HEPTAGON

Recently played the Heptagon demo and man is it a trip. Much faster paced than I expected, especially on level 2. Seems like it'd be fun to watch a skilled player run through for the music and completions. Instead, I have a pile of deaths.

HEPTAGON Steam Release Review:

Hey, I found this game out due to a friend. Funnily enough it was just the day of the Steam release, so naturally, I got it. 

Been playing it for a good few 8 hours the last few days and I am enjoying the frustrating experience. Wasn't very good at the start but I'm slowly progressing and loving it. As of making this review I've beaten Level 1 Harder, Level 2 Harder, Level 3 Hard, Level 4 Hard (43sec), Level 5 Hard (69.40secs - big ripperoni), Level 6 Hard and Level 7 (on 90ish secs). 

However there are a few complaints I'd like to address. Seeing as a review with a few of them has already been made and are probably on their way to being addressed I'll try to not be a parrot:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Level 1 Hardest - other than it being nice to have a bit more breathing time during transitions, 2 times now (in the span of 2 hours trying this level), I've had it spawning a full circle of a pattern in the normal hexagon stage (if it helps both times it was with one of the walls being a double). It's insta death and I can't escape it. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Level 3 Harder - This level is driving me crazy ngl. Level 3 Hard seemed like it had wonky transitions from the inner to outer part (which I'll dub the 'plane transition' for ease). I thought it was a design decision, since it seemed like a cool mechanic at the time (that you had to look ahead of the transition to prepare in advance to nail the first hole) but with Level 3 Harder upping the speed it's become torture.  

I'm not so sure it's a design decision anymore since it flat out kills me on multiple occasions due to me simply not being able to react fast enough. It's even worse when it does the backwards transition from normal to plane because I can't see how close I am to the holes and I can't prepare properly and it just spawns me in front of a wall. 

What's worse, even if one is to get used to this (which I slowly am), sometimes the transition itself glitches, the camera starts spinning and it kills you off with the side walls during the transition. Sadly I don't have footage of that happening. 

The normal to tower transition on the other hand is quite smooth, with ample time to prepare and it flows nicely.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Level 5 Hard - This is more of a 'me' problem but it might affect more people so I'll throw it in - I legit have ptsd from the black/white part of this level. I feel dread when it comes. And that's for the sole reason that for the life of me, I cannot see the slightly transparent walls. 90% of my deaths are from the black/white colored part of the level. The transparent blocks aren't that common (thank god) but on top of that, the sheer intensity of the black/white color palette seems to strain the eyes a lot more than any other mix. 

So, naturally, during that part I have to focus really hard on the walls coming on top of losing all sense of direction. I'd suggest, if not change the colors entirely, to at least play around with the them to make 'em pop a bit more and make the whole thing a lot more readable. Like the green part. I like the green part of that level... 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Other than that, the game's been a pretty fun time killer and a pretty good challenge. Especially when you race with friends to beat a level ('bragging rights' achievement unlocked). The added mechanics of the plane and the tower are pretty neat. I'm generally having a fun time playing through it.

If anything else pops up, I'll be sure to take note of it. 

HEPTAGON v0.1.6 Review

============================================

Hi, I haven't forgotten about you guys; in fact, I've kept tabs just about daily to see if there's an update to this page; however, I've experienced some issues that I believe should be addressed, primarily focusing on the hardest difficulties.

============================================

(These minor complaints were made within 66 minutes of gameplay and 5 levels being completed)

============================================

Level 1 Hardest - Transitions with 2D to Inside and vise versa feel like a complete reaction-based event + the delay makes it close to a perfectionist run, although this is beatable given enough time and luck. (~50 seconds though beatable / same guy for Level 4 Hardest beat this)

============================================

Level 2 Harder - Awkward feel with this one with the speed change + the Barrage Spiral for Square I died on despite holding the button down the whole time at the center of the lane and apparently being "too slow" for this despite being perfect. Similarly to Box w/ Lid being too close delay wise. (Completed)

============================================

Level 2 Hardest - Quite a lot of bullshit factors I noticed here.

Triangle -- Wonky 3D effect on 2D space makes the V with a cap (to complete a whole triangle) pattern too confusing.

Square -- Similar issues to Box w/ Lid and Barrage Spiral on Level 2 Harder.

Hexagon -- Alternating Barrage (Essentially Wall/Space/Wall/Space/Wall/Space & vise versa) pattern is WAY too short, I've cleared the pattern but that's too close delay wise even for Open Hexagon standards.

Transitions here are also quite unfair at times. (Not sure if this is beatable; if so, it's too luck based.)

============================================

Level 4 Hardest (Harder?) - Transitions with Inside to Outside & vise versa are bullshit, sometimes total luck on the delay when this happens if you'd react in time to survive, otherwise it's just annoying quick gameplay. (Doable / someone completed this while writing this)

============================================

Overall conclusion:

============================================

Transitions - Would be nice if there was ~1-2 seconds worth of no patterns spawning to give you a moment to transition without the worry of dying immediately especially for the hardest difficulties available within the game. (I understand this may affect the flow of the game and the patterns, but it would be appreciated to an extent although I doubt this would be a setting.)

============================================

Level 1 Overall - Might not see this level be changed around; but, it jumps the difficulty scale between Harder and Hardest marginally greater than the difficulty scaling between Hard to Harder. Alongside this, it still poses quite an issue beating Level 1 Hardest to an extent.

