Energy Hook

Released: Jul 5, 2016
Platforms: WindowsmacOSLinux
Last updated: 05 Sep 2026, 06:14 GMT

Updates & announcements

20 posts

06 Jul 2016Developer post
Day Two Patch - Performance and Rift Fix
Hey there; had some issues with the Rift where Rift owners had to play in VR whether they wanted to or not. They can now play in regular mode or VR mode as they see fit. (There might be a "Your headset isn't supported" message; ignore it.) And the separation of church and state m
06 Jul 2016Developer post
Day Two Patch - Performance and Rift Fix
Hey there; had some issues with the Rift where Rift owners had to play in VR whether they wanted to or not. They can now play in regular mode or VR mode as they see fit. (There might be a "Your headset isn't supported" message; ignore it.) And the separation of church and state m
06 Jul 2016Developer post
Energy Hook 1.0 has finally launched - note for Oculus Rift owners
Yes, it's here! It's done! I am super-proud to have finally finished this thing. But are these things ever *really* done? In particular, already had this bug report: unlike the DK2, the Rift CV1 does not have a power button. Which means when Energy Hook boots up, it detects your
06 Jul 2016Developer post
Energy Hook 1.0 has finally launched - note for Oculus Rift owners
Yes, it's here! It's done! I am super-proud to have finally finished this thing. But are these things ever *really* done? In particular, already had this bug report: unlike the DK2, the Rift CV1 does not have a power button. Which means when Energy Hook boots up, it detects your
05 Jul 2016Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Spider-Man Swingman Releases Energy Hook
“From the inventor of the acclaimed web-swinging movement in ‘Spider-Man 2′” is how Happion Labs advertise Energy Hook , which seem a pretty clear statement of intent. Energy Hook wants to be a game of swinging around big open levels, running along walls, and generally getting up
29 Jun 2016Developer post
It's Finally Launching - Energy Hook 1.0, coming July 5th
For all of you who try to stay away from the Early Access titles, waiting for the game to be actually done, you can finally purchase that wishlist item you've been waiting for. Energy Hook is moving out of Early Access on July 5th. (There will be a launch sale, of course!) I am s
29 Jun 2016Developer post
It's Finally Launching - Energy Hook 1.0, coming July 5th
For all of you who try to stay away from the Early Access titles, waiting for the game to be actually done, you can finally purchase that wishlist item you've been waiting for. Energy Hook is moving out of Early Access on July 5th. (There will be a launch sale, of course!) I am s
24 Dec 2015Developer post
Version 741 - Codename "Solstice" - is up
Okay! After some testing and fixing a handful of bugs, I think "Solstice" is ready for prime time. It is on the default branch for everyone to enjoy. Enjoy, and happy holidays! And for those of you who care what I fixed: Game freezes when holding the swing button down when you ba
Okay! After some testing and fixing a handful of bugs, I think "Solstice" is ready for prime time. It is on the default branch for everyone to enjoy. Enjoy, and happy holidays!
And for those of you who care what I fixed:

Game freezes when holding the swing button down when you bailed doing a trick. (And, in theory, all the other assertion related freezes.)
The last trick in a trick attack wasn't cashing in.
Gave the wrong message when cancelling a trick attack.
Sometimes would report a negative number of seconds when winning a race. (!!)
After you fell to your doom during a race you'd restart on the activation disc and have to play it again.
Original post
24 Dec 2015Developer post
Version 741 - Codename "Solstice" - is up
Okay! After some testing and fixing a handful of bugs, I think "Solstice" is ready for prime time. It is on the default branch for everyone to enjoy. Enjoy, and happy holidays! And for those of you who care what I fixed: Game freezes when holding the swing button down when you ba
Okay! After some testing and fixing a handful of bugs, I think "Solstice" is ready for prime time. It is on the default branch for everyone to enjoy. Enjoy, and happy holidays!
And for those of you who care what I fixed:

