going to Hexagoner, and ending up at Hexagonest. When you complete each respective level, you will unlock another one.
Gameplay itself is simple: each side of the screen is essentially a button that, when pressed, will rotate the triangle that you control around a hexagon that every obstacle comes together to make. Each level will progressively get faster and faster, making your time target (for example, 30 seconds on the first level without hitting an obstacle) even harder to achieve.
And even though the gameplay is simple, it’s incredibly addicting. So much so, in fact, that I’ve wasted about an hour of my time while writing this review playing it. Levels are meant to be quick – but in reality, the sheer hardness of each of them make it so you could easily spend 50 times longer to beat it.
In my opinion, the best part of this app, though, is not its gameplay: it’s the music that accompanies the gameplay and enriches it even further. Produced by Chipzel, an Irish chip-musician, the soundtrack is simply beautiful and is what makes this game so much fun. When both the stellar music and fantastic gameplay are combined, they come together to make one of the best games I’ve ever played.
There’s not just a something about Super Hexagon that makes me want to play it every time I pick up my iPad – it’s everything about Super Hexagon that makes me want to play it every time I pick up my iPad. Smooth, colorful graphics; an amazing soundtrack; and addicting gameplay all add up to make one of if not the most pleasurable gaming experiences I’ve ever had on my iPad.
For $0.99, it’s practically a steal. Even if the levels are supposed to last only a few seconds, Super Hexagon will somehow steal hours of your time – and in return, give you hours of enjoyment.
Download: iTunes
