Click. Click. Click. That's what I'm going to remember about this game, the relentless clicking. I did a quick calculation and I'm averaging about 5600 turns per hour. Since each turn is a single click, I've got roughly 84,000 clicks to go before I'm done. Maybe that's not so much, compared to the controller inputs and button presses I'd do with other games, but it seems like a lot.
It's probably an unfairly superficial way to look at the game. No doubt, high level play rewards having a sophisticated strategy. However, I've not yet gained the ability to play the game consciously. It's still all "move towards shiny, move away from pointy" for me. I've probably gained skill in both those things, seeing as how my average score per run is intermittently trending upwards. Nonetheless, I'm still a long way from having an actual strategy.
Hyperrogue isn't turning out as bad as I feared, though. The compulsive clicking leaves my mind free to wander to other things. It's easy to listen to a podcast or brainstorm a tabletop game while charging through these simple geometrical worlds. That may sound like damning with faint praise, but it can be nice to have a casual game that doesn't require too much concentration (although, now that I write it out, maybe that's why I haven't advanced that much - perhaps my next podcast will be about non-euclidean geometry).
I prefer to play with keyboard myself, unless I need to move precisely. You can get to any place on the screen in seven quick keypresses :) And if this is still too much, you can also use the mousewheel -- a single roll and you reach it.
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