On & Piqued – The Raeth 5/24/26

Let’s try something a little different from our previous iteration of this. One “On” and one “Piqued,” each with a little blurb of my strange and varied thoughts (including a cutting edge and very exciting rating system). Then you can tell me how wrong I am in the comments. It’ll be great.

So here I’ll give you one game I’m currently playing, with some musings from my current current position in said game, and I’ll also perform the lauded civic duty of informing you how much antler content I’ve noticed or experienced so far via a highly objective and extremely scientific rating system I’m calling the Antler Appraisal. In all of this I will try to be as vague and esoteric as possible in order to avoid spoilers, cause they’re the worst. Then I’ll offer one game I’m looking forward to playing at some point in the (hopefully) near-ish future. This may be something in the queue of my Game Pass (or Epic Store/Steam free game) backlog, something forthcoming that caught my eye in some article or preview, perhaps a demo I played, or something else entirely based on whatever whims assail me that day. New games, old games, big games, small games… who can say what’ll show up.

ON: Hades II

• ~70 hours played (via Xbox), 17/49 Achievements

I was told this sequel was “more of a good thing” and so far find that to be ringing true. I had recently been buzzing through a game called Absolum (2.5D sidescrolling beat-em-up that’s also a decidedly Hades-style roguelike) which was pleasant, but it mostly just made me want to go play more Hades. Asked and answered. I’m currently chugging through what I’m guessing is the “midgame” of Hades II and have been reflecting on the interesting dynamics of a roguelike mid to late game (also coming off of the (I think) nearly finished Blue Prince late game), and how difficult it must be for a developer to really nail the pacing in the balance of progression and rewards with juuust the right series of triggers that account for such a wide potential of possible player paths. It has to be SO easy for all of that to crash horribly into a dull, grindy mess. I think it’d be really fascinating to peek behind the curtain at how devs walk that fine line. Hades II so far has been handling this quite nicely (where both Hades games seem to manage this tuning so much better than many in the genre). There are also lots of smaller sequel additions that I’m finding delightful. Raki for life.

Antler Appraisal: So far two characters of the central cast with antlers (one set artificial, one set real as far as I can tell; the latter of which also sports a lovely and creative hair/antler interaction), one antler keepsake, and one stag statue in the homebase. Overall a respectable showing – 3/5

PIQUED: Paralives

• Releasing in Early Access on 5/25 (TOMORROW!)

What if a passionate indie studio (read: not EA) that actually cared about making a good life sim game (ie. not EA) made a life sim game (without EA)? That’s the question I’m very excited to see how Paralives answers. A handful of “Sims-killers” have popped up (and seemingly flamed out) recently, but this is one I’ve been tracking since nearly the beginning of its long, Patreon-funded development (though I never ended up supporting it in that manner; probably shame on me, I guess) and have high hopes for. I’ve appreciated their efforts to be clear about what will and will not be available at its Early Access launch, and the charming art style combined with a number of (seemingly no-brainer) quality of life improvements over the often frustrating Sims formula has me eager to check it out. I love building things in video games, and while I have a decent amount of survival/crafting games in my orbit at present, I haven’t played a game like this in quite a while.