Heart Machine has provided a small update on Hyper Light Breaker, alongside new details about the game’s procedural world generation and tech art systems.
The studio uploaded a post to Steam yesterday (July 19) with a myriad of details about these technical achievements in the game, with a number of videos also showing off how everything works.
“Originally, before it was called HyperDec, the procedural “decking” system was built out to be able to evaluate the height of terrain at a given XY position & procedurally populate those spaces with props,” wrote Heart Machine.
Hyper Light Breaker is a 3D take on Hyper Light Drifter, with both open biomes and procedurally generated areas for a roguelite element to the game, with Heart Machine explaining how it developed HyperFab to help creates these randomly generated areas.
A HyperFab is essentially a premade in-game prop or object arrangement (which is often reused in development) that can adapt to the height and shape of the different terrain it’s being placed on.
“It doesn’t have to just be for small arrangements though; entire city blocks have been baked into a HyperFab, which conforms to varying terrain as expected.”
What Heart Machine appears to be showcasing is how it’s developed a large number of tools to help with procedural generation, to make sure that the step away from a concise overworld feels natural and hand-crafted, even if it sometimes isn’t.
Hyper Light Breaker was announced back in March, and it’s a sort of pseudo-sequel to Hyper Light Drifter that will launch in spring of 2023. Heart Machine’s Alx Preston said it’s a very different game to the developer’s previous projects, “even though it shares a lot of DNA with them stylistically and foundationally”.
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