Superhot

Moby ID: 77336
Windows Specs
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$7.49 new on Steam
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Description official descriptions

Superhot is a strategic action game, played from a first-person perspective, that combines shooting with melee-based combat. The player's character needs to survive waves of enemies in small environments through combat, but most importantly by controlling the flow of time. The game concept was original created as a prototype for the 7 Day FPS game jam in 2013 and later developed into a full title following a successful crowdfunding campaign.

The game is constructed as a game also called Superhot played on a fictional BBS-like operation system called piOS. The player controls a user on the system, where different types of rudimentary apps, ASCII art and programs can be launched, also chatting online to other users. This OS also acts as the hub and main menu to launch different parts of the game. There are linear story sequences shown on the OS that often occur between levels. Through one of the other users the player's character learns about the Superhot game, a cracked title that is played by logging in illegally into a company's website. What starts as a harmless peek, quickly becomes something more sinister.

Levels are played in minimalist environments that have white and light blue tones, while all opponents and bullets are bright red. A distinct gameplay element is that time generally only moves when the player's character does so. All action is virtually paused until something is done, such as moving, shooting or hitting. As there are often multiple enemies approaching for different directions, the player has to plan carefully as the flow of time can be controlled, but not be rewound. The same technique is used to dodge bullets, leaving behind a bright red trail. There are different types of ranged weapons such as a revolver, a machine gun and a shotgun. These have a limited amount of ammo and can be found in the environment or grabbed from enemies. Enemies can be hit with fists or by flinging the weapon, which confuses the opponent. This action is most often used to hit an enemy, grab his weapon in flight and then finish him off with his own means. Defeated enemies shatter like glass and physics also play an important role. Thrown weapons can be destroyed if a bullet hits them or if they bounce off walls, a bullet can neutralize another bullet, weapons shatter in the air when they are hit with a melee attack, and so on. Next to weapons and objects in the environment that can be thrown, always in a black colour, there are melee weapons such as katanas, crowbars and baseball bats, next to fists always available. Completing a level is often similar to the choreography of a martial arts film, with a quick succession of different moves, played out in short time segments.

Other game elements are the ability to throw or shoot through glass, jumping, and in the later parts of the game an ability is acquired to quickly take over another enemy's body, but this takes some time to recharge. All weapons have a small amount of ammo. Reloading is required and is done automatically, but once out of ammo a different weapon needs to be found. A single melee hit or bullet is immediately deadly for the player's character and then the entire sequence has to be replayed. The player is often encouraged to try out different approaches as there are many solutions to complete levels. When not doing anything, time is not halted entirely, but moves steadily at an extremely slow speed, which still forces the player to act without overthinking. A change from the original prototype's mechanics is that turning without moving, for instance by 180 degrees, also moves forward time. The straightforward action sequences soon become more complex and chaotic when more of the background story is revealed. After each completed fight a replay is shown, which can be edited and uploaded to the killstagram.com website.

After completing the main game additional game modes become available. There is an endless mode fighting unlimited waves of enemies with new environments unlocked based on the performance, and a challenge mode with unlockable challenges based on parameters such as only using a katana, no restarts, timed runs, and so on.

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Credits (Windows version)

197 People (70 developers, 127 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 84% (based on 29 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 27 ratings with 1 reviews)

Done excellently, needs better stuff

The Good
First made as a prototype for the seven day FPS Jam, this title had a kickstarter after the prototype and many people crowd funded it, up to two million US dollars. The visual style, which has white and blue (sometimes black and red) all over it. Sometimes it feels like the movie Matrix, most of the time, if you stay still, the time slows down, without a push of a button, if you move, it speeds up. The menu also has the system clock time when you fire it up. After the first few settings, the application gives an "unauthorized access" message and glitches out, then you'll get told by the supplier that the file has been updated. Then, the game becomes tougher. It took me a lot of tries to get some of the levels done. The weapon selection is really nice, raging from your fists (much like Chuck Norris, but without his trademark roundhouse kick), the baseball bat (which breaks after some hits and it's useless), katana (for slicing people up), semi automatic pistols, double barrel shotguns, assault rifles, and so on. To make the player not bored, the developers added an endless mode, which is you trying to kill as many adversaries as you can, a really impossible no restart mode, which is even harder than the standard, and a katana only mode. The audio is done really well, enemies shatter like glass after being killed, guns sound really powerful, and the ambient audio is okay.

The Bad
The progressively hard story mode, which hurts this game for me. I would be very annoyed if it gets harder and harder, but then again, it goes "easy at first, hard later" style.

The Bottom Line
Suprisingly, this is a very good concept and I would recommend it for some people who didn't play it before. Overall, a really good entry to the FPS genre.

Windows · by BlaringCoder (169) · 2016

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Sciere.

PlayStation 4, Stadia added by Rik Hideto. Nintendo Switch added by Kam1Kaz3NL77. Gloud added by firefang9212. Windows Apps added by Koterminus.

Game added March 5, 2016. Last modified January 22, 2024.