General Gaming The Secret To The Success Of Bastion, Pyre, And Hades: No Forced Crunch, Yes Forced Vacations (Kotaku)

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

In a game development world seemingly dominated by garbage corporate cultures, it's REALLY great to see a company embracing a positive work/life balance and experiencing  outstanding success with its output!

 

The Secret To The Success Of Bastion, Pyre, And Hades: No Forced Crunch, Yes Forced Vacations

KOTAKU.COM

---

It’s been ten years since Supergiant Games opened its doors. The team put all of their hopes into the studio’s debut game, Bastion, an action-RPG with a narrator. It succeeded with flying colors. Since then, the studio has released Transistor, Pyre, and Hades, every single one receiving critical acclaim and financial success. The team’s big secret? Everybody’s actually happy about working there.

 

[Nokt]

I love Supergiant as a company. I just wish I liked their games more. The mood set by each game is always on point and their soundtracks are a treat.

Outside of Bastion though I have a hard time even finishing any of the games. I've picked up Transistor so many times only to put it down a couple hours later.

[Mr.Vic20]

11 minutes ago, Nokt said:

I love Supergiant as a company. I just wish I liked their games more. The mood set by each game is always on point and their soundtracks are a treat.

Outside of Bastion though I have a hard time even finishing any of the games. I've picked up Transistor so many times only to put it down a couple hours later.

Same here, though I hear Hades is a cut above the rest and well worth your time! 

[Fizzzzle]

I met some of their folks at PAX before Bastion came out. They were seriously people you could just sit and talk game design with for hours. I think that comes through in their games, as you can't put any of their games into a specific genre. They take a philosophical approach to design, boiling down gameplay loops they like into their most basic elements and then reconstructing them. They're like the opposite of Ubisoft. Not that I have anything in particular against Ubisoft, it's just two vastly different approaches to design.

[Nokt]

3 hours ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

Same here, though I hear Hades is a cut above the rest and well worth your time! 

I enjoyed my time with Hades, but roguelike has to be one of my least favorite genres. I didn't even come close to getting out.

[crispy4000]

I’ve loved each one of their games.  Bastion the least actually, and even that game is treasure in its own right.

 

They’ve never nailed a gameplay loop quite as well as Hades though.

 

 

1 hour ago, Nokt said:

I enjoyed my time with Hades, but roguelike has to be one of my least favorite genres. I didn't even come close to getting out.

I’m sure it’s been said to you before, but the game gets progressively easier with more escape attempts.  For most people it takes two dozen or so tries.

What I like about it compared to the (few) other rogue-

likes I’ve played is that it really doesn’t demand precision.  But it also doesn’t feel like bad luck screws you over.  You just get an assortment of ways to kick ass.

[crispy4000]

14 hours ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

Same here, though I hear Hades is a cut above the rest and well worth your time! 

 

Bastion is pretty generic gauntlet-type I thought, just with interchangeable weapons.

Transistor is an acquired taste.  It took half of the game for me really to get a handle on the combat.  The last boss is something else though.  It is more of an action game than it leads on, IMO.

Pyre's 'battles' are truly fantastic once they click.  The only problem is the the difficulty scales horribly.  There's a boss 2/3rds of the way through which is at least 4x as hard as anything else.  The fact that the story continues if you lose doesn't do it any favors, since every match already works that way.  I still love the gameplay though.  

Hades, by comparison, is flawless.  It's the best 2d isometric combat system I've experienced.  It doesn't reinvent rogue-likes or anything of the sort, but it has this pick-up-and-have-fun vibe that most of their previous games don't reach.  Last time I played something that felt instantly this good was probably ALBW on 3DS.

[thedarkstark]

30 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

 

Bastion is pretty generic gauntlet-type I thought, just with interchangeable weapons.

Transistor is an acquired taste.  It took half of the game for me really to get a handle on the combat.  The last boss is something else though.  It is more of an action game than it leads on, IMO.

Pyre's 'battles' are truly fantastic once they click.  The only problem is the the difficulty scales horribly.  There's a boss 2/3rds of the way through which is at least 4x as hard as anything else.  The fact that the story continues if you lose doesn't it any better, since every match already works that way.  I still love the gameplay though.  

Hades, by comparison, is flawless.  It's the best 2d isometric combat system I've experienced.  It doesn't reinvent rogue-likes or anything of the sort, but it has this pick-up-and-have-fun vibe that most of their previous games don't reach.  Last time I played something that felt instantly this good was probably ALBW on 3DS.

I'm really sad they never followed up with another game in the vein of A Link Between Worlds, one of the best games I've ever played. I may go back and replay it soon.

[Keyser_Soze]

Having only played Bastion, not a huge fan of their games, but sounds like they know how to do work right. This is probably why they spend years in early access.