The Hex - On the Other Side of the Game Monitor

If you have lived for more than a couple of decades, you are guaranteed to have encountered the paradox of choice. You have nothing to wear when your closet is full of things with the tags not cut off; your appetite has waned when your fridge is full of dishes; having saved an endless amount for a car, you suddenly realize that you are lost in brands, no longer so sure that the once cherished car is so good. If to take an easier example: there are thousands of serials and thousands of films, but after you have an hour or two they do not interest you anymore... ...The paradox of choice has not escaped the gaming industry. Annually published dozens of games of different quality, genres and on all platforms. But as soon as it's time for a quiet Friday night game, you sink into a stupor, poring over dozens of faded titles. The Hex is one of those games whose existence is already valuable to know. And here's why.

Daniel Mullins Games - Certificate of Quality

The paradox of choice is best handled by indie games. Projects that lack a glossy look, but which do not lack in courage of ideas and in original presentation. There is a lot of junk in the indie sector, but the indies also have their own Kojima. Please love and worship Kojima from the indie world, Daniel Mullins:

There are only four games in Daniel's portfolio. Pony Island is a game made intentionally primitive. Pony Island's gameplay is reminiscent of Dino T-Rex, that game in Google Chrome browser when the internet goes down, but Pony Island has one conceptual difference with Dino T-Rex... ...Pony Island is a game within a game. Almost immediately, an uncomplicated pixel platformer turns into something frightening. Every now and then the game takes control away from the player, knocks out deliberately created bugs and tells the story of Pony Island itself through them. After 10 minutes, the player realizes that Pony Island is not a game, but a stylized creepypasta that seems to come from the darkest corners of the darknet. All those digital horror stories gradually come to life on the screen, Pony Island begins to communicate directly with the player, controls his computer and supposedly dooms the player to the eternal torment of passing the game, which is impossible to pass. Pony Island is not without its occult and religious motivations...

The second game is Daniel Mullins Games - The Hex. We will describe it in the review...

Well, the third game by Daniel Mullins Games is Inscryption. Its status as one of the best indie games of the year speaks for itself. Inscryption doesn't need any advertising or presentation. This game has already become a household name for screenwriting, Fincher is nervously smoking on the sidelines.

Daniel hasn't released many games in his career, but every release has turned out to be a cultural event. It's all in Mullins' approach to his work. He never took on mediocre ideas and was always on fire with an idea. Mullins always saw making games as a hobby; playing on emotional strings as a way to express himself. Despite commercial success, Mullins cared less about money. He spent millions of dollars on games that appealed specifically to him, not to marketing departments.

As early as the second game, Daniel Mullins Games began to have a handwriting: an end-to-end story and interconnected game universes. Each time the narrative starts in the middle of the story and gradually unfolds with flashbacks. Every time the fourth wall is broken and the player is addressed directly. And the cherry on the cake - unobtrusive jokes for the gamer community, for example: some games implement legal cheats, but once you turn them on, the game immediately starts scolding the player for cheating...

How told a non-typical story with typical tools

The Hex begins as a classic closed-room affair. One rainy night, the bar owner receives a mystical call warning of an impending murder. Behind the bar are five characters the bartender knows well, and only one of them is hidden in the darkness.

Of course, fans of detectives would immediately guess that the mysterious visitor with the question mark on his face is not the murderer. That would be too obvious, and in Mullins' games it is impossible to predict the further development of the plot.

Characters, for every visitor to the bar is the archetypal protagonist of the video game. Here you have a parody of Sonic, the survivor from the Asylum 101 who this time didn't leave his son in the middle of radioactive wasteland, the tired of life spaceman of the Ultramarine Order, a certain parody of Geras from Mortal Combat 11 and the typical witch from the RPG she hates. All of the characters have one thing in common: a failed career.

Little Ferret was Daniel's first character in the once-popular platformer, but faded into oblivion after the rights to the franchise were sold to third-party developers. As always, the story of Little Ferret's downfall is told through the character's memories. Already early in the game, Mullins hits the fourth wall with a sledgehammer, and Little Ferret jumps not on platforms, but on negative reviews on Steam from YOUR friends. Yes, Daniel Mullins Games digs into players' computers often, sometimes mischievously, and sometimes downright scary. You get unintentional horror: you see a review of an acquaintance in a game, you write him in messenger, and he answers that he did not write anything...

The next story is about Bryce. Bryce got sucked into the death arena fighting game, even though Bryce dreamed of being a character in a cooking game. But that's not the drama. The drama is that Bryce was the developer's favorite character growing up. During his years working on Deathstroke, Daniel was still very young, exposed to emotion. This became a stumbling block for Bryce. Daniel raised the characterization of the favorite time and time again, making him an imba. Player complaints led to the fact that the young programmer could not balance Bryce, had to remove the character from the game.

However, after "Death Arena" Bryce never left the ghosts of violence, he could no longer live at the same pace. Every now and then the former fighter was overcome by painful flashbacks and pains of frustration. Finding himself in a peaceful environment, Bryce could not stand a day, his inner demons came out and broke the character's life...

And if Bryce became a villain unintentionally, Shandarelle's life journey resembles the premise of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange. Shandarel clearly does not fit the definition of a "good person": she is selfish, dodgy, at times mean, and sometimes frighteningly cynical.

It's because Shandarel hates the game she finds herself in. And the role of a protagonist with healthy moral compasses doesn't suit her at all. Think about it, doesn't your Souls'like character get bored of dying at the hands of a boss over and over again? The Hex takes up the theme of character free will through the story of Shandarel. But Mullins' originality doesn't stop there, either. After a couple of minutes, the player is made aware that Shandarel's memories of the game were on the Twitch streaming platform. Not only is the enchantress forced to perform trivial scripted tasks, but for the amusement of the audience...

The stream, by the way, reacts to the player's action, but, as is often the case in life, is filled with spam, memes, and other informational nonsense. The goal of this story is to make the player feel like a circus monkey...

Is The Hex worth buying?

The text above is a simplified summary of half the story through the lens of the author's perception. If you think I've ruined your experience with spoilers, don't worry, I haven't. The Hex is one of those games that you can't ruin with spoilers. While the game is narrative with a smattering of gameplay, no amount of plot retelling will show you the little things that Daniel Mullins has become famous for among the gamer community. Mullins' games are like a well-written book, full of heartfelt moments, aphorisms and memorable moments. If you didn't know The Hex existed before, I envy you a little. I want to erase my memory and play the game all over again.