Game freezes when holding the swing button down when you bailed doing a trick. (And, in theory, all the other assertion related freezes.)
The last trick in a trick attack wasn't cashing in.
Gave the wrong message when cancelling a trick attack.
Sometimes would report a negative number of seconds when winning a race. (!!)
After you fell to your doom during a race you'd restart on the activation disc and have to play it again.
Original post
23 Dec 2015Developer post
Version 740, Codename "Solstice": CONTENT COMPLETE
Happy winter solstice everybody! And how better to enjoy your pagan holiday, and suffer through the long dark, than to play the Content Complete build of Energy Hook!? Now on the 'comingsoon' branch. That's right! Content compete! That means all the levels, challenges, and big sy
Happy winter solstice everybody! And how better to enjoy your pagan holiday, and suffer through the long dark, than to play the Content Complete build of Energy Hook!? Now on the 'comingsoon' branch.
That's right! Content compete! That means all the levels, challenges, and big systems are in there.
The style system overhaul is done.
Misty City is fixed and available.
You can easily replay your last challenge.
It's subtle, but I got some IK going on her arms instead of the canned animations. Now when she jumps up and swings her arms don't look wrong.
(And she holds on to that hook on the energy hook with her left hand. So that's what it's for.)
What I really want to hear about now are exploits! Can you get lots of points for doing something lame? Let me know.
Now, it's not quite feature complete, but the only big thing left to do is finish up the leaderboards in the front end, and get friends-list leaderboards going. And no promises but I'm going to try to get a control remapping thing in there. And then there's a handful of little things I'll try to get to. It'll be like sweeping up dead leaves.
Here's a more comprehensive list of what I've done in the past month:

Added simplified satellite dish to New Atlantis
Paced trick tutorials differently
Better 'clean swing' detection
Fixed exceptions
Audio for style UI
Made misty city available
Show ranking as well as score in HUD leaderboards
Put text on challenge portals to tell you what they are
Fixed some tutorial message control display
IK on arms
Be more robust to missing database entries when unlocking backer rewards
Respawn off disc when you eat it during a challenge
"Cancel Challenge" and "Go To Last Challenge" in pause menu
Animating trick UI
Camera adjustments: less up-and-down bobbing.
Shorter respawn times
End of trick attack cashes in your last chain and displays your correct final score
Adjusted scoring and detection for loop-the-loop
Penalizes you for tricking on the same structure twice in a chain
Balanced trick scores
Lower gravity when doing poses
Penalizes you for missing race hoops instead of making you go back
Larger race hoops
Happy solstice!
Original post
23 Dec 2015Developer post
Version 740, Codename "Solstice": CONTENT COMPLETE
Happy winter solstice everybody! And how better to enjoy your pagan holiday, and suffer through the long dark, than to play the Content Complete build of Energy Hook!? Now on the 'comingsoon' branch. That's right! Content compete! That means all the levels, challenges, and big sy
Happy winter solstice everybody! And how better to enjoy your pagan holiday, and suffer through the long dark, than to play the Content Complete build of Energy Hook!? Now on the 'comingsoon' branch.
That's right! Content compete! That means all the levels, challenges, and big systems are in there.
The style system overhaul is done.
Misty City is fixed and available.
You can easily replay your last challenge.
It's subtle, but I got some IK going on her arms instead of the canned animations. Now when she jumps up and swings her arms don't look wrong.
(And she holds on to that hook on the energy hook with her left hand. So that's what it's for.)
What I really want to hear about now are exploits! Can you get lots of points for doing something lame? Let me know.
Now, it's not quite feature complete, but the only big thing left to do is finish up the leaderboards in the front end, and get friends-list leaderboards going. And no promises but I'm going to try to get a control remapping thing in there. And then there's a handful of little things I'll try to get to. It'll be like sweeping up dead leaves.
Here's a more comprehensive list of what I've done in the past month:

