But the completely engrossing visual and audio design, combined with tight controls that seem perfectly tuned for the iOS touchscreen, make it a real easy game to get hooked on.The square moves by itself in Geometry Dash. Yes, Super Hexagon is just a basic test of visual acuity and reflexes when you get down to it. There's something deeply satisfying about slowly gaining the ability to make sense of what at first seemed like incomprehensible madness, and of pushing yourself to beat the scores of friends and strangers. Again!" on each death-restart cycle acts like a Pavlovian bell after a while). then whittle away an entire hour just struggling to survive a few seconds more (the robotic voice that says "Game Over. It's way too easy to tell yourself you'll do just one more try before calling it quits. It always feels like you could have survived if you were just a little bit faster. Super Hexagon is one of those games that makes you eager to dive in and try again even after a particularly frustrating failure. Others might just be physically incapable of surviving more than the briefest of games, though even the least coordinated should be able to improve a little bit with practice.Īnd that practice comes incredibly easily. Your first few attempts could well end in less than five seconds, and those with a low tolerance for frustration may just give up right there without even trying to get better. You'll need to sharpen those reflexes as far as they'll go, because even at its easiest levels Super Hexagon demands extremely quick reactions (there's a reason the game's named difficulty levels run from "hard" to "hardest" and on to an unlockable "hardester"). (The iOS version ups the trippiness quotient by tilting the camera along the z-axis ever so slightly and changing the game's aspect ratio, so that the walls are constantly disappearing past the edge of the screen as the field rotates). You can get a feel for it yourself by playing the original Flash version of Hexagon online or checking out the iOS trailer below. It's hard to describe quite how engrossing and mesmerizing the overall kaleidoscopic visual effect is. Developer Terry Cavanagh (known for gravity-flipping platformer VVVVVV) said he feels like this is the game his previous action titles have "been heading towards all along." The entire playfield is constantly rotating around the central point, changing speed and direction periodically, while the encroaching walls and central polygon change color and pulse to the beat of a driving techno soundtrack. It's an incredibly basic concept that's given extra life by some incredibly trippy presentation. The goal is to survive as long as possible but, like the greatest arcade games of old, each session always ends with failure and a "Game Over" screen. At its most basic, I suppose, you're just rotating a small triangle around a central hexagon to avoid segmented walls that are constantly encroaching from the edges of the screen. The written word seems particularly unsuited to describe what playing Super Hexagon is like. As I'm writing this, my brain has been temporarily rewired by playing a half hour or so of Super Hexagon, one of the most maddeningly addictive iOS gaming experiences I've ever played. As I type this, my brain is semi-consciously calling attention to the gaps between the letters and words in front of me and mapping out the most efficient path to navigate through them. As I write this, it's taking all my willpower to tell myself the letters I'm typing aren't pulsing and rotating and changing colors as they appear on the screen.