![]() ![]() Next they will learn to look at the game without noticing the screen rotation, or color, or other distractions. Soon enough however the player will begin to sense patterns and recognize the separate ‘chunks’ of the sequence. The use of time to function as a score and a qualifier for harder modes is generic enough, but the level design, so to speak, of the modes is purposefully tuned for the player to slowly inch their way further and is ultimately nothing less than superb.Īt first the level will seem random and confusing to the player. ![]() The pacing of this player progression is both slow enough to provide challenge, while steady enough to recognize improvement, and it’s what makes this game such a significant example for this reflection. However, a few more tries and the player will pass twenty seconds, then thirty, sixty seconds, onto the next mode, and so forth. Playing the first mode, ‘Hexagon’ for the first time, the player will lose quickly and often. The game provides a lens of shallow focus through which the player observes their growth, and as the player continues to grow the focal point of the lens follows, giving a very small, but clear snapshot of where they are. Super Hexagon is a game whose design decisions put the player in a hyper aware state of the progression of their skill. I believe that there is something to be said in defense of shallow games. I choose this analogous term from another field because I find it useful in two ways: first, to explain how granular the experience of playing Super Hexagon can be, and second as a sort of tongue-in-cheek comment on the fetishism of “depth”. Super Hexagon is a game of shallow focus. On the other hand, a lens where only a small area is in focus and adjusting the focal distance moves that area in a very granular fashion has shallow focus. If there is a large quantity of space in focus the camera or lens is said to have deep focus. Depth of focus, also sometimes referred to as depth of field, is a characteristic of optical quality most often referred to in the context of photography. ![]()
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