I strongly disagree on their roguelite "bug" being something they need to drop.

Bastion didn't land for me, so I didn't play it, but Transistor would have shined as a roguelite. Its combat system is far too complex, and has potential for so much more, than what can be explored in one or two playthroughs.

The same goes for Cloudbank as a narrative setting.

Transistor, but with Hades' gameplay loop and storytelling style would be insane. It already felt like a roguelite, but without a gameplay or narrative reason to go in for multiple runs.

Supergiant hasn't cought a roguelite bug... They've found the perfect narrative and game format to match the gameplay systems and worlds they like to create.

If I'm being honest, before Hades, I wasn't sure how much of a future Supergiant had in game dev. They clearly have talent for making beautiful looking worlds with great soundtracks and writing, but their gameplay was not exceptional for the genres they dabbled in. They didn't try to iterate either, flitting from genre to genre.

Hades was the result of them taking what they learned from Bastion and Pyre and applying it to a trend. They really nailed the gameplay this time. I think Hades 2 is even better, and I suspect it will be again be a GOTY contender when it comes out.

That said, I think they could very well end up branching out again from roguelites after this.

I enjoyed Bastion and Transistor.

I also preferred Hades to either.

Nah I think they do pansexual roguelikes best. More hot roguelike characters please. Especially if they're anthros like Asterius. :3

I think I'm just getting sick of rogue likes. It seems there is another one being pushed every time I open steam. I find them all way too similar and frankly the loop of roguelikes is annoying to me. So, I would like to see them develop something else, I don't see it happening.

Hades was good. Rogue legacy was good. Dead cells was good. Brotato was good. Vampire survivors was good. Wizard of legend was good. Star of Providence was good. After those, though, I hit a wall. So, overall I agree. I wish the industry would move away from the genre, but it's not happening anytime soon.

different people like different things, sounds like your friends like rougish games.

I enjoyed bastion, it was probably my favorite game of its year. I don't care enough about hades to even give it the time of day, no matter how hot they made zagreus. With few exceptions, I don't really like rougish games. The few that I do like I'd rather they be long form rpgs so that I can have a build long enough to enjoy it for a while.

That said, studios should be allowed to make the games they want to make. Forcing them to do art against their will results in bad art.

tbh, I loved SuperGiant's themes and aesthetics, but not their gameplay. So often early games of Bastion and Transistor felt squishy, or like I was playing underwater - the response loop from button push to effect on screen seemed laggy. Tried both on various platforms, never really got past that feeling. lovely soundtracks tho

I think I'm kind of done with Supergiant regardless. In both Bastion and Transistor, it felt like they had two out of three components to their gameplay loop but were missing something to prevent it from feeling repetitive; despite short runtimes, both very much did feel repetitive. I didn't even try Pyre, and I have little faith it would be for me. I do love roguelikes and can enjoy -lites from time to time as well, and Hades got a lot of buzz. However, I actually quite disliked worlds 3 and 4, and the level generation is among the worst I've seen in the genre. I get the sense that Hades is probably most responsible for people who claim they want "handcrafted levels" as opposed to procedural generation, because perhaps those people haven't seen it done well if they've only ever played Hades, a game with level generation so monotonous that the voice actor will call out a room we all recognize.

I loved Bastion and Transistor and wished for sequels for both. But SG clearly seemed to prefer to not make sequels for its games all these years; to my knowledge, it has never made one. I’m not sure what or who changed at the company, but Hades 2 is an anomaly.

Has anyone interviewed someone at SG to ask sequel questions? If not, maybe someone will once H2 gets closer to officially shipping.

Just for a bit of clarification I'm not talking about forcing them to do anything This is simply from a consumer standpoint, my wish I guess.

(Pyre)

What is wrong with it? A quick Google Search leads me to a pretty good game based on the reviews.

IDK why just until now it strikes me that Supergiant Games are the same dudes that created Hades and Bastion lol.

To be honest, I think they only made a sequel to Hades because it was so popular. I actually quite like that they create new universes every game. I also like the core gameplay of Pyre (not so much the mini-games) unlike most people. It sort of feels like Ballmasterz turned into a super cereal game to me. It probably inspired the show, which ever came first.

To be honest, I felt like Hades was like GOOFILY sexual. But I get why it works for most people. I just was like...wut!? People are horny for Hades folks, including my sibby. So like, it works. I just don't play games for that kind of stuff is all. I also liked their art more when it was air-brushy over the hard comic lines. Which is kind of crazy, because I like comic book art. It's just like...too much for me. My sibby grabbed Hades 2 and I can't bring myself to play it.

Also they're assholes of accessibility. It's so hard to play Hades because outside of the gauntlets you've gotta mash buttons to get through the whole damn thing. I know I am not the only one who's written to them about this, but they never gave a shit about it. I figured I was pretty much done with them because I have had such positive responses from so many indie developers on accessibility options. Which I think to be absolutely honest, should be a standard for games with larger budgets. Which they for sure had, as far as indie games go. eh.

That was a rant and a half.

To be honest, I get what you're saying here although I've played all their games. I think of the bunch I disliked Bastion the most. It felt like an empty PSX game. I liked Transistor, but the catch is that it needed to be played pretty much surrounding their pause-the-battle technique which was okay but it really kind of sucks to me whenever I have any game use this technique. I would have much rather it had been a full turn-based game. I like turn-based games though. There is some viking game that plays like a janky-table top where it's semi-turnbased and it was absolutely awful for it.

Mind you, I like Transistor due to its story. Which I think is the same reason why I liked Pyre. The setting, it was quite nice and if I could remove the mini-games from the game I would. Hades, I liked because they took characters the size of tic-tacs and turned them into three-dimensional beings. That was quite nice. They played on a lot of anime tropes. The gameplay was good, but it was a bit too challenging for me. I dropped it relatively early due to this. I pretty much sit in the same camp now. I wondered if maybe I had aged out of their target audience but I will probably never play one of their games again. It's just not my bag.

Accessibility options are woefully limited in most games. All I personally need is a UI scaling option for larger fonts on the TV vs a monitor, but most of the games I play, the only options in there are for changing the color palette of the UI if you have 1 of 2 or 3 types of colorblindness and that's it. Even though I am not in need of them, I do like seeing a metric fuckton of options in every single tab as I am a firm believer in more options is always better than fewer already, and this is doubly so for helping people with disabilities get some assistance to experience the game as close to intended as possible.

My partner has a rare type of colorblindness that makes certain comfy games completely unplayable. I wanna scream at the screen, because I wish that it were easier in this life to make things more accessible for all people in general. I sit in the same camp with you, the more the merrier when it comes to support. I get sad when I open a game, and I see nothing (cause the first thing I do is always check the options). I tend to not buy games with certain things like flashy effects, qtes, or a need for fast reflects. As you can tell, I'm not PVE-er =P!

Hades 2 is still in early access, leading me to believe they want to fine tune it and move on

I play a lot of roguelikes because I rarely have the time for a multiple hour gaming session anymore, and I can get a complete start to finish game in with a roguelike in 30-60 minutes. I think that may be part of the popularity.

I've played all the ones you mentioned, my recent vices are Magicraft & Star Vader's, both on steam. Slay the Spire & The Binding of Isaac are two I always come back to during my "what should I play?" moments.

Sparse gameplay, tied together with lots and lots of implied worldbuilding in a lore book that contains most of the story. The gameplay was okay when you got to it, but there was far too much written story locked up, instead of "show, don't tell".

Also, the game wants you to finish six tournaments before you get any sort of decent ending.