Today’s post is going to take a bit of a strange twist. Admittedly it is nowhere near the ride that was yesterdays post, but it is going some places. I feel like I need to make a quick side note and thank everyone for the positive response to my tale of being trapped in a small town. I appreciate it greatly even though my brain struggles to believe it. However lets get back to the story at hand, because it might also be a little long in the tooth if I am not extremely careful.
The first thing you need to know about today’s post is what /NoClip is. For the aging among us we will know without a doubt that it is a command line argument that allows you as the player to pass through walls. However more specifically for the focus on this post, it is a group helmed by Danny O’Dwyer that seeks to make documentary films covering the gaming industry. I love the work that they do in part because they are really great films but likely a bigger portion is because I have long dreamed of working in the industry. It is funded largely by Patreon, which I back and the above screenshot is from a really good video on Dwarf Fortress.
For a bit they have been doing a series on the development process of Hades, the fourth release from Supergiant Games. Here comes another side jaunt, because I feel like it is important to understand that I really love Supergiant Games. I loved Bastion and Transistor was a bit of a darling among the AggroChat crew as we gushed upon it over the course of several episodes. Pyre was a bit of a venture off into odd sportsball territory and I did not love playing the game, but I loved the story of the game and ultimately still played quite a bit of it. Hades however takes things back into a direction that is in my wheelhouse, but more about that in a few.
/NoClip has been embedded with Supergiant Games during the course of its development cycle and as a result has been releasing this series of really cool videos covering its life cycle. They covered the launch of early access on Epic Game Store that immediately followed an announcement during The Game Awards. Other videos have taken a deep dive into the patching process and how the music and art assets are created. This week they released a video that I don’t think officially slots into the series but covers the struggles the team has had trying to function in our current COVID-19 world.
They are all pretty great, so here is a list for you to follow up on your own if you so choose. Fair warning, most of the videos are somewhere in the ballpark of 40 minutes.
- Introducing Hades: Developing Hell
- How Supergiant Secretly Launched Hades – Developing Hell #01
- The Chaos of Patching Hades – Developing Hell #02
- How Supergiant Games Create Music & Art – Developing Hell #03
- The Hopes & Fears of Bringing Hades to Steam – Developing Hell #04
- How 6 Months of COVID-19 Quarantine Affected Life at Supergiant Games
I originally purchased early access on Epic Game Store on December 6th of 2018… aka immediately after the game got announced on The Game Awards. I have not however really been playing it much, and the most recent doc made me want to explore it again. For the uninitiated, Hades is a Rogue Lite Action RPG where you play as Zagreus, son of Hades. You’ve decided that you are done with being in the Underworld and want to escape so you can join the rest of your family on Mount Olypmus. However in order to do so, you are going to have to fight your way out of Hell.. aka the Underworld of Greek Mythology.
As you fight your way through the underworld, you will be terribly outmatched and will likely find yourself dying rather quickly. Each time you die you will resurrect in the pool of blood located in Hades audience chamber. Each iteration through the dungeon opens up new interactions with the other members of House Hades, and these dialog prompts often serve as tips on how to deal with more frustrating encounters. You will of course be constantly taunted by your Father, who just wants you to stop this nonsense and return to your duties.
Along the way however you are assisted by other gods that want to see you succeed… the first of which being your adopted mother Nyx. While traversing the labyrinthine passages you will discover boons from the gods. It seems that there are a great number of gods that don’t particularly like Hades and would like to see you succeed. As a result they are willing to lend you their power temporarily in order to hasten your escape.
These boons in general give the player a choice between three different options. Each one changes the way the attacks work slightly and serve as a bit of a mutator to shape your play. In order to succeed you will need to adapt the way you approach your encounters to match the features of the boon. The first of these will be available immediately upon entering the underworld, and another one generally follows rapidly giving you a few options as you ascend.
Earlier I said two things that I suppose I should explain a bit. First I said this game is a Rogue Lite, and not a Rogue Like. The difference to me generally has a bunch of different distinctions but the first and most important of these is that as you traverse the Underworld you are able to gain permanent power increases that carry forward with you. I also said that the first god to help you was Nyx, your adopted mother and she granted you the power of her Mirror of Night. While traversing the underworld you can collect a currency called Darkness, which can be spent in your room through the mirror to slowly and surely increase your power level between play throughs.
The other primary aspect of the Rogue Lite is that while there is a heavy emphasis on randomization, and each play through is going to be significantly different… the rooms that you traverse along the way are very much hand crafted. Each entry into the Underworld represents a branching path that ultimately leads to a boss encounter before moving to the next area. While the order of the rooms and the encounters in each of them is different, there are specific rooms with specific encounters and the symbol on the door gives you a rough approximation of the type of room. For example in the above screenshot the room on the left will reward Darkness upon completion, and the room on the right will reward Gemstones that are used for constructing new things in the House of Hades.
The game itself is split up into multiple biomes, and each of those have a set of enemies that can spawn and that you might encounter along the way. While traversing the underworld you will encounter keys, which can be used for a few things but likely the most important is unlocking new weapons. Right now I currently have access to a two handed sword, a bow, a shield and a spear. I believe as you ascend higher you will encounter other weapons including a gun of some sort. Right now I seem to be stuck on the shield as I enjoy its mechanics. I’m playing with mouse and keyboard and it seems to fit nicely with that playstyle. The game itself however has full controller support and that is likely the actual intended way one should be playing this.
No matter what order you take the rooms, it will eventually end in a boss encounter. The first boss is Megaera a Fury, that is extremely quick and I have yet to beat. That said I only started playing again last night and restarted on a Steam copy instead of my original from Epic Game Store. I am not entirely certain if progress should carry over between the two, but I lost a hard drive since when I last played the game so regardless I started fresh last night. The game is exceptionally fun, and the fact that no matter how badly you do… it is highly likely that some progress will carry over at least in the form of new dialog prompts makes it feel like your deaths are serving a greater purpose.
The other thing that I really like about Hades is how fast a cycle of play ends up being. I can pop in and play a bit and feel like I made some progress and then get out and do other things. The game is eventually releasing on the Nintendo Switch once a proper launch happens, and I figure I will pick it up there was well. This is an ideal game to play in that time between when I lay down and when sleep claims me. Admittedly it was the doc series that got me interested in writing about the game, but I figure if nothing else it serves as an introduction to anyone who is not already aware. The game is exceptionally well crafted, as has everything from Supergiant Games been.
Right now the game is available on Steam and on Epic Game Store. I know in the future a Switch Version is coming out and I believe it has also been announced for the PlayStation but with no firm dates on either. If you like Action RPGs or Rogue Lites, then I would suggest checking it out. The 1.0 release is in theory slated for late 2020, but given the state of the world I could see that maybe pushing back a bit. For now on Steam and Epic it is in Early Access and they are patching the game constantly. I also highly suggest checking out the doc series from /NoClip.
