Super Hexagon, Terry Cavanagh, Video Game Review Developer: Terry Cavanagh For iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch); not rated Super Hexagon is a bull ride of a video game, an endeavor in which success means surviving even a scant five seconds. A player may last a full 45 or longer, but only after days or weeks of practice. This is a game that, like Tetris, delivers pleasure with each inevitable failure. The game is as simple as it looks. The player controls a small triangle near the eye of a spiraling maze, a whirling, colorful, psychedelic bathtub drain of barriers and pathways that swiftly converge toward a central point. The player must safely glide the triangle through the ever-tightening maze. Should the triangle bump into any wall, game over. Super Hexagon, like many wonderful games, can be mistaken for both abstract art and self-inflicted punishment. The creator, Terry Cavanagh, is already lauded for his vexing side-scrolling action game VVVVVV, which more or less made him chief tormentor among the indie game development movement's celebrated scene of software sadists. Super Hexagon delivers failure with ferocious frequency, yet it would be wrong to assume that playing a game like this is a mere act of masochism. The best tough video games are stimulants of optimism. Players of Super Hexagon who fail and fail again perpetually believe that they will improve. They see a brighter future beyond their stumbles. They play on because, with each new attempt, they think they more clearly understand the rules to surviving a harsh system. In a season of skepticism about whether the next four years will be better, Super Hexagon at least provides hope for the next four seconds.