Cita:gamasutra[/url]"]Super Hexagon's success on iOS has taken developer Terry Cavanagh very much by surprise. The game, an expansion on Cavanagh's original Pirate Kart entry Hexagon, sold more than 10,000 copies in its first three days on sale in the App Store -- a total that the dev never dreamed was possible for a seemingly niche experience.

Not that it surprised the rest of us. With such iconic titles as VVVVVV, At a Distance, Don't Look Back and Pathways already under his belt, it seems like Cavanagh can do no wrong.

Cavanagh's first foray into the world of iOS development went off without a hitch, thanks to his smooth gelling with the Adobe AIR environment, and a concept that struck a chord with the iOS audience. Players rotate an arrow around a hexagon-shaped playing field, dodging through gaps and second-guessing morphing shapes to survive for as long as possible before hitting a wall.

"Making Hexagon for the Pirate Kart didn't get the game out of my system," Cavanagh tells Gamasutra. "It's something I kept thinking about for months after I'd released it. I felt like I'd stumbled onto something really primal, and I wanted to spent some time exploring it properly."

He adds, "I didn't expect it would turn into quite as big a project as it did, though." The original was released just over six months ago, and can still be played on Cavanagh's website.

Most notable about Super Hexagon is its similarities to Cavanagh's other most popular title VVVVVV. Both games feature rather masochist gameplay, killing players over and over again at high speed, but allowing quick restarts to ease the potential frustration.

While you might assume that Cavanagh purposely makes his games hair-pullingly difficult, he says this honestly isn't really the case -- rather, he just tries to balance the difficulty to levels that he believes to be the most enjoyable.

"I guess it just sort of happens naturally," he notes. "Most of the time I spent working on Super Hexagon, I spent tweaking things, playing it again, gradually improving it little by little with each iteration. It feels the way it does because that's what feels good to me."

Cavanagh's next port of call is to provide PC and Android builds of Super Hexagon before diving back into work on his Nexus City RPG with fellow indie dev Jonas Kyratzes. Nexus City definitely has one of Cavanagh's longer cycles for a game, having been in development since the start of 2010.

Whatever the plan, it will no doubt receive as much attention as his prior works when it's eventually ready.

Cita:edge[/url]"]
Terry CavanaghÔÇÖs probably the closest thing the indie development scene has to its own Mark Rothko. The 28-year-old designer makes brooding, claustrophobic, and rather stark games, using simple tools and limited palettes ÔÇô and they all seem to hinge on a single idea. ItÔÇÖs a surprise, then, to learn that his favourite game of all time is Final Fantasy VII, SquareÔÇÖs 1997 rambling RPG. ÔÇ£People always seem shocked by that,ÔÇØ laughs Cavanagh, who was born in Ireland and now lives in Cambridge, ÔÇ£but Final Fantasy VII was the game that made me want to be a game designer, and I think the reason was that it introduced me to a lot of new ideas IÔÇÖd never seen before.

ÔÇ£IÔÇÖm pretty sure that it was the first RPG IÔÇÖd ever played,ÔÇØ he continues. ÔÇ£My cousin had just got a PlayStation, and before that IÔÇÖd only played games on the Commodore 64 and on a friendÔÇÖs Sega Genesis. To encounter this whole new genre was a pretty big thing. Then to encounter such an obliquely story-driven game was also totally new for me. ItÔÇÖs probably seen as being quite clichéd now, but the gameÔÇÖs about mind control and clones and all these things IÔÇÖd never really seen stories tackle. You really get the impression when you play that game that it was trying to push the boundaries. It just felt like a huge step forward, and it was a massive thing for me to see that games could be like this. It was a huge thing to see that they could have so many ambitions.ÔÇØ


VVVVVV
ÔÇÿAmbitionÔÇÖ is a word that crops up quite a lot whenever Cavanagh talks about games; itÔÇÖs a quality thatÔÇÖs clearly very important to him, even if he ultimately struggles to define exactly what he means by it. Ask him about VVVVVV ÔÇô the gravity-switching platformer that stands today as his most mainstream success ÔÇô and heÔÇÖll say that, while itÔÇÖs the biggest game heÔÇÖs ever made, itÔÇÖs a shame that it isnÔÇÖt really the most, well, ambitious thing in the world.

