What changed between Hook Champ and Super QuickHook?

Rocketcat Games released Hook Champ in October 2009 to great reviews, and immediately went to work on a follow-up. While the feedback to the first game was quite positive in general, the developers wanted to address a few common complaints in the new game, Super QuickHook.

One of those complaints was easy enough to take care of without ruffling many feathers. Some players weren’t impressed with the visuals in Hook Champ, so Super QuickHook received souped-up graphics more in line with 16-bit consoles than the 8-bit look the original game sported. A lot of players had requested an endless mode, so one was implemented for the follow-up. Again, this was a relatively friction-free addition. Players who weren’t interested in such a mode could easily ignore it if they wanted. 

Two other changes were slightly riskier as they altered a few aspects of the difficulty. One is that checkpoints were introduced, allowing players to pick up from mid-points in the rather lengthy stages instead of forcing them to complete the entire run in one go.

Another was the removal of the chasing monster that maintained pressure on the player to keep moving. You have all the time in the world to make your next move in Super QuickHook, at least in the normal stages. The endless stages didn’t use a monster but swapped in other means of pushing the player forward more quickly. 

Fortunately, most worries were set aside when the game launched in June of 2010. Like its forebearer, Super QuickHook earned rave reviews and wide acclaim from players. In fact, it was so successful that it was a major step towards Rocketcat Games going full-time into game development. At the end of the year, it was recognized by MetaCritic as the best-reviewed iPhone game of 2010. Its success led Rocketcat to put one more game in the series into production. A number of updates were also delivered that added more content to the game.

For many players, Super QuickHook was the best game in the trilogy, which made it all the more unfortunate when various compatibility issues began to plague the game as the years went on. The game was finally updated and brought back to players in the GameClub library.