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PMP#117: Roguelikes Like Hades

February 23, 2022 by Mark Leave a Comment

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Supergiant’s Hades is now the first video game ever to have won a Hugo award (i.e. sci-fi/fantasy fiction) and has set a new standard in the Roguelike genre, which features relatively short “runs” through a randomly-generated dungeon (or some equivalent) with perma-death, i.e. you die, you go back to the beginning. Generally, these games are very hard.

Your host Mark is joined by three returning guests: Jamie Madigan, Al Baker, and Tyler Hislop. In addition to Hades, we talk about The Binding of Isaac, FTL, Slay the Spire, Dead Cells, Darkest Dungeon, Curse of the Dead Gods, Wayward, Risk of Rain, and more. What distinguishes a Roguelike from a Rogue-lite, and does it matter? How are they different than old-style arcade games? What makes Hades unique in the genre? 

Read about Roguelikes on Wikipedia. See IGN’s list of best Roguelikes and TheGamer’s list of most difficult Roguelikes.

A few other relevant articles include:

  • “One Year Later, What 2020’s Best Game Actually Was” by Niki Fakhoori
  • “Hades is a near-flawless romp through hell after two years of early access” by Ryan Gilliam
  • “‘Hades’ review: supergiant’s latest is, quite literally, a god-tier game” by Dom Peppiatt
  • “Here’s how ‘Hades’ makes going back to hell feel fresh” by Gene Park
  • “How Hades Helped Me Understand My Dad” by Graham Day

Follow @JamieMadigan, Al @ixisnox,  and Tyler @sacrifice_mc.

The supporter version of this episode includes our bonus Aftertalk featuring all of our guests. Get it at patreon.com/prettymuchpop, or now you can sign up directly via Apple Podcasts for a subscription for ad-free and bonus material for three of Mark’s podcasts together on the Mark Lintertainment Podcasts Channel.

This podcast is part of the Partially Examined Life podcast network and is curated by openculture.com.

Sponsors: Find a doctor at zocdoc.com/PMP. Lower your monthly credit payments at upstart.com/PRETTY.

Sisyphus, the god of repetitive video game play

Filed Under: Video Games Tagged With: pop culture podcast, video game podcast

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Pretty Much Pop brings together philosophers, artists, comedians, and other smart folks to talk about media and how we consume it: TV, film, music, novels, games, comics, comedy, theater, podcasts, and more. Most of what (other) people like is pretty weird when you think about it, so thinking about it is what we do.

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