#marcus stewart

[bubblebuttgames]

GAME INFORMER #366 - THE MAKING OF HADES II

"The sorcerous Melinoë gazes with intensity toward her goal - and the audience!" says cover artist and Supergiant art director Jen Zee. "She's determined, focused, and powerful. Hecate, Melinoë's mentor, can be seen in the distance wielding her torches and gazing toward the moon. Standing on the precipice of the Crossroads with back turned, she is flanked by her trusty familiars, a hound and a polecat."

COVER STORY - HADES II

Supergiant Games is making its first sequel, and we visited the developer in California to find out why it wasn't quite ready to escape Hell and move on. We played the game extensively, spoke with the team about bringing the follow-up to life, looked ahead to the game's future, and lots more. If you're playing Hades II in Early Access, consider our cover story the perfect companion piece

Platform: PC

Style: 1-Player Action

Publisher: Supergiant Games

Developer: Supergiant Games

Release: May 6

BASTION. TRANSISTOR. PYRE. HADES. Supergiant Games built its name on four distinct, critically lauded titles, giving them a pristine track record few developers can boast But the thrilling roguelike action of Hades catapulted it above the rest to become the studio's most successful game and biggest mainstream hit. Four years, hundreds of runs, and thousands of hours later, the fanbase still can't get enough of Zagreus' adventure and Supergiant's captivating vision of the Greek Underworld.

They're not alone. The folks at Supergiant felt it still had more stories to tell, more places to explore, more deities to meet, and, most importantly, a new perspective for players to view it all. That enthusiasm inspired the studio to tackle its first sequel, Hades II. With players now taking it through its paces in Steam Early Access, we visited Supergiant Games to learn how it came to be and what to expect as it evolves over the coming months

LOOKING BACK AND MOVING AHEAD

Creative director Greg Kasavin declares Hades as "our most successful game by any sort of measure." A litany of industry awards, strong sales, and a passionate fan following have backed up this claim, earning Hades a place among the gods. Yet despite this overwhelming success, Supergiant remains the same as it ever was: a small team (currently 25 full-time employees) driven by a passion and enthusiasm to create unforgettable experiences that stay true to their personal tastes and interests.

When it came time to decide what the next project would be, they approached it as they always do by asking one question: what idea excites them the most? Knowing that they'll be spending the next several years of their lives working on it, making sure the game captures the team's collective passion ensures the best execution and, ultimately, the strongest product. Though it weighed various pitches and ideas, Supergiant had already recognized the potential to expand Hades' world even during the first game's development

"There are so many characters from Greek myth that we're very excited about that simply didn't have a place in the story of the original game," says Kasavin. "You've got these really big names like Apollo or Heracles and stuff like that. And they don't appear in the original Hades, not because we weren't excited for them, [but] just because we were focused on other characters..But we always wondered: how would we portray some of these other characters?"

Greg and the rest of the team soon realized it had much more it wanted to say with Hades. Speaking with five of the original seven employees who have been with Supergiant Games since the development of 2011's Bastion - Kasavin, studio director Amir Rao, art director Jen Zee, composer Darren Korb, and voice actor Logan Cunningham - all of them expressed excitement about returning to Hades' world for their own respective reasons

For Kasavin, Greek mythology's rich and expansive lore offers a multitude of storytelling possibilities. For Zee, the principal artist behind Supergiant's signature art style, redesigning beloved characters was as exciting as illustrating new ones. Korb looks forward to adding new thematic and tonal layers to Hades existing soundscape that exemplifies the new presentational direction for the sequel. Cunningham, the voice behind several key characters, including Hades himself, teases a new direction for the ruler of the underworld.

For Rao, however, he tells me this is the studio's opportunity to define, in their eyes, what a sequel looks like. Supergiant has been a one- and-done studio since its inception, to the point that some fans believe the studio has some sort of policy against making sequels. Kasavin says this has never been the case. Rather, the reluctance came from the studio's desire always to surprise players; sequels are known quantities. At the same time, the idea of making a sequel at a conceptual level became an alluring challenge in itself.

"We made four original IPs in a row," says Rao "We are unpracticed at making a sequel [laughs]. So, this is our first time doing it. We had to reflect on what are some of the sequels that we loved? And what did they do to move the game world and mechanics and design and story forward?

To that end, Supergiant examined the team's favorite sequels that expanded on their predecessors in meaningful and dramatic ways while still retaining the elements that had worked before. Rao cites Portal 2 as an example, and he also names Diablo II as a personal inspiration, particularly his love for the magic- based sorceress class - a specific trait that would later prove a vital ingredient. As the team decided on ideas and priorities, Greg formulated the story and lore that would best fit these concepts. The journey would take him to lesser-known edges of Greek mythology and the discovery of another long-lost child of Hades himself.

MAKING A NEW MYTH

[oldcountrybear1955]

Marcus Stewart

[jetslay]

DC Super-Heroes by Bernard Chang.

[crewdlydrawn]

It. Is. Happening.

LET’S FUCKIN’ GOOOOOOOOOO

[palazzodeipriori]

[scenesandscreens]

Tremors (1990)

Director - Ron Underwood, Cinematography - Alexander Gruszynski

"Broke into the wrong goddamn rec room, didn't ya you bastard!"

[tx0r1a]

oh so the coll3cted news are real REAL apparently

WE'RE SO FUCKING BACK

source

also whoever Todd is, he's braver than US marine

[joynershats]

okay at what point of my life has it happened that my whole taste in men has become "softie with long hair and a big heart"

see:

and most importantly... is it because Freud was very right or because I'm actually a massive lesbian

bonus:

[twilightronin]

The Collection - Marcus Dunstan 2012

[hyenabeanz]

Went to see Love Lies Bleeding (A+, no notes, much hot, very daddy issue, yay women's wrongs, etc).

But anyway, shoutout to the woman sitting in front of us who must've just wandered in unknowing anything about the movie, with negative points in gaydar, for letting out a startled "oh!" when Lou and Jackie started kissing.

Best comedy scene in the movie.

[mariocki]

Death Curse of Tartu (1966)

"Now look, Billy, the human brain is very mysterious. Sometimes it makes us see things that don't exist and hear things that never were."

"How do you explain the people that were killed, then?"

[2ndaryprotocol]

The supremely spooky ‘Insidious: The Last Key’ startled moviegoers this week 5 years ago. 👻🔑⛓

“𝚂𝚑𝚎'𝚜 𝚙𝚜𝚢𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚌. 𝚆𝚎'𝚛𝚎 𝚜𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚔𝚒𝚌𝚔.”

[magazinescans]

All Rise

Photographed by Marcus Nilsson Text by Michelle Shih

Martha Stewart Living - October 2017

[twenty-words-or-less]

The Collector (2009)

Summary: Arkin O’Brien (Josh Stewart) must pay off his wife’s loan shark debts, so he decides to break into a rich family’s house to steal their valuable ruby. Little does he know that he’s up against another home invader, one with deadlier intentions...

Wince-inducing traps, one-dimensional characters, pointy objects, home invasions, and no discernable motive for villain? A perfectly decent Saw knockoff indeed.

Rating: 3/5

Photo credit: AceShowbiz.com