2024sep11 One of my favorite games in recent years, and honestly one of my favorite games of all time, is Hades (2020), by Supergiant Games. You play as Zagreus, the frustrated son of Hades, as he fights his way out of the underworld of greek mythology, to get to the surface. The fascinating thing about this game is that it expects you to fail. When you start a fresh new game, it begins right away with you-as-Zag saying “screw this, I’m outta here”, and you fight through as many wretched monsters in Tartarus as you can before inevitably dying yourself, and being taken by the river Styx back to the House of Hades. “There Is No Escape”, Hades tells you. And yet, many of the supporting cast and characters, including the Achilles, encourage you to keep trying. You’ll make it, lad. Don’t give up. Try again. And with each attempt you’ll find yourself getting closer, learning more about the various kinds of enemies you’ll face.

2024jun25

• I’m currently on my third playthrough of Hades (2020), the multiple-award-winning ‘roguelite dungeon-crawler’ made with a lot of love by the surprisingly small team at Supergiant Games. There are a lot of things to praise about Hades, but I’ll start with this: Hades is a game that will teach you something about yourself. And I’m playing again because there’s something I’m looking to learn.
• The thing that made me want to revisit Hades again is the frustration I keep feeling when working on my essays. (See: I don’t wanna! and When the vision isn’t manifesting.) I often sit down to try and write an essay, and then fail to complete it, and get annoyed with myself about it. While thinking about this puzzle of trying to write essays, I was reminded that Hades is a game about enduring failure after failure, and learning from them. I remembered how long I struggled with it, and yet how I kept at it, how the game itself encourages you to keep trying. I think I came to terms with feeling disheartened, and I wanted some of the wholesome, encouraging vibes that Hades has in spades.
• A session of Hades involves fighting your way through a series of rooms. Defeat all of the enemies in one room, and you get a reward, and then you go to the next room. You repeat this at least 40 times before you face the final boss. Defeat the boss, and you complete a successful run. Even if you’re a really experienced gamer, you are not going to complete a successful run the first time you play Hades. If you’re really good, you might make it past the first boss. But you’re expected to fail. You’re going to fail over and over again. That’s the point. The first time I played Hades, I believe it took me over 30 attempts just to get past the first boss. It took me probably another 30 attempts to defeat the final boss. You have to defeat the final boss 10 times in order to complete the main story of Hades– you’ll know you’ve done it when the credits start rolling. I’ve done this twice so far, and I’m currently working through my third. I’m halfway through (I just completed my 5th run earlier tonight), and a part of me is annoyed with myself that I’m taking ‘so many attempts’ to do it. And this is the thing I want to investigate, the self-knowledge I’m seeking.
• At least 5 times now, I’ve had a run make it all the way to the final boss, and then lost. Given my experience, I feel like it’s always a matter of carelessness, sloppiness. It can take 30 minutes to get to the final boss, and failing at the threshold can be disheartening.
• I’ve deliberately described Hades in a way that makes it it sound tedious. It’s one of my favorite games! It has a great story, lots of character development even for a bunch of minor characters…

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ok so something kinda crazy happened, so much so that it might seem like i’m making it up. after winning only 5 runs in the first 25 (an 80% failure rate), I won 100% of the next 4 runs– 26, 27, 28, 29. Further update: I won 100% of the next 8 runs, too. So. I now have a streak of 12 wins.

“You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty… perform your duty and abandon all attachment to success or failure… those who want to enjoy the fruits of their work are misers.”

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a moving post someone wrote about their experience completing the main game https://amalelmohtar.com/not-a-friday-open-thread-about-hades