Publisher(s): GLITCH (ID@Xbox title)
Platform(s): Xbox One, PC
Release Date: 2019
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HyperDot was one of the simplest, but most addictive games, that I played at GDC 2019. In HyperDot, the goal is simple in multiplayer: don’t get hit by anything and survive longer than anyone else. Or as the developers told me when I first approached the game: “Dodge Everything.” HyperDot is an ID@Xbox title with over one-hundred single-player levels, a local co-op mode that can support up to four players at once, and the ability to customize your own matches. In other words: there is a lot of content going on for what seems like such a simple game. As I sat down at the table during Microsoft’s ID@Xbox event during GDC 2019 with another journalist and two of the game’s developers to jump into their matches, I was expecting to lose every single game due to having no idea what was going on and to just move on after a few minutes. Instead, as I was entranced by the thumpin’ soundtrack and as I tried out a variety of HyperDot‘s multiplayer modes, I found myself having an amazingly wonderful time laughing, dying, and -surprisingly- winning against everyone else.
There are a variety of modes in HyperDot that range from a ‘King of the Hill’ scenario to collecting items to being the last one to die. All of these modes take place inside of a circular arena that have objects shooting into the arena from outside which will kill you if you hit them. So it frequently ended up that I was dodging outside objects just as much as I was other players (in some modes, hitting another player can end up killing you) in order to try to score more points than anyone else. The matches are very fast paced and were frequently over within thirty or so seconds. What this means is that if you have a player who frequently dies fast in multiplayer games (me), you aren’t just sitting there for the next fifteen minutes getting frustrated by not playing. Granted, I was better at some modes than others (I sucked at ‘King of the Hill’, for example), but that doesn’t destroy any of the fun that I had with this smooth-handling game either. The quickness of the matches and the variety of gameplay modes -and the ease to jump between them with just a simple button press on the menu between matches- meant that I kept wanting to do just one…more…match…that turned into another ten before I knew it. As a side note: the controls for HyperDot are fantastic. I never felt like that any of my deaths were ‘unearned’. When I died, I knew that it was one-hundred-and-ten-percent my fault for running into an object or another player and dying from it.
And that leads into what I think is HyperDot‘s biggest strength: With such a heavy emphasis on co-op and this amazing soundtrack, HyperDot becomes a fun party game on the level of Big Bumpin’ for the Xbox and Xbox 360. This is a game that I could easily see myself setting up at a party or at a simple get-together with friends and play throughout the night while talking, catching up, and drinking. Just from playing it, I can tell that HyperDot is meant to be a game to draw people together for in-person gaming, and it completely succeeds at its goal.
HyperDot is coming to the Xbox One and PC in 2019, and I can’t wait to play this ID@Xbox title again with my own friends.
What kind of mode do you hope to play in HypeDot? Are you excited to pick it up when it launches later in 2019?
Let us know in the comments below!
