Hades

So I missed a couple of writing days because T and I started playing Hades on Wednesday, and it's very engrossing. It's a roguelike game, a genre with which I was unfamiliar before this: basically, a dungeon crawl with no save points -- every time you die, you're sent back to the beginning and have to start all over again; you lose some upgrades and items, but others are permanent, so you do get slowly tougher over time. We have all the weapons and are now able to consistently get through the first level, and we beat the first boss about half the time, but the second level is a lot tougher and it's clear we still have a ways to go on it. On paper, I would find this style of gameplay very frustrating, but Hades makes the mechanic a key part of both the story and the character development; you play as Zagreus, son of the Greek god Hades, and he's trying to escape his father's realm with help from various gods, demigods, and other figures from Greek mythology. I'm a big old Greek mythology nerd, so all of the characters and story beats are like catnip to me. Zagreus is a likable character, and I got engaged in his quest very quickly.

I'll leave it at that because I don't want to get into spoilers (or be spoiled for anything beyond Thanatos), and also I want to go get back to playing the game now...

(Written on Saturday 11/27, posted Sunday 11/28)