Hyperstar Run and the Art of Button Mashing

 Hyperstar Run is the eighth game by Scott Almes in Button Shy's Simply Solo series, a collection of solitaire games where every game consists of eighteen cards and no other components. And I remember when I was worried there might not be a third game in the series lol

(Transparency Disclosure: I got to be part of the play testing forum Hyperstar Run)

Hyperstar Run is a love letter to an earlier era of video gaming. It is also very much a love letter to button mashing, which might be the same thing. You are trying to complete the last level of a game and you only have four lives to do it. 

Other than your avatar card, which is used to track where you are and how many lives you have left, and two equipment cards, all the cards follow the same format of being a level card. They have a button symbol, two or three challenges that you need button symbols to overcome, and they might have a special power.

You get a hand of the two equipment cards and three level cards. You then create the level by making a line of cards, facedown. The longer the line, the greater the difficulty.  Your goal is to make it the end of the line before you run out of lives.

The core mechanic is simple. You place your avatar at the start of the line, turned to their current number of lives. Cards under the avatar is over are flipped over and stay flipped over. You play cards that match the symbols of one of the challenges on the card to move to the next card. Equipment cards have two symbols. When you can't move any further (and you haven't won), you take your cards back and add the first card in the line to your hand. Move your avatar down a life and start over.

Now, you do not have enough cards to win the game if that was all there was to it. Scott Almes is a clever guy, though, so he's given you some clever tools to work with.

First off, cards that you have completed also count as buttons. You can move them down, so they look like they've been pushed, to use them. They get reset when the level resets. Second, combos. If you use matching symbols to beat a challenge and the next card can be beat with the same matching symbols, you automatically beat that card. If the next card can be beat with the same matching symbols, you can keep on chaining the combo.

Third, some cards have special powers. If you are over a card with a special power, you can flip a card in your hand so its 'facedown' to use that power. You can later discard that card to activate another special power. The special powers let you rearrange the row or make it easier to beat challenges.

While the individual actions in Hyperstar Run are very simple, the actual game comes from figuring how to make them efficient. I particularly like how it is a hand management game where the board is part of the hand you are managing. I've seen it done before but this is still a very good use of the idea.

While the core idea of the game being rearranging the line to be able to maximize combos and buttons is pretty obvious, you still get to experience the sense of discovery as you reveal the cards in the line. You use lives to set up your end run.

I also like how thematic the game feels. While my video game jam is more Animal Crossing or Professor Layton, I do think that Hyperstar Run captures not just the idea of platforming but the idea of button mashing. Which is pretty funny but, hey, its also fun.

My least favorite thing about the game, of all things, is how much table space the row takes up and. since you push buttons down, I don't like to make it two layers of rows. And I admit that that is a pretty petty gripe.

I am solidly in the target demographic for the Simply Solo series. I've enjoyed almost all of them. Hyperstar Run may not be my favorite but I'm happy to have it in the series.