Hyper Mild Breaker is a hoverboard sim. Technically, it’s a third-person roguelite journey set in a luminous fantasy-cyberpunk universe, however after enjoying a 30-minute preview, it’s clear to me that Hyper Mild Breaker is all concerning the hoverboard. Vicious beasts, secret alcoves and glossy weapons are secondary to the sensation of gliding over inexperienced hills and shallow waters on my glowing blue slab, discovering pleasure in narrowly avoiding enemy encounters.
Deliberately skipping battles was in all probability the alternative of what lead animator Chris Bullock wished me to do through the first public hands-on alternative with Hyper Mild Breaker — but when that had been the case, then he shouldn’t have advised me concerning the hoverboard.
Hyper Mild Breaker is ready to go dwell in early entry on Steam this summer season, full with three-player on-line co-op. Builders at Coronary heart Machine are letting individuals play it for the primary time at Day of the Devs: San Francisco Version, which is held along with GDC this week. I performed a distant preview of the sport at residence, solo type, whereas Bullock watched on Discord (and doubtless cringed an entire lot).
Breaker is an open-world recreation with a hub station referred to as the Cursed Outpost, a futuristic strip mall with retailers, improve stations and NPCs. I briefly explored the outpost, however the bulk of the sport performs out within the Overgrowth, a panorama of ever-shifting biomes, and I targeted on diving into these. Biomes within the Overgrowth are constructed with hand-crafted and procedurally generated components in order that gamers won’t ever enter the identical realm twice, and every one has a boss to defeat referred to as a Crown. Regardless of my want to peacefully hoverboard by the half-hour demo, I messed round with two loadouts, took out a couple of slime hordes and twice tried to slay a type of Crowns — an enormous bipedal wolf warrior with a golden sword named Dro.
In each of my battles with Dro, she began attacking immediately and with unimaginable drive, swinging her blade wildly as she leapt in an enormous arc throughout a temple and straight onto my head. I dodged and tried to refill her stagger meter by touchdown fundamental assaults with my sword and firearm, however the wolf was relentless, particularly in contrast with the essential enemies I simply dispatched across the biome.
Dro defeated me twice. On the finish of every combat, I heard the sport’s siren music luring me in, making me consider I might beat the massive unhealthy wolf subsequent time, if I simply employed an up to date technique. Parrying was key on this combat, in accordance with Bullock.
“Her first opening assault, you instantly went for the parry on that,” Bullock mentioned as I ready to combat the boss once more. “I really like that you just picked that up instantly; that was the intention on that one.”
The parry had been an accident on my half, however I’d instantly seen how efficient it was, giving me a half-second on the very starting of the encounter to step again and strategize. What I’d skilled with the parry was a fury assault, Bullock defined. Some beasts in Hyper Mild Breaker glow crimson after which carry out huge strikes that should be completely parried with a purpose to cancel out the injury, reverse a projectile or stun the enemy. With a fury assault, a non-perfect parry will mitigate some injury solely.
“That’s positively the design aim, to make the fight clear, know if you’re doing one thing properly,” Bullock mentioned.
These moments of tactical readability are precisely what makes a roguelike or roguelite addictive. I can see beat the boss; now I simply should get ok on the recreation to implement these strikes earlier than I am killed.
There’s no dialogue in Hyper Mild Breaker, very similar to its predecessor, Hyper Mild Drifter. Drifter was an extremely trendy 2D motion RPG that got here out in 2016 after a couple of years of crowdfunding and vital hype, and it solidified Coronary heart Machine’s popularity as a stellar indie studio. Hyper Mild Breaker is technically a prequel to Drifter, because it’s set 15 years earlier than the occasions of that recreation.
Drifter co-designer Teddy Dief went on to discovered Workforce OFK and launch the musical visible novel We Are OFK, whereas lead developer Alx Preston caught with Coronary heart Machine and launched Photo voltaic Ash in 2021. Very similar to Breaker, Photo voltaic Ash is ready in the identical normal universe as Hyper Mild Drifter, but it surely’s a vastly completely different recreation and it’s not a direct sequel. Photo voltaic Ash is a third-person motion platformer constructed round an extremely satisfying glide-step mechanic, and its world is full of alien environments, large monsters and vaguely threatening deities.
“Hyper Mild was a method for me to get began, it was a method for me to be extra grounded and put collectively a crew and perceive, can I do that? Can I truly make video games?” Preston advised me in 2021, through the lead-up to Photo voltaic Ash’s launch. “And so having answered that query, then the pure subsequent step for me was one thing in 3D. Can I put one thing on the market that actually opens up the world and makes you are feeling like you may actually escape into one thing, a creation that’s otherworldly, that you just in any other case would not have the expertise of? Numerous my childhood was spent escaping into these greater experiences.”
Breaker seems like the proper amalgamation of Hyper Mild Drifter and Photo voltaic Ash. Change the Photo voltaic Ash ice skates with a hoverboard, add some buddies and also you’re set. Builders at Coronary heart Machine plan to maintain Hyper Mild Breaker in early entry for a few yr, although they famous that this timeline would possibly change with participant suggestions.
The complete launch of Hyper Mild Breaker will assist as much as three gamers in on-line co-op, and it’ll have a handful of characters to select from, every with customizable loadouts. I attempted out a fundamental, slashy blade and a hefty buster sword, plus an ordinary rifle and a shotgun-type firearm, they usually every carried out properly, although I ran out of ammo rapidly and sometimes. The heavy sword was slower than the easy blade, but it surely moved easily and hit onerous. Within the Cursed Outpost earlier than loading up a brand new biome, I used to be additionally in a position to choose 4 skills referred to as Holobytes from a few dozen choices, akin to elevated armor or sooner therapeutic. My favourite trait was the blooming corpse seed, which planted an exploding AOE flower on the our bodies of slain enemies.
However as soon as Bullock advised me that hoverboarding was an choice, it was all I wished to do. I spent an excellent chunk of my Hyper Mild Breaker demo time gliding alongside the brilliant inexperienced grass, touchdown small jumps and infrequently falling right into a pond. I’m nonetheless itching to seek out Dro once more and fine-tune my parrying skills throughout a variety of weapons (and corpse flowers). Principally although, I’ll be dreaming of that brilliant blue board till Hyper Mild Breaker hits early entry this summer season.