I caught up with Anakin (CosmicGriffin) and David (Xgarhontx), the minds behind HYPERFATAL—a blazing-fast FPS packed with rocket jumps, style, and pure chaos. We talked about how it all started and where it’s headed.
Tell us a little about yourself and how you got started in game development.
Anakin & David: I’ve been a gamer all my life and have always had an interest in everything related to game development. Initially growing up I never thought it’d be possible, but doing things over the course of my life like 3D modelling, animation, and music started becoming the building blocks for skills I’d need for game dev. I never got involved with it until 2020 when I first made a game as coding practice before taking a programming course in college.
What inspired your latest game, and what was the initial vision behind it?
Anakin & David: Our game wasn’t initially inspired by anything at first. David (Xgarhontx) and I came up with a bunch of ideas on a google doc to make a random game, and “Rocket Jumping is how you jump” spawned the very first iteration of what HYPERFATAL is today. The first iteration of the game had very jank movement, had no jump button, and lots of enemy spam. Our first map that we used to test the combat loop and AI is a level in the game now known as Sand Coliseum. Originally, the project was just going to be no more than 3 months long, and only be a singular level with a really fun combat loop.
Showing the game to some friends of ours proved to be insightful, since it sucked as is. We knew we were onto something, but things had to change. One day I came home from work to find that David had completely changed the movement to be quake movement, where airstrafing, bunny hopping, surfing, and rocket jumping were now essential to the combat loop. At first I wasn’t totally on board with the change, but after doing a run of the level, it completely blew me away how fun it was and to our friends as well. This one change single handedly spawned an addictive movement shooter with the potential to be great.
Continuing on in development, we were very obviously inspired by DOOM Eternal and ULTRAKILL in terms of handling encounters and the progression of levels, tastefully implementing what works in those games and making it our own.
What were some of the biggest challenges you faced during development?
Anakin & David: Time and manpower. Since we are a team of two with our own specialties that make a whole, it takes a lot of time to make most of what is in the game, since we wear ALL of the hats. On top of that, we have our own lives that we are living and are making HYPERFATAL on the side, with the hopes of becoming full time indie game developers with our own studio some day. Delays have been a constant for the game, but we hope to get an accurate timeline soon for when we can release it.
Is there a particular moment or feature in your game that you’re especially proud of?
Anakin & David: I believe we both can agree that we are proud of everything niche about the game, and leaning into it as the main selling point. You will find few, maybe hardly any games, that focus on the mechanics we settled on and drive it home for hardcore fans of airstrafe, surf, and rocket jumping, whilst getting it teachable for a general movement shooter audience that may have never even played games with these mechanics before, and still perform as well as an experienced player in under an hour or two of gameplay.
How do you approach balancing creativity with the realities of budget, time, and resources?
Anakin & David: This question has changed with time for us, since we have become much better developers over the first year of HYPERFATAL’s development. I think following the advice of experienced gamedevs have helped us balance this well.
Knowing how simple our game is supposed to be visually and sometimes mechanically, we can break down our creative vision into little parts to see on paper just how much time and resources it requires to implement something, then proceed if it’s worth it for the game.
What advice would you give to aspiring indie developers just starting out?
Anakin & David: No matter how crummy it may seem visually or mechanically or even how messy the code is, conceptualize a prototype for your idea. If it’s good, you will always be able to rewrite or remake it cleanly. If it isn’t fun, then you will have saved yourself loads of time. Learn from the mistakes and common advice of other devs, or risk repeating their shortcomings and possibly not creating your game.
What’s next for you — any future projects or updates in the works?
Anakin & David: We know we want to keep creating games together after HYPERFATAL, but for now this game is our current focus until we get it to its full potential.
Where can people follow your work or support your game?
Anakin & David: You can find us on Youtube at “XCosmicXGamesYT” “Xgarhontx“, and on Discord here: https://discord.gg/MT3PB7EhdQ