============================================

Level 2 Overall - Maybe I'm being a bit bitchy with Level 2 Harder and I'm not fully used to the sudden shift in speed (As if this was Super Hexagon on Cheat Engine steroids); but, Level 2 Hardest is THE worst because of several issues explained above and the most busted difficulty, but of course Level 2 Harder has a couple reasonable ones.

============================================

Level 4 Overall - Never tried Harder more than just a few tries so I'm not sure if the complaints about Hardest apply for certain, but Hardest is only most annoying because of the transitional problems between Inside and Outside, I do want to clarify again someone I know did beat Level 4 Hardest so it's not that bad as it seems.

============================================

For those questioning about Level 6 Hardest - Considering the level completion range with the only other 3 available levels and only 8 difficulties can be beaten out of ~18, I can't review said difficulty, neither can I review Level 6 Harder, so that'll be for the Steam release.

============================================

I believe this will conclude this review of HEPTAGON v0.1.6, I hope this will help the team in terms of balancing the other Hardest difficulty modes for the levels we can't try as of this time. Personally, I feel like the Hardest mode was only designed for the top tier area of players for Open Hexagon (With the exception of Level 2, it feels like KammyKaze and/or hl.EINOS level gameplay), otherwise the rest of the game is okay, just needs some minor fixing here and there.

I like level 4 quite a lot more than the other demo level's I've tried. However, I still hold many nitpicks about the game, and I don't feel that it approaches the same level as Open Hexagon.

The difficulty factors aren't the most enjoyable. A slow cursor combined with slow, clumped walls does not bring me joy to play. Inverting controls is even more frustrating, but I support the decision to add more non-conventional ways to make it challenging

There's a lack of graphical options and functionality. When in the menu's, my GPU usage will instantly spike to 95%+ load (unnecessarily heating it up, and my GPU isn't a bad one), although it's less bad when you play a level.

I'm not a fan of how it looks either. The color of the shape's border in the middle is different than the cursor/walls, and the cursor is too close to the shape. However, this doesn't matter at all. I still plan on playing this game a lot once it releases on steam.

Version used: Demo - v0.1.5.1

I like this game, it's a super well made spiritual successor to Super Hexagon, but it's a bit too hard. Emphasis on too. Here's some of my nitpicks.

1. There's a large gap between casual and hard. Casual is very slow, while hard is OH GAWDD for a good-ish hexagon player (such as myself). It's like putting a slowed down version of Pointless next to Second Dimension.

2. Setting preferred inversion controls bugs out when restarting. Say i set "inside" to inversed. I go to level 2, i die on the inside perspective, and get put on 2D normal mode when i restart. Bam, my 2D controls are reversed.

3. The level restarts go way too quickly. When you first start, you're given a short tutorial or warmup period which lets you get ready. But when you restart, it's riiiight back into the action with a wall directly going for your pointer. Can't even say "let's try again" without needing to move out of the way.

4. Restarting a level is confusing. Every time you restart a level, you go to a random shape and a random perspective. Highly confusing when combined with point 3 as you frantically dodge the triangle spir- dead. I'd want the level to start at hexagon and wait a short bit for me to get ready before throwing literally everything at me.

This is a really great game, despite the nitpicks that i had, and i keep trying and trying over and over. It's addicting!

Alright, I had this nagging question that I just have to ask (and a couple others brought this up as well) because there's been a recent uptick in interest for your game here.

- Will there be any sort of a chance that the users can create their own levels where they can customize everything to their hearts content and ability?

I'm curious to know because we don't know exactly the process it takes for you to make each specific level in the game.

What's your opinions on this?

So I heard of this game for the first time because someone in a discord server pointed this game out and it looked somewhat interesting.

To keep it short, I enjoy the new mechanics that the game has implemented. I just kind of dislike how the "inverse" walls were implemented initially because it ends as the inverse walls end, which I thought was weird, but I guess it takes some time getting used to.

One major improvement I think this game needs is to help space out the patterns. When playing the levels I felt the walls were way too thick and you barely get any space to navigate between patterns, which I can barely handle on the normal view. On the tunnel view it looks like a bullet hell nightmare and it's the spacing that makes it difficult for me to determine where to go. I wouldn't mind trading off the walls to be faster if it means we get better spacing between patterns, or if the walls were to be more thin I'd think that'd be nice.

There's some bugs in the game such as the music all of a sudden not playing anymore and the obvious lag when trying to go the menu, and I do think there is a lack of polish in the aesthetics. Overall a good game and I see potential in it. Keep it up!

I just want to say from a player who's play Open Hexagon for 3 years and has thoroughly pushed to exceed limits and only downloaded this game 2 days ago, I present to you Mr. dev Level 1's Hard Mode completely destroyed with 1393.86 Seconds, can definitely push farther if I wanted to. ;)

After playing a lot more, I've noticed problems on transitions if one of the controls are inverted. if I move while a transition happens (from one mode to another) the game shows me moving the opposite direction and once I let go it reveals that I have not moved at all. this also happens when you hold down a move button while restarting but ONLY if the keybindings are not the default keybindings. I also found that the restart keybinding doesn't work on level 4.

Hey, i've noticed a bug where you can set your mouse buttons as a keybinding but when you start the game it doesn't actually work

this gameplay is insanely rad thank you

i bless the project and your life \(o.0)/