Hades is a roguelike dungeon crawler game developed by Supergiant Games. In this game, we follow Zagreus, who is the son of Hades and is trying to escape the underworld. Similar to other games of the same genre, the floors in the underworld are randomly generated and enemies change every run. The game ends when Zargreus kills the final boss and escapes the underworld. Upon completion of certain goals or achievements, new types of content is unlocked.

The gameplay video can be seen here.

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Mechanics:
The goal of the game is very simple: make it to the end and defeat the final boss without dying. The main character can be either controlled using a keyboard and mouse or by using a controller. The game’s combat system is hack-and-slash. To get to the final boss and escape the underworld, the player has to traverse randomly generated rooms, collecting buffs called ‘boons’. Upon clearing a room, the player is offered the room’s rewards, which ranges from boons, weapon upgrades and more. However, these are only temporary and do not persist between runs.

Aesthetics:
The top-down isometric view gives enough space to admire the different environments, from the starting area to the multiple areas the player will eventually traverse through. Each area of the game has its unique design and theme which the enemies residing in the area also follow. Each character in the game also has detailed and distinct models that are clearly based on ancient Greek Mythology.

Story:
Initially, the game only provides the player a brief information about the story, that Zagreus would like to escape the underworld. However, as the player progresses through multiple runs, he will understand learn more about the entire underworld and be given more information about the main story. The other characters that appear also have their own backstories for us to learn about. The player would want to keep playing to learn not only about the main story but also the environment and the characters that the player can interact with.

Technology:
Supergiant Games created a custom game engine specifically tailored for this game to boost performance and provide better cross platform support. This also provided them with more flexibility and control when designing the game. The game ran very smoothly when played on my desktop and I did not experience any lag.

The Lens of Meaningful Choices
As levels and rewards in the game were randomly generated, players have to make choices that can either affect their current run, or they can collect items that can be beneficial to their overall game progress outside of the current run. In addition, the player gets to customer his character’s skills and choose a weapon before beginning a run. All of these contribute to the choices the player can make which can impact his overall experience greatly.

The Lens of Challenge
When the player first starts the game, it will feel impossible to get to the end and he needs to familiarize himself with the controls and the different information that the game does not provide you at the very beginning. A new player will find enjoyment in the challenge to finally clear the game the first time. As the player progresses through and clears more runs, he will get the option to unlock an option to customise his runs even further. In that menu, he gets to choose among several options such as enemies doing more damage or having a strict time limit to their run. By choosing these difficulty settings, the player will get an indication of how hard their run is through the ‘heat’ indicator. Because of this, players will feel challenged and be motivated to play the game repeatedly, trying to increase their clears with higher heat values over time.

The Lens of Skill vs Chance
Again because each room is randomly generated, the player will not have the same experience twice. This also means that the player may not be given ideal combinations of boons per run, or may not be able to attain a certain upgrade that they were hoping to get. This makes it seem like the player may and be unable to complete a current run due to bad luck making the power level of his character feel less strong as compared to a different run. However, this game still relies on the fundamental mechanics that the player has, as the player still has to be proficient in dodging enemy attacks and attack when given the opportunity. The player also has choices with regards to his buffs and the rooms that he enters, and skilled players can try to make use of what they get to their advantage to turn an unfavorable run into a successful one.

The Lens of Surprise
At the start, the game is full of surprises as it does not provide you with any information, whether it be items, characters or the environment. The only information provided is the most basic controls and that Zagreus wishes to escape the underworld. Therefore, any experience from then on is considered a new experience. As the player progresses through the game, he is also given choices to unlock certain items that can impact the character without the game informing us on what the items are or do. Characters also evolve and act differently as the players play through the game.