Overview
In this short guide, I briefly explain how to go through black-white mode.
Introduction
(First of all, sorry for my bad English grammar.)
Black-White (BW) mode in Super Hexagon is appeared when the Hyper Hexagonest level is beated. You can see it after playing 360s (Hexagon), 240s (Hexagoner), 120s (Hexagonest), 300s (Hyper Hexagon), 180s (Hyper Hexagoner), or 60s (Hyper Hexagonest). In BW mode, patterns appeared in Hyper Hexagoner and Hyper Hexagonest will appear.
The BW mode is very different from other six modes in few but important ways:
- The whole stage is not rotating most times.
- Patterns in Hyper Hexagoner and Hyper Hexagonest both appear.
- It can be played indefinitely.
While it requires a lot of practice, the BW mode can be “beaten”; which will result in sudden increase of the score. (For me the score went something like 400s -> 800s -> 1500s.) In this guide, I will cover how I almost conquered the BW mode.
(Actually, I still can’t cover a pattern well: a solo C followed by triple C, where holes are located in top and bottom. However, this case is not common.)
I will re-use the definition I used in the previous guide.
The Pointer is the triangle thing you’re controlling.
A Part is a part of sides of a hexagon, which you should avoid through its holes.
A Pattern is a collection of parts which appears many times.
A C-shaped part is most abundant part in Super Hexagon; only 1 side of 6 sides are not blocked.
1 unit is the amount how much you rotate to move the pointer to the next side. (60 degree)
R: 1 unit CW, L: 1 unit CCW, M: 1 unit move (either left or right)
2R is a single 2-unit CW rotation while RR is two 1-unit CW rotation.
Since all whirlpool patterns in this guide are double whirlpools, I will say “whirlpool” instead of “double whirlpool”.
What to do
In my experience, this was somehow the easiest step.
This was the hardest thing to do. If you just beat the game, then your average score is probably around 30s. However, to practice BW mode, you must practice enough to beat Hyper Hexagonest with high success rate.
Get used to what kind of patterns appear and how to handle those. Get used to how much you should move. Get used to fail a lot.
If you are being used to Hyper Hexagonest and you want to know what things in Hyper Hexagonest are important, then continue reading this guide, and learn what things in Hyper Hexagonest you should be used to play BW mode.
“Get used to it” in BW mode means a lot.
- The rotation pattern is different. If you are used to Hyper Hexagonest, then sudden rotations in BW mode is not very hard to follow, but sometimes you will lost where you are. Prepare the sudden rotations, and do not loose where your pointer is.
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Move your pointer to the (vertical) middle as much as possible. Look at the screenshot at right. As you can see, single C with hole at top or bottom is quite difficult to handle, because it is not clear where the hole is. It can be too late to avoid when the pointer is at the bottom while the hole is at the top. To avoid those situations, as you can watch from my video at top, I usually bring my pointer to middle as much as possible, even when it is not safe thing to do.
- Sometimes you will make some mistakes. Making mistakes are OK, but it is very important to manage such mistakes and continue playing. When you made a mistake, you should know immediately you made some mistake. Then, you should know how much you should turn, and turn as quickly as possible, to cover the mistake. Doing this is very important, because not making mistakes is impossible, but managing mistakes are quite possible.
- Concentrate. When you’re about to set a new PR, then don’t think something like ‘It is only 5 seconds before new record… OMG OMG…’. It is the fastest way to die. Only look at the timer when you just entered long and easy patterns like whirlpool, and even then, do not take too much time watching the timer. If you failed to recognize a pattern for 0.5 seconds because of thinking something else or watching timer, then you will die.
Patterns you should be used to
Also, when the whole stage is rapidly rotating, knowing how much you should move is very important, since sometimes it is hard to follow where your pointer is, unless you know where the point will be in the next moment. Knowing that Whirlpool = 1 full rotation + 1M makes it easier.
If first holes of these patterns are located at top or bottom, they are all look alike. Since going to wrong direction results in unrecoverable mistake, quick and accurate classification of these patterns is very important, and it is most important thing to do in the BW mode.
First of all, since it can’t be known quickly where the hole is (at top, bottom), the pointer should be moved to middle. Then, look at following parts to find out whether it is triple-C or not. This can be found out by looking at distances between parts. It is possible to distinguish between stair and multi-C, but it is not easy and is not necessary to do.
Right after the location of the first hole is exposed, quickly move to there. You should not pre-determine where your pointer should move before the location is known, because if it turns out to be wrong, then you probably will die. (It is possible to rotate 3M after the first hole is exposed, but it’s quite hard to do (at least for me).)
You should be calm, and you should not hurry. Again, do not pre-determine where you should move. Only move when the correct location is known.
Actually, this pattern is one of a few (if not only) patterns I still can’t manage well. While I’m bad at this, some with fast reaction time may find this easy, and might truly conquer the Super Hexagon.
This is very tricky, because it rarely occures (IIRC it never happened in the video at the top), so practicing this pattern is quite hard, but it is very hard to manage, because first two parts of this and plain triple-C is quite similar, yet the location of the third hole differ by 3M. There is just enough time to turn 3M, so it is very important to accurately and fastly know whether it’s just a plain triple-C or solo + triple C, by not moving a while and look whether there is a hole in the opposite side.
My suggestion is to play Open Hexagon; some of those levels contain some situations where one should decide whether to stay or rotate 3M. (My current thinking is that the developer of Super Hexagon made the game to take this case separately to appear this pattern rarely, but I’m not sure.)