Added simplified satellite dish to New Atlantis
Paced trick tutorials differently
Better 'clean swing' detection
Fixed exceptions
Audio for style UI
Made misty city available
Show ranking as well as score in HUD leaderboards
Put text on challenge portals to tell you what they are
Fixed some tutorial message control display
IK on arms
Be more robust to missing database entries when unlocking backer rewards
Respawn off disc when you eat it during a challenge
"Cancel Challenge" and "Go To Last Challenge" in pause menu
Animating trick UI
Camera adjustments: less up-and-down bobbing.
Shorter respawn times
End of trick attack cashes in your last chain and displays your correct final score
Adjusted scoring and detection for loop-the-loop
Penalizes you for tricking on the same structure twice in a chain
Balanced trick scores
Lower gravity when doing poses
Penalizes you for missing race hoops instead of making you go back
Larger race hoops
Happy solstice!
Original post
25 Nov 2015Developer post
Hotfix 720: 720 degrees of separation
It's a funny coincidence that revision 720 is also the revision where I got in some better names for doing tricks. So do a "720 leg grab double backflip" to celebrate! There are some changes in how score is calculated that go along with that. But the main reason I'm putting this
25 Nov 2015Developer post
Hotfix 720: 720 degrees of separation
It's a funny coincidence that revision 720 is also the revision where I got in some better names for doing tricks. So do a "720 leg grab double backflip" to celebrate! There are some changes in how score is calculated that go along with that. But the main reason I'm putting this
21 Nov 2015Developer post
Interim Update 666: Accessibility, Style System, and UI improvements
Being kind of scattered and fighting on multiple fronts lately. I've made some changes that dramatically improve the experience for newbies and am partway through my overhaul of the style system... which brought with it some UI polish as well. The things that might surprise you t
Being kind of scattered and fighting on multiple fronts lately. I've made some changes that dramatically improve the experience for newbies and am partway through my overhaul of the style system... which brought with it some UI polish as well.
The things that might surprise you the most are the gamepad buttons are moved around: wall-running is on the right shoulder button, and the aerial poses are on X,Y, and B now. You can also click the right stick/steam controller track pad to jump. This lets you play with your right thumb controlling the camera most of the time, and you only need to let go to do poses.
Another surprise: it automatically fires your jump jets after a swing. This is like the 'standard mode' of Spider-Man 2 - great for newbies and gaining altitude, not so good for speed down a straightaway - it defaults to on, you can turn it off in the pause menu.
I'm still collecting results from the movement survey - it's not too late to take it.
It's not really version 666 but thanks to a problem with my automated build system that's what it's calling itself.
This is only up for Windows & Linux - poor OSX has to wait...
Without further ado, the obligatory bullet list!

Instead of doing a little jump when you initiate a swing, you can swing from a standing position.
Increased starting jump height
Increased trick scoring
Aerial poses instead of aerial tricks - hold them for more points
Style points in your face
More glowy translucent hud
Antialias front end
Auto-jump
Fixed some issues with pause menu and front end with gamepad
Can use the gamepad or mouse button to navigate past title screen
Moved buttons around
More forgiving about making you eat it when landing fast
Original post
21 Nov 2015Developer post
Interim Update 666: Accessibility, Style System, and UI improvements
Being kind of scattered and fighting on multiple fronts lately. I've made some changes that dramatically improve the experience for newbies and am partway through my overhaul of the style system... which brought with it some UI polish as well. The things that might surprise you t
Being kind of scattered and fighting on multiple fronts lately. I've made some changes that dramatically improve the experience for newbies and am partway through my overhaul of the style system... which brought with it some UI polish as well.
The things that might surprise you the most are the gamepad buttons are moved around: wall-running is on the right shoulder button, and the aerial poses are on X,Y, and B now. You can also click the right stick/steam controller track pad to jump. This lets you play with your right thumb controlling the camera most of the time, and you only need to let go to do poses.
Another surprise: it automatically fires your jump jets after a swing. This is like the 'standard mode' of Spider-Man 2 - great for newbies and gaining altitude, not so good for speed down a straightaway - it defaults to on, you can turn it off in the pause menu.
I'm still collecting results from the movement survey - it's not too late to take it.
It's not really version 666 but thanks to a problem with my automated build system that's what it's calling itself.
This is only up for Windows & Linux - poor OSX has to wait...
Without further ado, the obligatory bullet list!

