The Hex

While I do continue to appreciate this outsider perspective to a meta-narrative that we get bits and pieces of, and the gameplay here is more varied (even if only literally) and gives me more of a reason to give a shit about what's going on, it still doesn't quite hit enough when it comes around to the end. It definitely feels much more realized and put-together than any attempt Pony Island made, and there's some very important things he learned that show in this project. It's just unfortunate that a lot of the animation is still fairly simple and not super personable, despite fairly decent design and character. Attempts to subvert the 4th wall still felt fairly laughable and simple, even as narrative elements, but do a decent job of keeping you on your guard for what comes next, because you won't really ever guess. It's fun in that regard, and funny in terms of its satirical elements and industry commentary, if at times wildly absurd. Overall a positive change of direction in development in my opinion, one that showed a lot more promise for the developer Daniel Mullins has become today. Now it's finally time for the biggun.

a game that is visually unappealing and lacking in gameplay supposedly held up by its story. a fairly decent story concept that is intensely bogged down by uncreative meta elements and repetitive segments. i think this game has something very interesting within its story, but its hard to appreciate when bombarded with dumb shit like: a twitch chat, the concept of a fighting game character being so good they're patched out from a game entirely, and dorkly-level concepts being played completely straight.

Daniel Mullins second game is a stepup from Pony Island, but still not reaching the full heights of his potential. The game is set up as 6 game characters and a bar keeper stranded on a isolated bar, and its foretold that a murder will take place that night. You then playout each of the 6 characters from the videogames they are from, which vary wildly from character to character. You get platformers, JRPG, tactical strategy, point and click adventure, twin stick shooting, battle royale, cooking simulator, fighting game, walking simulator.... Each of these is very barebones and obviously the strenght of the game doesnt lie in these isolated gameplay moments but more on the whole overall story and themes.

The game's main central theme revolves around the struggles of being a game developer, including the interactions with its community. You get made up steam reviews, twitch comments, news headlines, and it all feels very believable.

It takes about 5 hours or so to beat, and its mostly an enjoyable ride for that time by keeping things interesting by changing game genres. Unfortunatly, each style being barebones means that the enjoyability from momento to moment isnt all that great.

Storywise it has its fair share of fun moments. But emotionally it doesnt quite reach the same impact that something like The Beginners Story does, which tackles very much the same themes (but is a walking sim from beginning to end).

Its still a very interesting game in Mullin's already interesting catalogue. If you have 40 minutes to spare you should also play Beneath the Surface, which is a hidden companion piece to this game.

A game about the fact that game development is a shithole. In and of itself, not incredibly unbroken territory, but I love the incredibly campy ways in which it goes about demonstrating that you cannot fucking please a single soul on Earth. You can make so many interesting, new, innovative ideas, but at the end, there's always going to be some asshole who whines about a certain bug or who does anything and everything to bring the game down for their own weird vendetta. And in the end, focusing on it is only going to bring you down, lower, and lower, and lower.

What a wonderfully bleak game.