If there was ever a story for Cyber Monday, that is it – the sort of stuff that magazines would unfold rumours about, now made actual. The Hex, should you missed John’s cheery review, is the genre-hopping successor to Daniel Mullins’ Pony Island, and a intelligent little factor you must in all probability play now. One second it’s a Fallout-parodying techniques game, subsequent it’s Hotline Miami. It’s additionally about secrets and techniques, and it took a full month for its gamers to crack its biggest one. As with Pony Island earlier than it, there’s a second, hidden ending. In one other game.
Uncovered by a swarm of puzzle-fiends (you’ll be able to see a lot of their workings here), however assembled for simple consumption by Steam forumer “Hutch” here, the trail to The Hex’s secret ending is convoluted, to say the least. Fortunately, these wanting to only lower to the chase can skip to the ultimate stage. The Hex is full of little secrets and techniques, Easter eggs and potential puzzle items. My preliminary run via the game left me conscious that I’d want to seek out extra hidden cash to unlock a collection of sealed doorways, however even that’s simply the tip of the iceberg. HEAVY SPOILERS lurk under the trailer.
The Hex is a story of game improvement hubris – of a creator, Lionel Snill, who discovered success younger, fell into cash and ended up with an ego larger than his financial institution steadiness. It’s the story of the games that he made, and the folks he made them with, together with a girl named Carla. Carla was Lionel’s oldest good friend, however she grew resentful and bitter after years of his mismanagement and ego-tripping. Carla additionally created the creepy circus ring-mistress character Sado, who seems within the game as a recurring boss. By the beginning of The Hex, Lionel and Carla aren’t on talking phrases.
In the world of The Hex, videogame characters have their very own lives – suppose Reboot and also you’re 90% of the best way there. At the top of The Hex, there lastly is a homicide, and also you’re the confederate – you allow Root Beer Reggie, Lionel’s first game character, thought deleted, to get bloody revenge upon his creator. You open a portal between the game and actual worlds, and see live-action Lionel, strangled to loss of life. Oh, and Sado popping up on the final second, now freed from her digital confines. Oops. The prolonged ending simply provides a bit of extra twist to that knife within the guts.
Following a large string of hints and secrets and techniques left in The Hex’s a number of sub-games, gamers discovered that they needed to create a file named ‘cipher.cipher’ inside The Hex’s listing. If the cipher file accommodates all the fitting puzzle items collected via the game, its presence permits a minor character, Wizzaro, to decode a message hidden in a locket. It reveals that Lionel had one final want; he despatched a file to Carla, saying “If something ever happens to me. Can you make sure this gets into a game?”. She grudgingly agrees. Then, presumably, he dies.
As you uncover in The Hex, Carla at all times needed to make a fishing game. Released some time after The Hex, a bit of freeware game known as Beneath The Surface launched on Steam underneath the developer title “carla51”. It’s a single-screen ice fishing game with a primary improve system. Some of the objects you’ll be able to fish up are simply cute jokes, others are references to issues in The Hex correct. One merchandise – a locket – simply accommodates a garbled piece of textual content. Put the finished cipher file in Beneath The Surface’s listing, and it’s decoded, telling you to kind “Lionel.exe”.
I received’t spoil what occurs should you do. Beneath The Surface is free here on Steam, and a small obtain. The Hex can be discounted a bit on Steam right now, all the way down to £6.11/€6.96/$8.49, though the Autumn sale ends later as we speak.
