Hello! I'm Folmer from Sets and Settings, and I'm making a game called SUPERHYPER. SUPERHYPER is a low-fi-esque, minimalist, “pure” action game in the same vein as something like Super Hexagon, but it plays like a Temple Run (swipe to move left, right, and dash). It’s really designed for mobile devices and I’m proud that I achieved something that feels like it nears twitch gameplay but still lets you play one-handed if you want. There are 3 (but actually 4) modes in SUPERHYPER (SUPER, HYPER, and SUPERHYPER (and ???)), each with their own obstacles and gameplay mechanics. Everything you're seeing right now is taken from SUPER, I'll start revealing the other modes in the coming weeks. SUPERHYPER is a difficult game, and most of my time working on it is spent tweaking and balancing. Luckily I have a great group of testers helping me out! One of the things that I've been made aware of (both from tester feedback and browsing the TA forums) is that not everybody likes swipe controls. So if that put you off, I'm also adding alternative control options. What else can I talk about right now? Oh, the game has Game Center support (an absolute must for a highscore game like this), and will not be a free game. There will NOT be ads, there will NOT be IAP. A little background info: Sets and Settings previously released Irrupt, and we have a long-term project in the works called Trestle. If you liked Irrupt, you'll probably really enjoy SUPERHYPER. And if you're interested in Trestle, pretty much every penny I make these days goes into the development of that game. It's a monster of a project! Anyway, thanks for reading, and feel free to ask me anything Or hit me up on twitter, I talk about SUPERHYPER and post screenshots like all the time.
Thanks, glad to hear it! Should mention, Irrupt was not available for a while but it's back in the app store where it belongs now.
This looks really great. I love the minimalistic type games. I think it's great that you didn't put a bunch of extra graphics everywhere and it's just one item that keeps going and going instead of several different cars. When it's like this, it means that someone can really appreciate and enjoy the game and really know what they're playing. I also appreciate that you will be using alternative controls. I definitely want to try this game. I have all the usual questions: When do you think it will be released? Will it be universal or iPhone only? Will it be released in all countries or just one or two? What will you be charging for the game? If it is a paid app, will there be ads? IAP's? Thanks!
A paid game with no ads or iaps are my favourite kind, paired up with the minimal twitchy style I'll be certainly buying this. Haven't tried irrupt but I will now.
Thanks for the kind words, first of all! To answer your questions: I'm really hoping to have the game out on October 1st. Since all of the framework and the majority of the content is complete, mostly what I'm doing is balancing and testing until everything feels right. So I'm confident I can have it submitted and in review in time to make that date, but you never know what might happen when Apple reviews it. SUPERHYPER is universal! I have playtesters running it on every device, and I use an iPad 3 and an iPhone 4S myself. It'll be released in every country. No soft launch or anything like that either. Right now I'm thinking the game will be $1.99 but on sale for $0.99 the first week. There will absolutely be no ads or IAP of any kind. I want SUPERHYPER to be a "pure" experience, clean with no clutter.
Gato..I see a cat.. oh man this game..this game is super hard and super fun..hard to believe I've only been playing on the first mode..
SUPERHYPER's development steadily continues. (accidentally included a secret in this image OOPS) What I've been working on this week: - Making sure SUPERHYPER will run the way it should on the new resolutions of the upcoming iPhone 6 / 6+. - Tweaking HYPER mode difficulty. Hoping to send out a fresh build to my testers tomorrow- exciting! - Alternative controls. Such as buttons to tap: (wip) And finally, my musician has been working on the soundtrack but also came up with an amazing idea: Fighting game style voice overs (think Street Fighter 2). We've been messing around with it and it's really fun!
New logo Got a lot done today, from balancing to taking care of the not-so-fun aspects of making a game- Option menu, buttons, credits screen... all the secondary stuff I usually tend to do near the end of development. Now I can spend my time concentrating on finishing up the content and gameplay! Bonus screenshots from my playtesters letting me know things went a bit weird:
Since I like to see this thread as more of a devlog than a marketing tool, I wanted to write about what I've been up to recently even though it's not as sexy as videos and screenshots. Apologies for the wall of text in advance! Because of the type of game SUPERHYPER is, there's one thing that really ruins the experience, and that's bad controls. With that in mind, a big part of my focus has been on making the game feel tight. I'm very lucky to have a dedicated group of play testers who have no problem telling me when something sucks. It's awesome. Countless bugs and glitches have been fixed that I never would've caught (at least not all of them) if it wasn't for my testers. So controls! The earliest builds that went out to testers only had the swipe inputs. Some people loved that, some people hated it. I knew early on that having different options for controls were an absolute must. So after a while I implemented virtual buttons, and the group of testers that hated swipes rejoiced. Yay! I have to say there weren't too many complaints about the control options, but in the back of my mind I knew it wasn't PERFECT. One day, one of my testers tweeted their new highscore: A glorious 1895! Absolutely destroyed everyone else's score. I pressed them for info on how they did it, and was told "I figured out the trick to buttons". And that really sucked to hear! I mean, I don't want people to feel like they have to figure out tricks, or work around limitations or flaws. That's terrible for a twitch game! I felt awful about it. So I decided to take a day to rip out ALL of the existing input code and rebuild it all from scratch. And guess what? It freaking worked! SUPERHYPER feels so incredibly tight and responsive now, it's made it into a completely different experience. Doing this also lead to something else that I'm very excited about: A third control option. And it's actually the one I wanted to have from the start but I couldn't make it work before. Back when I was designing SUPERHYPER- before I started programming the game- I had the perfect control scheme in mind: Tap the left side of the screen to move left, the right side of the screen to go right, and both simultaneously to dash. I tried for a long time to make it work but it just wasn't precise enough, and ultimately lead to nothing but frustration. So I abandoned it and implemented swipes, which worked fine, and later on the virtual buttons my testers asked for. Both worked ok, so I gave up on the multi-tap system. Now... It's there. It's tight. It's become my favourite way to play the game. But for those who prefer swiping (it's great for playing the game with one hand), your experience will be tight. And for those who hate swiping but like virtual buttons, your experience will be tight. TL;DR: It's finally becoming the game I want it to be.
Dev; i am excited about hearing how yo feel about your game right now! Speaking of controls. I personally like the 'tap right to go right' tap left; left and middle to jump. But.. a lot of times, i've noticed that things get mixed up a bit and the ball will sometimes jump when tapping right or left' instead of only the center. For me, if this problem doesn't happen in this game, then it will be a must have, or instant buy, etc.... There's nothing more frustrating in this game genre then when the controls stop working right after you've already reached a certain point.
I know what you mean! That's actually exactly the problem I had when I first tried to implement the "double tap" system. I've put in (what I think is) a clever check to prevent that from happening. It's essentially a tiny bit of delay on left/right inputs after dashing so that you won't end up accidentally moving in an unexpected direction (but not a big enough delay to make it react slower to new inputs)
HYPER MODE! (ignore the little "hyper mode unlocked" popping up; it's there for testing purposes) This one is my favourite, once you get the hang of it you understand that there are two ways to get past it and depending on what the next obstacle is you'll want to think fast about which path to take:
I just submitted #SUPERHYPER for review. Feels incredibly strange. It's real now. I checked appreviewtimes.com and the magic number still seems to be 10 days, so if all goes well #SUPERHYPER should be out in two weeks. Time to cut a trailer!