ÔÇ£To me now, VVVVVV is almost an indulgence,ÔÇØ he laughs. ÔÇ£ItÔÇÖs a game I was making because I enjoyed the process of making it so much. I got into it in a big way and I loved the process of coming up with new ideas for it, but I donÔÇÖt think VVVVVV really does anything hugely new. ItÔÇÖs a refinement and I like to think itÔÇÖs a well-designed game, but itÔÇÖs not really pushing things forward very much. AmbitionÔÇÖs about putting part of yourself into the game, making it really personal ÔÇô and that doesnÔÇÖt mean it has to be some dull art game, either. IÔÇÖm incredibly proud of VVVVVV, but I hope ten years from now, when IÔÇÖm looking back on some of the other games IÔÇÖve made, that IÔÇÖm known for more ambitious things than that.ÔÇØ

Looking back over just the last four years ÔÇô the period since Cavanagh left his job at a bank to become a full-time game developer ÔÇô heÔÇÖs already become known for his prodigious output, at least. On his website, in a note accompanying his 2010 portfolio, he admits that he worked on over 54 different games that year. This is how he has approached design up until now ÔÇô sketching out an idea, and then seeing if it grabs him.

ÔÇ£When I say I worked on 54 games in 2010, 90 per cent of those werenÔÇÖt finished,ÔÇØ he cautions. ÔÇ£I usually get really attached to any idea I work on for more than a day or two. I start to think of it as a really big thing. Normally, though, if I work on it for more than that, it starts to become clear whether itÔÇÖs going to work or not.ÔÇØ

When talking about the games that he actually completes, he often says the same sort of thing: he was messing around and ÔÇ£got carried away with itÔÇØ, or ÔÇ£it just took overÔÇØ. Creativity for Cavanagh seems to be a dynamic, almost intoxicating force. He often makes himself sound powerless in its presence.

ThatÔÇÖs not to say that CavanaghÔÇÖs games donÔÇÖt have distinctive elements in common. Many of them, like Pathways and the collaborative multiplayer puzzler At A Distance, focus on unique approaches to interactive storytelling, moving in close to explore the peculiar difficulties of human communication. Others, meanwhile, go in completely the opposite direction, offering pared-back arcade action with next to no extraneous elements.


Hexagon

ÔÇ£Even when I was a teenager, making games in QBasic, I was making things that were very pure action games,ÔÇØ says Cavanagh. ÔÇ£Minimal, no-bullshitting arcade experiences. Over the years for jams, competitions ÔÇô any excuse ÔÇô IÔÇÖd make some games that touched on that same sort of feeling. I made a game called Self Destruct thatÔÇÖs about flying really, really fast and absorbing bullets and then flinging them out again. ItÔÇÖs super chaotic, and it usually lasts about 20 seconds. I made another game called Bullet Time thatÔÇÖs even faster and even more chaotic, and even purer in some ways.ÔÇØ
Cavanagh has spent a large part of 2012 working on this kind of game, after creating a brutally tough action puzzler called Hexagon, in which the player tries to escape from a maze as its luminous walls close in.

ÔÇ£[Super Hexagon]is a game I really had to make,ÔÇØ he says. ÔÇ£The reason I do these sorts of games is that I feel like IÔÇÖm in a different headspace, and thatÔÇÖs where I am with this one. The original Hexagon was made in a couple of hours and, after I made it, I realised I wanted to take longer to do it properly for once. I knew there was something there that I hadnÔÇÖt explored and that I kept coming back to. Instead of the usual way I work ÔÇô where I overthink everything and obsess about details ÔÇô this is more like intuition, and every decision is just what feels good. What feels good drives everything. Super Hexagon is me taking that feeling and trying to do it right, over a longer period. It feels like the end-point of one of these strands of specific ideas I tend to work in: itÔÇÖs where some of these games were going.ÔÇØ

Cavanagh put over four monthsÔÇÖ work into readying Super Hexagon for iOS, and he admits that itÔÇÖs part of a wider trend, as he increasingly focuses on bigger projects that take a little more planning. With an RPG called Nexus City on the way ÔÇô itÔÇÖs a long-standing collaboration with the designer Jonas Kyratzes ÔÇô and another game already pencilled in once that oneÔÇÖs finished, the inveterate prototypist might just be starting to settle down somewhat.

ÔÇ£Things are changing a little,ÔÇØ Cavanagh admits. ÔÇ£I used to emerge from a game jam with eight fairly small, finished games ÔÇô theyÔÇÖd all be ridiculous, but it was rewarding to do. The last one I went to, I came away with just two, and neither of them are finished yet.ÔÇØ He pauses.

ÔÇ£But I do think they could both be good games if I finished them properly ÔÇô and IÔÇÖm happier with them than with all those eight small games.ÔÇØ

For more on Cavanagh's work, read our reviews of Super Hexagon and VVVVVV.