Did you ever play Super Hexagon ($2.99) and think, “this was too easy?" Well, congratulations, Superhyper ($1.99) is just the game you’ve been looking for, you masochist. It’s got the gameplay of a lane-based endless runner, mixed with pretty much everything Super Hexagon was about, and drenched in hot sauce. This is a game so challenging, it may be weeks before anyone unlocks its ultimate difficulty level. It’s fair but downright cruel, the kind of game that’s worth playing again and again just to prove it wrong.

How difficult is Superhyper? Well, it’s so hard that four people in the world have unlocked the second of the four modes, Hyper. And one is Sets and Settings’ Folmer Kelly. And I’m pretty sure one of the others has played the game in a pre-release build with Superhyper mode unlocked as they have not gotten near the 500 points to unlock the next mode in Hyper. And no one’s even touched the last difficulty, #SUPERHYPER, which I don’t even want to know about the difficulty in that. Scoring 500 to unlock a new mode is absurdly high, 250 seems like a fair middle ground between “we need to prove that you’re skilled enough before you can advance" and “we need to prove that you’re the Michael Jordan of Superhyper before you can advance."

The composition of the game’s challenge comes in three different facets. There’s the hazards, which come in sequences. The type of sequence is indicated by the color of the ground, but the order of hazards is random within that sequence. Second is the speed – the game starts fast and gets faster at 100, 250, and 500 points. Maybe even beyond that, but I couldn’t tell you. It took a lot of work just to score 500 on Super. But also, the game has incredibly tight timing windows for the boost forward, so you have to be very careful when boosting to actually bypass gaps and obstacles. The warp winds up going farther when the game speeds up, so it does mitigate the challenge a bit when things get faster, ever so slightly. But each sequence is beatable on its own. There’s just enough room for failure, that stacked up one after another at high speeds, that’s where it all gets overwhelming.

The controls are a mixed bag, and it’s due in part to the speedy nature of the game, as well as the fact that three commands are needed: left, right, and boost. There’s three different control schemes: swipes, taps, and virtual buttons. The virtual buttons are the best solution, because there’s a fatal flaw to swipes and taps each. Swipes don’t do a good enough job at allowing for the quick movement between lanes, they wind up harming reaction time just enough that they’re not that easy to work with. Taps are a great idea, because they allow for that left-right movement with each thumb that allows for lightning-quick reactions from lane to lane. But tapping both sides simultaneously to boost is inaccurate and difficult to do reliably. This game is hard enough without fighting the controls.

So, the virtual buttons wind up working best, as they have the fewest flaws. Moving left/right with buttons on the left side works well enough, though I feel like my reactions are a bit slower with them. But they’re consistent – and the boost on the right side is consistent. What would be the most ideal might be a hybrid of the taps and buttons, with left/right movement on each side, and boosting on the inside, similar to how Cosmophony ($2.99) would work ideally, to get that combo of directional taps with reliable boosting.

I really have a lot to complain about with Superhyper, but I also have trouble putting it down. I think it’s kind of like eating really spicy buffalo wings. The torture is part of the fun, and afterward you can say, with just enough regret and maybe a little heartburn, that what you just did was very hard, you could have done something much more pleasant, but it was totally worth it in the end.

So, if you like your games challenging to the point of regretful misery, go buy Superhyper. As commenter ‘rabid’ said, “Thats what i would imagine is on the only arcade machine in hell." Playing this game is downright hellish, but the fun kind that you enjoy and regret!