Hypergun is a game about crafting the ultimate gun by attaching espresso machines, katanas and other objects that don’t usually go with guns to it. It’s a good thing too, because the initial factory-made firearm looks and feels particularly dull and the different attachments not only give it some personality but also increase its power. The game’s premise is cool enough on its own, but gets cooler when you consider that you’re an intern hell-bent on mastering a combat simulation in order to save Earth.

I was plopped in an elevator leading to the DevTech offices, where I could choose between exploring or heading straight for the simulation room. Exploring the office building allowed me to read through Dewey’s colleagues’ sometimes humorous e-mails and find rooms dedicated to showcasing encountered enemies, attachments and their respective stats. The simulation room itself tracks various stats from runs and allows for customizing Dewey’s powers, although I didn’t get to play with more than those given to me by default.

The preview build had just the first level, which saw the action taking place in square, neon-lit rooms. Everytime I entered a new one, enemies began pouring out of purple portals, which led to minutes of running, jumping and gunning. One of the first things I noticed was the gunplay’s weak aural feedback. Whether with a couple of attachments or none whatsoever, shots and their impact sounded very weak. Even the enemies’ grunts, steps and attacks were of pretty low quality, becoming outright annoying when damage over time chipped away at their health, with repetitive, maddening grunts playing repeatedly until they’d kick the bucket.

Hypergun’s action unraveled at a steady pace, doubled by a cool synthwave track playing in the background. I dug the lack of emphasis on breakneck speed, but Hypergun’s encounters dragged on for a little too long in their current state. This was, no doubt, also due to bullets hitting with the strength of wet socks. One of the first enemy types I encountered were these snipers that deployed shields in front of them. These shields could be taken out by sustained fire to a specific area, but with the initial damage output, I had to rely on one of Dewey’s powers which gradually increased fire rate to take snipers out reliably. Even with a generous amount of energy that quickly recovered once I took the finger off the trigger, this translated to more circling around foes than I was up to.

Levels usually involved some form of elevation in the shape of ramps. While there were a couple of differing layouts, they didn’t add a lot to the action. While good for tricking, funneling enemies down them for easier killing or breaking line of sight, they couldn’t break the initial monotony of every new run. Dewey’s powers which included a fire rate increase, the ability to throw to go coffee cups as grenades and double jumping, although cool to use, also became stale a bit too quickly. Things did, however, pick up once I started getting more attachments, especially ones that came with a higher damage increase or another active ability that shot more death at my foes. The pace at which I got these attachments, however, was at the mercy of the game’s procedural generation.

Aside from in-game stores and chests, which use bits and keys that drop from foes, attachments can be purchased from the office. This, however, only offers a chance of them dropping in levels.  I always started with one random attachment and a gun that felt underpowered. Some runs were more bountiful than others but even in some of those, the different attachments would only increase power by a small margin. Then, there were others where my gun had all sorts of silly decorations on it, killed enemies at a faster rate and also shot poison lasers. It’s easy, I trust, to see which ones I had more fun with.

Random pickups are par for the course in rogue-lites, but the discrepancy between runs in the preview build was a bit too large. In between an underwhelming starting weapon and a small number of enemies that I had to circle around a little too much before they’d die, there were a good number of runs that didn’t necessarily make me eager to restart. On the flipside, when attachments were more plentiful, I did go about exploring, even if most of them were just modifiers to damage, velocity and the likes. This small slice of Hypergun didn’t quite blow me away, but its aesthetic and soundtrack, alongside a certain curiosity regarding how many more objects can fit on one gun has me eager to check out its full build later this month.

Bogdan Robert, NoobFeed
Twitter