Hyper Mode #screenshotsaturday

Posted in super hexagon
Terry Jul 21, 2012 9 Comments

This week, I mostly spent my time tuning the higher difficulty levels of Super Hexagon, and I added super hard Hyper Modes to each level! Basically, it’s like a “New Game+” that unlocks for people who get a Hexagon rank in each of the game’s three levels.

While I worry that the hyper mode tracks are probably going to be way too hard for most people, I’m really glad they’re in there – attaining the level of mastery needed to do well at that skill level is pretty much what this game is all about.

I’m almost done now.

9 Comments

Getting Stage3D to work on iPhone, with AIR 3.2 and Flashdevelop

Posted in super hexagon tutorial
Terry Jul 8, 2012 10 Comments

That screenshot above is an important test project – I finally got stage3D working on iPhone! Which means, hopefully, I’m one step closer to getting Super Hexagon working on iPhone. Which is not necessarily where I want the game to end up, but I figured (since it’s supposed to be technically possible with flash now), it would be fun to at least try it and find out how it feels.

Anyway, getting Stage3D to work on an iPhone took a LOT of messing around, more than these sorta things usually take, and I had a lot of trouble finding recent information online on how to do it – so, I’m going to be a good interneter, and write a short tutorial, for future googlers who might have to go through this horrible process. Here goes:

I’m using FlashDevelop 4.0.4 RTM on windows, and I’m compiling with AIR version 3.2. All of the following assumes that you’ve already got a basic flash project working on an iPhone. If you haven’t, this isn’t the right tutorial for you. (try this one!).

Stage 3D doesn’t work with AIR 3.1, and I wasn’t able to get it to work with 3.3. If you don’t have AIR 3.2, you should be able to get it by just reinstalling the latest version of FlashDevelop. So, set your projec to target AIR Movile 3.2 under Project -> Properties -> Platform.

Next: this is the bit that tripped me up for a while: there’s an application.xml file in the root directory of your project. At the top of this there’s anoter line to select your version of AIR. Make sure that’s also set to 3.2, like this:

<application xmlns=”https://ns.adobe.com/air/application/3.2″>

Next, for Stage3D to work, you need to pass an additional compiler option. Under Project -> Properties -> Compiler Options, add the following under “Advanced Compiler Options”: “-swf-version=13”.

Under Project -> AIR App Properties -> Initial Window -> Non-Windowed Platforms, set the Render Mode to “Direct” (NOT GPU, like you might assume).

Once you’ve done that, the final bit is to edit application.xml again. There are a bunch of settings under “initial window” here – add the following to this:

<depthAndStencil>true</depthAndStencil>

That should be everything! Good luck!

10 Comments

Unspeakable horrors #screenshotsaturday

Posted in fps
Terry Jul 1, 2012 8 Comments



My time is up, and my game isn’t finished. It’s been a fun, challenging project, and at times, a very, very exciting one – but it is not something I can just throw together in a week, or, as it turns out, in three weeks. In fact, at this point, I could see it taking another month to finish properly. It’s time to move on. This is not a jam game.

I don’t know if anything will ever come out of this project, but I know I’d rather not feel like I have to rush it to completion. Right now, I’m happy to put it to one side and mull it over; maybe think about revisiting it in a couple of months when I don’t have so many other big unfinished projects hanging over my head.

So, what’s next? Well, Super Hexagon, finally! I sent the beta of the game to a few friends weeks ago now, and I’ve got some really great feedback on it that I’ve been mentally processing. Can’t wait to get back to it!

8 Comments