HIGH-SCORE CHALLENGE
7 tips for surviving Super Hexagon
Super Hexagon
Playing your first game of Super Hexagon can feel like smacking into a brick wall – or rather into an endless series of them that speed relentlessly towards you as your screen wheels and spins.
Reaching the one-minute mark, which unlocks new levels, might seem impossible, but with a little practice – and the help of these seven tips – you just might transform the game into a dizzying thrill ride.
1. Find patterns. Super Hexagon’s mazes appear indecipherable at first, but look closely and you’ll realise they consist of recognisable patterns, served up at random. Figure out how to navigate each pattern and you’ll be flying through sections that seemed impassable.
2. Look ahead. Don’t approach this like a driving game, focusing only on the path immediately in front of you. The walls in Super Hexagon close in too quickly. Instead use your peripheral vision to stay aware of what’s coming three and four walls away, and plan your path accordingly.
3. Shrink your screen. Especially on a large monitor, playing Super Hexagon full-screen can not only be overwhelming but make taking everything in much more difficult. (See previous tip.) For a more manageable view, try Windowed mode via the Options screen. It puts the game in a smaller window that you can place anywhere.
4. Hug those walls. You might think making any wall contact whatsoever will make you crash. But here’s a secret: you crash only if you smash into one head-on. Especially in spiral patterns, hold down an arrow key to hug the walls until your triumphant escape.
5. Stay still. Sometimes the path to victory requires restraint. More often than you might think, you can sail through a series of walls without moving at all – thereby reducing the likelihood of a panic-induced collision.
6. Move with determination. Even on the slowest levels, holding down an arrow key (rather than pressing it repeatedly) is often the only way to squeeze past the trailing edge of an incoming wall. Think like a downhill skier, moving purposefully between the gates.
7. Speed things up. Super Hexagon initially has three modes: Hexagon (hard), Hexagoner (harder) and Hexagonest (hardest). If you find even the “easiest” level too brutal, play a few games at the harder setting. When you switch back to the easier mode, everything will feel like it’s in (relatively) slow motion.