What happens when you take surreal art, classic RPG mechanics, psychedelic rock music, and randomly generated text, and you put it all in the microwave for too long? You get a little game called Hylics. It was developed and published in 2015 by one man by the name of Mason Lindroth. There is a sequel that will be released in 2020 that I have not played, so I can’t say much about it. So, I will be touching on many aspects of the original game that make it great.
Visual
No other game looks like Hylics. Claymation, in combination with 2D graphics, makes the surreal world come to life. Everything has so much texture! It’s like you know what every surface that you see feels like. Texture is even a stat in the game that measures a character’s physical defense. It’s difficult to explain the wildly unique visuals, so I will include some screenshots.
Audio
Lindroth, the game’s creator, actually composed and produced the soundtrack in addition to everything else. Distorted guitar and heavy, bubbly synths make up a lot of the game’s music. Ambient tunes play when traversing the otherworldly landscapes, slower more relaxed guitar is accompanied by waves of texturized sound. During combat, more intense, or eerie sounds are heard. There are occasional higher-pitched midi leads that carry an otherworldly melody. All the music has heavy distortion and warping to make the player feel truly immersed in the strange world of “Hylics.” The sound cues that occur during gameplay are reminiscent of classic, retro RPGs. Although the game could be played just fine without sound, it cannot be fully enjoyed without a pair of headphones.
Random Generation
There are strange NPC characters throughout the game. They give unique dialogue that, on the first playthrough, could really throw a player off. Seemingly random stings of words are shown to the player as if they mean something important. Once you realize the dialogue is random and not essential to your success, they become another aspect of immersion and texture that completes the weirdness of “Hylics.”
Mechanics
Not only is “Hylics” a piece of art, it’s also a functionally fun game. It truly feels like a retro-RPG full of top down maps and turn-by-turn combat encounters. There are four options a player can choose to do on their turn: attack, guard, special, and things. The animation for a normal melee attack is a giant, pixelated hand snapping its fingers at the enemy: quite unique. Guard simply lessens the severity of damage dealt by attacks that might land on a player in the next turn. The special option is like the game’s magic system, with each special being like a spell. You can acquire specials from oddly-shaped televisions scattered throughout the world. The diversity of specials in “Hylics” is really what brings combat to life. Using a special consumes will, a stat that behaves like classic magic points (MP). Its counterpart, flesh, behaves like hit points (HP).
After two years of development, the game was put together in an RPG creation software known as VX Ace. Although not wildly popular, “Hylics” has a dedicated “cult following” that continues to support the game years after its release. Everything about this creation is so creative and innovative, a truly unique diamond in a rough of other games under three bucks! What an amazing little game: 5/5.
