One of the things that I tend to love the most about indie game developers, and the games they make, is how daring they can often be, adding or altering key elements of staple genres to make something different. While that can absolutely work out, sometimes even creating a new subgenre practically on their own, it can obviously blow up in their faces as well. New isn’t always better, and there’s no doubt that the reason nobody has tried to make games a certain way sometimes is because they simply don’t work out, even on paper. While I’d prefer to say Hyperwired bucks that trend, and manages to join a handful of other titles that dared to do their own thing, instead I’d say that it feels like it sort of collapses under its own weight overall.

Rather than go the route of some simple and satisfying arcade shooting, the developers have tried to layer in some complexity to make it memorable… and I suppose they’ve at least succeeded in doing that much. You’ll always play in a relatively limited arena of some irregular shape, and while there will be enemies you’ll have to deal with at times, for the most part the actual shooting doesn’t feel like it takes center stage. Instead, you’ll end up having to be focused on what look like a number of floating power outlets that come in a few different colors, linking up to each of them successfully before you can then do the same with the main outlet, allowing you to move onto the next stage. Of course, you’ll also need to keep track of and replenish your energy, conserve your ammo, manage your supply of PETA devices you can use to absorb energy, walk, and chew gum at the same time as well.

A big part of the problem is that while I suppose the tutorial attempts to explain at least some of these elements to you, the guidance is often very limited and not terribly helpful. Worse, even as I began to grasp all of this, it was a struggle to see how any of it was making the game fun… at all. Rather than being focused on action, or even some strategy, it felt like I was fighting with trying to connect to things, wondering when I should disconnect, grabbing stuff, and simply not understanding what I was looking at all too often. The burden when bringing new ideas to market should sit squarely on the shoulders of the developers. The best ideas are typically somewhat intuitive, requiring only mild help and then simply making sense from there. There are then some concepts that may not be as clear, but can at least be understood reasonably with some direction. In this case, it feels like a kitchen sink of ideas got included in the mix, and that perhaps quite a bit of editing would have made for a more cohesive and enjoyable result.