What is Hyperswitch?

Hyperswitch was a project Josh had built collaboratively during his time at New York University. The game features a simple core mechanic: You can swap places with enemies. The objective of the game is to get to the exit as quickly as possible. In order to do so, players must teleport across the map, swapping places with enemies to traverse the broad levels.

Josh was the main programmer on the project, owning the player and camera controller. He wrote a custom controller for the team, which was taken by other members and tuned so that level designs could easily be built. The game was featured at the NYU Summer Games Showcase in 2021. Players competed for the fastest times on each level, allowing for a sense of comradery and competition.

The body-swapping mechanic was easy to pickup and use. Josh modeled the targeting system after enemy highlighting in games such as Elden Ring and Dark Souls. This intuitive method of doing so allowed for players to easily navigate the space. Eventually time trial speeds began to depend on skill level, with the fastest times coming in at under a minute. Hyperswitch was released on Itch.io.