Hades: Narrative as Reward

I don’t usually care for rogue-likes, myself. If I wanted to feel like I’m just failing over and over again, I’d focus on my real life. That said, Hades provides a fantastic twist on the concept: it rewards failure. Specifically, you need to fail to uncover the story of the game.

There are many reasons I love the narrative for Hades, not the least its queer and poly-friendly possibilities. All characters have a lot of personality that is gradually unlocked and they have complex relationships with each other and not just the protagonist. Something (vaguely) based on Greek mythology could easily have made everyone simple caricatures (looking at you, Disney’s Hercules), but instead there are many layers and different possibilities depending on who you choose to get a closer relationship with. Speaking of which, the game does a wonderful job making what is essentially a buying relationship levels feel natural through dialogue.

Failing rarely feels good in a game. Those with more of a competitive mindset than I might take it is an exciting challenge, but not always. When the negative feeling of dying settles in, we’re immediately resurrected and given new opportunities to get to know characters better and understand our connections. The improvements through game mechanics almost feel secondary to this narrative encouragement.

Of course, story as reward for success is almost a given in many games. For any RPG, that’s what happens as you progress through your various quests. But I’m also fascinated by games like High School Story by Pixelberry, where story is a primary part of the monetization. It’s possible to unlock the story elements as characters engage with each other by fulfilling free tasks that take time, but the developers are also counting on the fact that an engaging story will make players eager to know what happens next. In fact, they might well be willing to pay to know how.

We all love stories and many find themselves caring about the next steps and connecting with characters. I love seeing that leveraged in possibly unexpected ways in games!