Continue to smoothly dodge bullets with SUPERHOT: The Card Game

Let’s just get this out of the way right from the start:

SUPER…HOT.
SUPER…HOT.
SUPER…HOT.

Phew, there. Now we can begin proper and talk about SUPERHOT: The Card Game from Grey Fox Games, which is both alike and different from its videogame counterpart, which I greatly enjoyed playing through last year. Y’know, despite not really understanding anything related to its narrative. This is a micro deck-building game, based on something called Agent Decker, which I have not checked out yet, though there seems to be a free print-and-play version. In this one, naturally, you use abilities and items to deal with increasing threats, such as men with guns and flying bullets. Threats you eliminate are added to your hand, giving you improved abilities and more options while bringing you closer to victory; however, you need to be careful because the more cards you use, the faster you move through time, which is represented by a line of obstacles moving in your direction.

Okay, let’s get more detailed without hopefully making your eyes glaze over. Rules for board games and card games can sometimes be a lot to take in, which is why simpler games like Just Desserts, Bandido, and Elevenses are more digestible. Basically, on your turn, you need to interact with obstacles–whether killing them or knocking them out, though I still don’t understand how you knock a table out–to increase future possibilities or give you more time before bullets begin to appear in the line, which are harder to deal with. The cards that you use are discarded to the obstacle pile while cards you pass by are placed in your personal discard pile, creating a mini-deck of cards. The game has three types of obstacle cards: enemy, scenery, and objects, with each type giving you different abilities when they’re in your deck. Your goal is to complete three tiers of missions–level one has one mission, level two has two, and so on–while not running out of cards or ending up with four bullets in your hand.

Initially, I was very confused with how a turn went in SUPERHOT: The Card Game. I ended up watching three or four videos to finally see how things are supposed to go, and I get it better now. Still, I’m constantly flipping through the rulebook to make sure I’m doing things correctly. For my last game, I managed to get to the third tier of missions, but ended up running through all the bullets in the bullet deck, which is an automatic loss. Wah. Here’s hoping my next run is more successful or, at the very least, more confidently done. There’s both cooperative and versus modes, but the game was definitely designed for solo gaming, and I think that’s where it will remain with me.

I really, really love the look of SUPERHOT: The Card Game. Obviously, it draws many of its images from the videogame, which is sparse on details yet high on style, but the cards themselves manage to contain a lot of information without being completely full of clutter or text. They maintain the dedication to the colors red and gray, and the mission cards all contain a bunch of code that probably says something to people that can read code, but I’m left in the unknown. Either way, it’s slick and cool and feels futuristic.

SUPERHOT: The Card Game features game mechanics that forced me to figure out the best tactical and strategic solutions in each moment.  Do I destroy that flying bullet or clear out the enemies that, if I don’t, will add more bullets to my deck? Do I want to empty my hand, moving time forward quickly and risk seeing more bullets coming my way? Sometimes the best laid plans don’t always work out, but, in the given moment, you do feel in control. This often resulted in tense decision-making, but felt satisfying when things did work in your favor.

For a solo game, it can take anywhere between 15 and 45 minutes, depending on how often you need to re-read the manual, but once things get going, and you understand the flow of turns, the game stops being about the manual and specific rules and more about moving through time as you see fit, and for that SUPERHOT: The Card Game flips a table and lives to see another day.

SUPERHOT’s time only moves forward with the player

We’re a few months into 2018, or twenty-great-teen as the kids are callin’ it, and I’m finally cool enough to play SUPERHOT. Y’know, that mega indie hit from…well, it originated as an entry in the 2013 7 Day FPS Challenge, but was a full release on consoles and PC in 2016. Strangely, right now, the game is everywhere you look–it was a freebie for March’s Gaming with Gold on the Xbox One, which is how I acquired it, it was a freebie last month for Twitch Prime’s new Free Games with Prime program, and it’s currently one of the games bundled in Humble Indie Bundle 19. My lordy-loo. I guess there is just no avoiding it at this point. After all, SUPERHOT only moves when you do.

Okay, some setup, of which I will absolutely nail down the mechanics of this game, but not its narrative. SUPERHOT is an independent first-person shooter developed and published by the appropriately named SUPERHOT Team. The game mostly follows traditional first-person shooter mechanics, with you trying to take out enemies shooting bullets at you. The twist to all this is that time within the game only progresses when the player moves. Remember when Neo in The Matrix used bullet time to his advantage? It’s like that, but always. This often creates unique opportunities for the player to assess their situation and respond appropriately, turning each gunfight into one massive, slow-crawling puzzle wherein you’ll dodge a bullet, punch a dude, grab his gun out of the air, and shoot him in the face with it before a second goes by.

Now SUPERHOT‘s story…exists on several metanarrative levels. First, the player plays a fictionalized version of themselves sitting in front of a computer receiving DOS prompts, getting a message from their friend who offers them a supposedly leaked copy of a new game called superhot.exe, claiming that the only way to access it is with a crack. Second, launching the game immediately thrusts the player into a series of seemingly unconnected puzzle-combat rooms via different points of view, all based around killing hostile red dudes via the cool time slowdown method, after which the game glitches out and disconnects. After this crash, the player’s friend sends an updated version of the .exe file, which is apparently a new version of the game that fixes the “glitches,” and you go further down the rabbit hole, doing as the large, blocky text on-screen says because…that’s what a good videogame player does. Look, it’s something of a connective tissue, and that’s fine, but story is not at all the reason I’m playing SUPERHOT, nor what I will ultimately remember about it five years from now.

Visually, the developers got lucky. The game is presented in a minimalist art style, with enemies in ruby red and weapons in stark black, in contrast to the otherwise white and gray environment, which has the effect of everything popping before your eyes, especially those red bullet trails. I suspect this look was picked because it was quick and easy to implement during its days as a jam baby, but it really works great to boil SUPERHOT down to its essentials–an area, enemies, and all your tools to kill them quickly seen. When you shoot a red guy, he explodes into a bunch of polygons, like a window breaking, and it’s super satisfying to both see and hear. Once you successfully survive a level, the game replays all your actions like a mini action movie trailer, and you can save and edit the replay into GIFs and such, if that’s your thing (it’s not mine). Oh, and one can’t forget the classic bit of the booming “Super, hot!” voiceover that loops after you’ve obliterated every red dude in your way.

I enjoyed playing SUPERHOT; the playing of it was enjoyable. I didn’t really understand a lot of stuff around the edges or what story it was trying to tell, but that didn’t diminish the fun I had from slowly dodging an incoming bullet, throwing my empty pistol into the face of a red dude, catching the shotgun that they tossed upwards, and unleashing a spray of bullets in their direction, all within the blink of an eye. Every room was a puzzle, open to interpretation, and I played a few challenge levels and endless mode after the credits rolled, but it lacked something the frenetic, bouncy campaign had, nor did it do anything new. I’m glad I got to finally play SUPERHOT, and if you’ve not yet…well, it’s time to stop time, get yourself a copy, and start slowly making your way to the complete and total domination of red dudes.

2018 Game Review Haiku, #23 – SUPERHOT

SUPER HOT, SUPER
HOT, SUPER HOT, SUPER HOT
SUPER HOT, SUPER

–

For 2018, I’m mixing things up by fusing my marvelous artwork and even more amazing skills at writing videogame-themed haikus to give you…a piece of artwork followed by a haiku. I know, it’s crazy. Here’s hoping you like at least one aspect or even both, and I’m curious to see if my drawing style changes at all over three hundred and sixty-five days (no leap year until 2020, kids). Okay, another year of 5–7–5 syllable counts is officially a go.