Hi all,

I started writing on Hive to cover Gods Unchained (crypto trading card game), but for the past month or two, I've taken a break to get back to non-crypto gaming. I have a huge steam backlog and also Hades was on sale over the Christmas break. One of my favorite genres of game is the Roguelite. In 'lites', you make multiple dungeon runs like in rogues, but you will have a meta progression system that slowly makes you more powerful over time. This gives a great balance of bite-sized play sessions that still drive a feeling of long-term accomplishment.

Hades

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1145360/Hades/

Supergiant is an incredible gaming studio! I've played all four of their games on steam. Two are ranked "Very Positive" and two (including Hades) are ranked "Overwhelmingly Positive". They are just beautifully built games with engaging loops. Hades maybe most of all (or maybe just my personal bias to rougelites).

The story in Hades is perhaps the most surprising thing for a rougelite. It's rich. Steeped in greek mythology as Zagreous battles to escape the underworld, all the stars of the mythology show up. I didn't have more than a passing knowledge of the greek myths before playing, but now I know random things like Persophone is the Daughter of Zeus and Demeter. That's not a spoiler, that's just the actual mythology. Nothing like being absorbed into the world created by a game to learn details about a topic.

Basic Gameplay

Before each attempt to escape, you get to choose from a few different weapons and get to pick one charm to take with you. The Hades community is very big on not spoiling the story or major events in the game, so I'll try to do the same here. The image below is a minor spoiler in that it shows you what the weapons look like that you can unlock. However, you unlock them relatively quickly anyway, so not a big deal.

! [Hidden Spoiler Text]

You start your run in the depths of Tartarus and work your way up through the various levels of the underworld: all true to the mythology. At the end of each region, you'll face a mini-boss and at the very end, right before escaping the underworld, you'll have to face the main boss of the game.

The game doesn't end there. Few roguelites do. Like most of the genre, you can then increase the difficulty of the runs for better rewards, more challenge, etc. Unique among the roguelites I've played, the story in Hades is actually driven by repeated escape attempts. Each successful attempt uncovers more of the story until ultimately (after many escapes), you see the story conclude and the credits roll. It's incredibly engaging. All told I've put 46 hours into the game and have finally seen the credits and final story. And of course you can continue to escape and make the game harder.

The controller support in Hades is phenomenal, and is how I played. Love a game that you can relax on the couch and play.

They've also announced Hades II, which has the community incredibly hyped.

Atomicrops

Another roguelite! This time a bullet hell farming mashup. Explore by day and protect your crops by night. Sell those crops for golden cashews to keep up with the escalating difficulty and beat the final boss to complete the year. Buy meta upgrades from ants you find and free during the game and go to the next year (which is harder).

This game sat in my library for a long time primarily due to the graphics:

They don't scream "play me right now," but it's the classic mistake of judging a book by its cover. I'm 14 hours in and having a blast. Unlocks come at a decent pace, and the gameplay itself is fun and challenging. I have year 3 unlocked, but got stomped by it so I've gone back to practice (and earn more unlocks) in year 2.

What I like most about the game so far is the large variety of upgrades you can get in a single run. By the end of a successful run, planting crops is almost an afterthought. You have farm animals running around with crazy upgrades like wings on your pigs. You unleash tractors (think ultimate abilities - they take time to charge up), doding bullets and enemies all over the map, and then scramble to protect your farm and harvest before you get airlifted out each morning to sell what you've collected.

Conclusion

I've had a great time over the past 1-2 months playing other games than Gods Unchained. The timing was good, too, because other than the Winter Wonderland event in GU (which I did participate in a bit), the dev team cycled down for the holidays and isn't pushing much in the way of news or content. It's also been a good reset for me: reminding me how little I really care about earning daily $GODs or weekend packs. Getting paid to play is nice, but I was playing way past the point of enjoyment for little reward. Now I can play a game or two when I feel like it while sinking my teeth into other titles like the ones above.