Imagine Cup presentation for a never released game.

1. Hypergon
Of blocks and sound

2. The Dev
Julien Noble – 22 years old
French Microsoft Student
Partner
5th year at Ingesup
Bordeaux
Indie game dev (Cubeslam)
Previous titles : Ecosya,
SpaceShooterz

3. The problem : music & games
•Learning music is hard.
•It’s not fun and requires a lot of
training.
•Music learning games are tough
and tend to be boring.
•Games are simple and fun.
•Games are not appreciated as
learning mediums.
•There are lots of musical games,
but few who trully teach.
There is no middle ground between
learning music and having fun

4. Solution part 1 : Adaptive difficulty
If the player is good, then
the difficulty goes up.
If on the contrary, the player
can’t keep up, lower the
difficulty.
Machine learning is created
based on player stats to
create adapted learning
curve.
Gameplay
Lower difficulty
Higher difficulty
End stage
Bad stage score
Good stage score
Simplified difficulty system

5. Solution part 2 : Procedural music
Music is also adaptative as a
certain sample is linked to a
difficulty : speed, step, nuance,
and other paramaters.
Music is generated realtime
from precomposed loops.
A song ends when the player
wants or when a game over
occurs.
Loop 1 Loop 2 Loop 3
Song
generator
Ongoing song
Simplified song system

6. Solution part 3 : Simple yet addictive
What makes a game good? The fact that
people keep coming back to it.
The goal is to create a very simple gameplay
that keeps the player entertained for short
and long periods of time.
Player stress must be controlled so that
he/she is never bored or panicked.
Scoring is important, it motivates the player
to go further.
This corelates with adaptative difficulty and
procedural music
Stress
Time
Stress chart over time
Player Stress Minimum Stress Maximum Stress

7. Technical solution
Target hardware is tablets, for confortable screen size
and good inputs on screen. The goal is to launch on
stores such as the Windows 8 store, the Google Play
and the AppStore.
The first prototype will be targetting primarely
Windows desktop though, for testing purposes. A
mobile version is also scheduled, so that the game
is playable anywhere, anyhow.
To this end, we have kept Unity2D as our prefered
work environment, as it intergrates every single of
our needs and allows us a simple export towards
specific systems.
The linked IDE is Visual Studio 2013 and the two
main languages are C# and Javascript.

8. Result :
Hypergon
Showed screenshots do not represent
final art and gameplay.
Fast paced rythm tetris like game. Based on
multiple small tetris like paths that are
controlled by the music.
Gameplay difficulty is governed by
• Speed
• Step
• Nuance
Music is progressive, going from light
soothing sounds to very fast and hard
sounds.
Please refer to video for gameplay demo.

9. Core gameplay
Music controls how fast the path updates.
A game starts with a fixed amount of paths
forming the Hypergon, then a certain number
of paths are choosed randomly to be
« active ».
Active paths can generate new blocks that fall
down to create lines.
The player can move left/right and rotate the
current block. The block falls down straight
once a threshold is passed, usualy a musical
measure.
A new block is created on another path, and if
the last block created lines, they are deleted
and score is added.
Deleting a line spawns a bonus/malus on the
path. Picking one up is done by deleting its
line. Once picked up, it is stored in the bonus
buffer to be used.
Bonuses can alter positively a selected path,
like delete the bottom line. Maluses do the
contrary, like adding lines. Buffer order is
fixed, and bonuses and maluses must be used
to disapear from it.
The player can rotate the Hypergon to change
which sides are active.
Difficulty is ajusted via stages that
materialize loops of certain difficulty. At the
end of each stage, the player is given an
appreciation based on his/her performances
on last stage.

10. Two views, two philosophies
FLAT VIEW HYPERGON VIEW
• Auto camera switch on current controlled
path
• Simple precise view on what I’m playing
• Global view for game status (looks like I’m
losing)
• Precise view of all active paths
Showed screenshots do not represent final art and gameplay.

11. Going further
Current prototype implements simple learning
machine for difficulty adapting, but a lot more
parameters can be taken in account : player input,
average time to block position decision, etc…
To further interest the player, a background story is
planned, based on a lab testing out player reflexes.
The final art will stay minimalistic, to give better
readability to the player, but also put him/her into a
clean environment you can find in a high tech lab.
Current prototype also implements only one bonus
and one malus. Final release will include many
options of the like : switch, clear path, quake, clears
bonuses, etc… much in the fashion of the popular
Tetrinet.

12. Business plan
Hypergon is planned to be released on every
major store as a one time pay app. Current
price overlooks indicate that the $1.99 - $2.49
price range is viable as there is no equivalent
of this game on mobile devices (tablets and
phones alike).
The game will be released with a full Original
Soundtrack (OST) written by
NOPENOPENOPEEE, and the OST will also be
available as a buyable CD.
Hypergon has a concept that plays well with
inapp purchases : we plan to offer new OSTs
regularly for a small supplementary fee to
keep the player with fresh loops and new
difficulties.
We also have different play modes : the first
two available on launch will be « Original
Song » and « Procedural Song ». We have also
thought of « Speed Song » where the player
must get the ending loop of the song as fast
as possible, and even network games, where
players challenge themselves in realtime.
We are thinking about opening submissions
from other artists, but there are technical
requirements for the adaptative difficulty to
happen. We will stay open to different genres
of music to please everyone’s taste.
Public release is set on september 2014.

13. Wrap-up
Hypergon is a fast paced musical tetris like with a dimensional twist. It’s easy to take
on and teaches you to follow the music. The aim is for the player to understand what
rhythm, speed and step mean in music.
The whole system is dictated by a machine learning system that queries the player
stats to adapt progression and difficulty. The point is to never lose the player on our
part.
The Original Soundtrack is composed by NOPENOPENOPE, and will be available with
public release.
The prototype is fully playable and represents a stable gameplay proof of concept.