I recently played Pony Island and loved its clever story and meta game mechanics. The Hex is the second game by Daniel Mullins and playing these two games probably made him one of my favorite game developers now.
I was a bit hesitant at first because I really didn't like the art style but I'm glad I gave it a try regardless because I loved everything else about this game.
In The Hex you enter a run-down bar in the middle of a stormy night. It's populated with a bunch of videogame characters lamenting their former days and eventually you learn about their individual stories while playing through bits of their games. It might be a character from a cooking game who was ripped out of his home to be part in a Super Smash Bros type of fighting game or someone from a Fallout-like strategy combat game that never got finished and turned into a mess by modders. The stories are very varied and all of them seem leaned on real-life things in the game developing world so far so that Steam and Twitch become straight up part of the stories.
The stories also have some thematic overlap at points and the developer behind them becomes more and more of a character himself which at points seems a little bit inspired by The Beginner's Guide.
What's so amazing to me is how many ideas the developer is able to cram into his games without feeling disconnected. The Hex is full of fresh ideas and constantly changing gameplay throughout the entire playtime and it all feels very organic. Even though you're essentially playing through a handful of completely different game genres it all comes together really nicely.
I have a soft spot for videogames about game development anyway so seeing The Hex play around with how a videogame is made in a story-driven manner was a lot of fun. Things like having to tactically use a cheat code system like a skill system or going through programming puzzles based on actual game development software was a lot of fun to me.
If you are interested in videogames as a medium, their history, and how their made, I really think you're gonna get a kick out of this. It's in the BLM itch.io bundle, so maybe you already own it.
I for one loved it and I can't wait to see what Daniel Mullins has up his sleeve next.
I was a bit hesitant at first because I really didn't like the art style but I'm glad I gave it a try regardless because I loved everything else about this game.
In The Hex you enter a run-down bar in the middle of a stormy night. It's populated with a bunch of videogame characters lamenting their former days and eventually you learn about their individual stories while playing through bits of their games. It might be a character from a cooking game who was ripped out of his home to be part in a Super Smash Bros type of fighting game or someone from a Fallout-like strategy combat game that never got finished and turned into a mess by modders. The stories are very varied and all of them seem leaned on real-life things in the game developing world so far so that Steam and Twitch become straight up part of the stories.
The stories also have some thematic overlap at points and the developer behind them becomes more and more of a character himself which at points seems a little bit inspired by The Beginner's Guide.
What's so amazing to me is how many ideas the developer is able to cram into his games without feeling disconnected. The Hex is full of fresh ideas and constantly changing gameplay throughout the entire playtime and it all feels very organic. Even though you're essentially playing through a handful of completely different game genres it all comes together really nicely.
I have a soft spot for videogames about game development anyway so seeing The Hex play around with how a videogame is made in a story-driven manner was a lot of fun. Things like having to tactically use a cheat code system like a skill system or going through programming puzzles based on actual game development software was a lot of fun to me.
If you are interested in videogames as a medium, their history, and how their made, I really think you're gonna get a kick out of this. It's in the BLM itch.io bundle, so maybe you already own it.
I for one loved it and I can't wait to see what Daniel Mullins has up his sleeve next.