Instead of doing a little jump when you initiate a swing, you can swing from a standing position.
Increased starting jump height
Increased trick scoring
Aerial poses instead of aerial tricks - hold them for more points
Style points in your face
More glowy translucent hud
Antialias front end
Auto-jump
Fixed some issues with pause menu and front end with gamepad
Can use the gamepad or mouse button to navigate past title screen
Moved buttons around
More forgiving about making you eat it when landing fast
Original post
11 Nov 2015Developer post
Mini update: Steam Controller Support
Just got my hands on my Steam Controller a few days ago and after a little head banging managed to get it working to my satisfaction in game. It takes some getting used to, but I think it's the best way to play Energy Hook now - expressive analog movement on the left stick and ra
Just got my hands on my Steam Controller a few days ago and after a little head banging managed to get it working to my satisfaction in game. It takes some getting used to, but I think it's the best way to play Energy Hook now - expressive analog movement on the left stick and rapid looking around on the right track pad. I've added left shoulder wall-running and track-pad-clicking jump jets so your thumb only has to leave the track-pad for tricks.
It's important to remember that you should use Big Picture Mode when using your Steam Controller - otherwise it will go into mouse-and-keyboard emulation mode when playing and be rubbish.
Also, you can adjust the responsiveness of the track pad with the Camera Sensitivity slider in the pause menu.
Speaking of sliders, I added a field-of-view slider. On the one hand, this is important, because some people sit right next to their monitors and some people sit ten feet away, and the people sitting close need a wider FOV than the ones sitting far away for it to look right-ish. On the other hand, I worry that players will set the FOV as wide as possible because, "Hey! I can see more!" not realizing that makes the game look less cinematic/dramatic (and lowers framerate to boot). But I guess I'll just have to trust you!
And here are a few other things that made it into this build:

You can turn the follow cam off completely - this is nearly unplayable with a dual stick gamepad but with mouse or the Steam Controller can give you more control. That's in the pause menu.
You may have noticed the new achievement icons! Achievements need a little tuning still but almost there!
New music track by Brian Luzietti! - and now the music shuffles instead of playing the same song over and over on a given level.
Game detects whether you're playing with gamepad or mouse+kb and tutorializes appropriately.
There was too much friction on walls, sometimes sucking the life out of your jumps. I believe it's now as low as I can make it without writing my own physics engine.
Larger more readable menu text.
Motion blur tweaks.
Enjoy!
Original post
11 Nov 2015Developer post
Mini update: Steam Controller Support
Just got my hands on my Steam Controller a few days ago and after a little head banging managed to get it working to my satisfaction in game. It takes some getting used to, but I think it's the best way to play Energy Hook now - expressive analog movement on the left stick and ra
Just got my hands on my Steam Controller a few days ago and after a little head banging managed to get it working to my satisfaction in game. It takes some getting used to, but I think it's the best way to play Energy Hook now - expressive analog movement on the left stick and rapid looking around on the right track pad. I've added left shoulder wall-running and track-pad-clicking jump jets so your thumb only has to leave the track-pad for tricks.
It's important to remember that you should use Big Picture Mode when using your Steam Controller - otherwise it will go into mouse-and-keyboard emulation mode when playing and be rubbish.
Also, you can adjust the responsiveness of the track pad with the Camera Sensitivity slider in the pause menu.
Speaking of sliders, I added a field-of-view slider. On the one hand, this is important, because some people sit right next to their monitors and some people sit ten feet away, and the people sitting close need a wider FOV than the ones sitting far away for it to look right-ish. On the other hand, I worry that players will set the FOV as wide as possible because, "Hey! I can see more!" not realizing that makes the game look less cinematic/dramatic (and lowers framerate to boot). But I guess I'll just have to trust you!
And here are a few other things that made it into this build:

You can turn the follow cam off completely - this is nearly unplayable with a dual stick gamepad but with mouse or the Steam Controller can give you more control. That's in the pause menu.
You may have noticed the new achievement icons! Achievements need a little tuning still but almost there!
New music track by Brian Luzietti! - and now the music shuffles instead of playing the same song over and over on a given level.
Game detects whether you're playing with gamepad or mouse+kb and tutorializes appropriately.
There was too much friction on walls, sometimes sucking the life out of your jumps. I believe it's now as low as I can make it without writing my own physics engine.
Larger more readable menu text.
Motion blur tweaks.
Enjoy!
Original post
30 Oct 2015Developer post
Survey On The Current State of Movement
Hey everyone - I am probably going to keep tweaking Energy Hook's movement parameters until the day before the game is officially released. Please help me make sure I'm not doing that in a vacuum by taking this survey . Thanks!
30 Oct 2015Developer post
Survey On The Current State of Movement
Hey everyone - I am probably going to keep tweaking Energy Hook's movement parameters until the day before the game is officially released. Please help me make sure I'm not doing that in a vacuum by taking this survey . Thanks!
29 Oct 2015Developer post
Run! Update Linux and OSX versions are up
The Run! Update is now available to everyone. Check it out!