When creating something purely digital, one of the greatest dangers is to create something aseptic. Images too clean, sounds too perfect, scenes too staged. Computer animation studios spend a huge amount of time making things look used or worn, yet their films often still look clean. Hand-drawn and stop motion animation usually do not have this problem because there’s a pretty direct line from their human creators to the result on screen.
Simulating imperfections through noise and post processing gets one only so far. Interestingly, „Super Hexagon“ does not feel aseptic and I wonder why. Because it’s very abstract? Because it’s so fast? It feels „alive“ despite being so geometric. I think the illusion comes from a mixture of music, camera work, and animation. It feels very much hand-made despite being a game largely created through code.
