After a week-old hiatus, the Indie Game Spotlight is back, but this week, the spotlight is shining a bit dimmer. Although most of our reports deal with games that are already out, it is time to look at a game that isn’t really out but instead is in development. However a demo of the game was made for the 7 Day FPS Challenge, a yearly challenge given to indie developers to make an FPS in a week. It deserves some recognition. Welcome to SuperHOT.

As mentioned before, SuperHOT was made in 7 days on the Unity engine. Graphics are simplistic, but they do not clash or seem out of place. Lighting effects are great and the physics work, even if the physics are not what you perceive them to be–more on that later. The enemies are just humanoid shapes that may shoot at you or simply walk around.

Each of the small levels have one objective: kill all the enemies. This proves to be a challenge, as most of the enemies are armed while you are not at first. The plot is simplistic, as again this was made in a week, but it makes you think about free will and the like. With flashing words on the screen and the words “SuperHOT” repeated over and over at the beginning, it gives off a feeling of madness more than anything else. It is strange and awesome at the same time.

The one aspect of SuperHOT that makes this game stand out is the concept behind it. In SuperHOT, time only moves when you do. Enemies shoot bullets, boxes fly and physics happen only when your character moves. Time doesn’t freeze but moves extremely slowly. Being able to dodge bullets or slice them out of the air makes you actually believe that you are Neo from The Matrix.

Now, the game has a development team of 7 people and a kickstarter campaign that has already reached its goal of $100,000. The campaign will continue to run until June 14, where different goals can be unlocked, including the already unlocked speedrun mode. The game is set to be released on PC, Mac, and Linux and have Oculus Rift support (Let us hope that an additional goal will allow it to come to consoles!).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vi_JBJ5yoE

The game’s prototype that was available on September 2013 is still available online here. I urge players to at least take the game for a spin and possibly back it on Kickstarter.

Shawn Richards studies games to understand how they work. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook.