Hylics 2, v33 Changelog
Features:
Hylics 2 has been in the works ever since, and as the latest preview trailer shows, it seems to be coming along nicely. Designer Mason Lindroth released the first Hylics back in 2015, the. Cant say anything about hylics 2 but if 1 was anything to go by the mechanics will likely be fine at best but just not fleshed out at all. 1 was a significantly shorter and smaller project so it didnt put much into the combat, but it was very simple. Think earthbound but simpler and without the rolling HP system.
- Hylics 2 by Mason Lindroth Hylics 2 is a recreational program with a unique graphic style and droll scenario. The tyrant Gibby’s minions seek to reconstitute their long-presumed-annihilated master. It’s up to our crescent headed protagonist Wayne to assemble a crew and put a stop to that sort of thing.
- 2 Days discounted 21 (14%) Estimated gross sales Based on research by GameDiscoverCo median $159K–$476K $317,126 Estimated net sales Based on research by GameDiscoverCo median $92K–$275K $183,140 Tags. Tags in descending order of votes.
-Autosave.
Please note: Autosave functionality is currently very basic. An autosave is made upon scene load, in “normal” scenes (i.e. not in cutscenes or minigames). Regard it as a “backup” save. I recommend saving the game manually before closing it. Notably, an autosave is not currently made when in the “first-person-maze” section. Refinements to the autosave system will be made in future updates.
-It is now possible to immediately surrender, while in battle, via the new “PERISH” ability. This can save time when defeat is inevitable.
The ability only functions while in battle. It does not currently have an animation.
Improvements:
-Adjustments to movement in the 2D sidescroller:
-Smoother jumping while walking into a wall.
-Simplification of some uneven floors.
Bug fixes:
-Fixed: Poolman’s health/loot variables were not reset correctly in the first-person-labyrinth scene.
-Fixed Dying while riding a flying carpet caused other moving platforms to function incorrectly.
-misc small fixes.
Known issues:
Diagonal movement remains problematic on some keyboards, due to keyboard rollover issues. A comprehensive control/input overhaul is planned, but will take several weeks.
Rebinding movement controls to WASD may help with diagonal movement. Plans to set WASD as the default controls are currently halted due to issues with the shift key on some Windows OS versions.
A Note on Hylics
On Hylics (Mason Lindroth, 2015), Robert Yang wrote: “There are a lot of things to like about Hylics. The randomly generated dialog text both exposes the emptiness of most RPG NPC dialog while simultaneously showing how much better and more poetic it can be.”
As I played through Hylics I realised it exposed pretty much the whole JRPG format.
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Hylics is a JRPG which defies any sort of easy description (Yang would have my bacon if I came out and called it “surreal”, so imagine I’ve pulled you into a dark alley and whispered the word “weird” in secret) but is packed with beautiful stop-motion animation.
But Hylics is a pretty confusing experience. Early in the game, you might be expecting some guidance about what your character, Wayne, is supposed to be doing. Don’t hold your breath waiting for an info-dump. Hylics doesn’t do info-dumps. In fact, the game never orders you about and if I recall correctly you only get sent once on an explicit fetch quest.
In one sense, it’s clever. A JRPG inevitably becomes about exploration, obtaining access to areas which are initially walled off. Imagine no one told you to go find the red key to open the red door: you’d still want to find the red key. Hylics knows this, choosing never to explain why Wayne would want to go anywhere, but simply offers barriers - such as the harbour gate - that the player desires to bypass. In the 1978 book The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia, Bernard Suits characterised games as “the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles” and what defines a player in most cases is this urge to seek such unnecessary challenges. The developer just needs to get out of the way - players are happy to lay siege to something that opposes them.
Because Hylics is clever like this, it lampoons JRPG dialogue. Most dialogue is procedurally-generated gibberish but the accompanying sound indicates when the conversation is important to pay attention to or not. As Yang notes, it reflects the banality of most game dialogue. The average JRPG developer will scatter NPCs about to make the world seem alive, offering terrible conversation like “Hi! Look at this field, it’s so green!” While Hylics goes meta in this respect, it turns NPCs into an exercise in gaming frustration, as if we are trying to find the right NPC hotspot to negotiate with.
Although Hylics has a health and magic system, it uses freaky names to make it difficult to form permanent associations. In your inventory, “frozen burrito” can be used as a projectile, while “warm burrito” is used to revive a character from death. “Vegetable” will recover lost “flesh” and “juice box” will increase “will”. It gets even more convoluted when you approach Hylics’ enchantments such as “mystic meat” and “panorama”. The player will learn some of these names but I often chose the wrong item or spell because I forgot to check the small print which explains what it does. I had to keep checking the small print, again and again.
You might expect Hylics to lampoon JRPG combat as well, but Lindroth takes it deadly seriously. While the persistent player will figure out Hylics only cares about one character stat (Mightiness) becoming adept at wielding your party’s tools is essential as the fights become increasingly fraught. It’s also mean in some ways, where a little experimentation can result in instant death, but you can save wherever you want.
It’s not the only JRPG to mash up the labels to leave players floundering. For example, in Polymorphous Perversity (Nicolau Chaud, 2012) the RPG Maker combat model is utilised to represent sexual encounters. I’m also reminded of Space Funeral (The Catamites, 2010).
But the more I played, the more I saw through the graphics to the numbers and structures of the technical game underneath. You might suspect that Hylics is making the point that much of the visual and narrative baggage that comes with a JRPG can be completely dispensed with, but it’s actually the reverse. As the average JRPG ruleset is so familiar and staid, the only stuff worth a damn is what it looks like, what it sounds like and, if you’re lucky, what it means.
I’m not sure I can say I enjoyed Hylics, but I was glad to have played it.
Hylics 2 For Macbook Air
How to get Hylics:itch.io,Steam.
Further Reading:Chris Priestman on Hylics (Kill Screen)
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