Line #59 VideoGame/Hylics


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/game_2015_08_12_13_02_00_351_640x400.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Wayne, the Protagonist.]]
3
4	''Hylics'' is a video game created by Mason Lindroth in 2015, described as "a recreational program with light JRPG elements."
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6	Its world, from the environments to the battle sprites, is made entirely from pastel claymation. You play mainly as Wayne, a man with a waning moon for a head, on a vague quest to meet Gibby, the King of the Moon. The plot, if there can be said to be one, is heavily buried under symbolism and the general surrealism of the world.
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8	The game can be downloaded [[https://mason-lindroth.itch.io/hylics here]], and can be completed in about ~2 hours.
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10	A sequel, ''Hylics 2'', was released in 2020. Described as a "recreational program with a unique graphic style and droll scenario," it follows Wayne and company as they seek to prevent Gibby's resurrection.
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12	On January 8th 2022. Lindroth started posting teasers and material for a third entry, though it is ambiguous if it would be a sequel, prequel or something else though it is set in the same world as the prior games.
13	----
14	!!Hylics contains examples of:
15	* AerithAndBob: Pongorma, Somsnosa, and Dedusmuln compared to Wayne, Gibby, and Dracula.
16	* AfterTheEnd: Implied by the ruins buried in the environment, and Dedusmuln considering a paper cup an archaeological treasure.
17	** The second game gives more details about it. There was once an advanced worldwide civilization built by a race known as the Sages, but the world was devastated by a flying fortress known as Hylemxylem, an event known as "The Accretion." [[spoiler:The revived Gibby rediscovered Hylemxylem and is trying to use it to recreate the old world and a new Moon.]]
18	* AllThereInTheManual: The narrator's name, Dracula, is found in the game's files.[[note]]Interestingly enough, there are unused sprite sheets of distinct characters that are also labeled Dracula. Whether they are prototypes of the Dracula seen in the game or characters simply cut out from the game due to certain constraints is anybody's guess.[[/note]]
19	* AntiFrustrationFeatures: The second game has some improvements over the first:
20	** You only need to see a TV once for everyone to learn its respective gesture. In the first game, you had to re-visit each TV when a new character joined your party.
21	** The permanent Flesh and Will increases are shared across all characters, whether they're part of the party yet or not.
22	** You don't have to travel all over the world to find working water coolers. The only water cooler in the game is the one in the Airship, and it's reusable.
23	* ApocalypseHow: The Accretion caused at least a Class 1 with the old civilization apparently ending up buried underground and causing society to regress to a mixture of schizo-tech and medieval culture.
24	* ArtEvolution: Hylics 2 is a major shift in quality compared to the first. Everything from the character models to the animations to the environments are much more elaborately detailed, in part due to the switch from UsefulNotes/RPGMaker to Unity.
25	* TheBeforetimes: The Empire of the Sages which had airships, computers and other tech that is now found only in sparse locations.
26	* BigBad: Gibby, King of the Moon in the first game.
27	** Odozeir, a loyal minion of Gibby, acts as the primary antagonistic force of ''Hylics 2'' in his attempts to resurrect his master. [[spoiler:He dies after his fight, and he's [[HijackedByGanon upstaged as the antagonist]] by the newly revived Gibby.]]
28	* BigGood: The Sages who give Wayne and Co. various powers or clues to help in their quest.
29	* {{Bizarrchitecture}}: The Afterlife in the first game. You start on a balcony, and can travel down some stairs to a lower one. The upper balcony is supported by pillars... which descend down ''over the top'' of the lower balcony in a way that doesn't make any Euclidean sense. You've got to wonder what it looks like from Wayne's perspective...
30	* CallAHitPointASmeerp: Several stats are called strange things. Health and Mana are Flesh and Will, while base stats are things like Jollity, Texture and Philology.
31	* ChargedAttack: You can charge up your attacks in the sequel. It's way more useful than it sounds, since alongside boosting your next attack's power, it also alters the attacks unique to each party member.
32	* ClimaxBoss: [[spoiler:Gibby, in both games.]]
33	* DancePartyEnding: [[spoiler:After defeating Gibby in Hylics 2, Wayne and co. land on a concert stage where you can play the instruments for a cheering crowd.]]
34	* DeathAsGameMechanic: Instead of a standard game over, after dying you get sent to the Afterlife, which serves both as the fast travel hub and the way you level up (the game's equivalent of experience points must be manually redeemed here). Not only is player death [[DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist fairly unpunishing]], it's a ''core game mechanic''.
35	* DeflectorShields: Seen in the sequel and powered by... worms.
36	* DidYouGetANewHaircut: Wayne asks this of Dedusmuln in ''Hylics 2'' while on the airship. Dedusmuln replies that it's actually a "seasonally occurring lamellar structure".
37	* EnemySummoner: Tomb Shrub, a boss found within the catacombs. Turns out those "Sub Shrubs" you've been fighting on and off around the area are its offshoots, which it peppers the battlefield with to overwhelm you. Considering it's found amidst a bunch of vegetable plants... and each of them drop a vegetable when killed... [[FridgeHorror exactly what was Wayne growing in his garden from the start of the game?]]
38	* GenreBuster: ''Hylics 2'' is a turn-based RPG with 3D-platforming elements, featuring a large 2D Action Platformer minigame and an entire area explored in first person, tile-based dungeon crawling style.
39	* GloveSlap: Battles in ''Hylics 2'' can be initiated by doing this.
40	%%* GreekChorus: Dracula, the Narrator.
41	* GuideDangIt:
42	** With the plot left to the player's speculation and most dialogue being randomly generated, figuring out what you're supposed to do can be difficult.
43	** ''Hylics 2'' doesn't have randomly generated text [[spoiler:until the final act]], and even then, the pause menu [[WhereWasIGoingAgain has a reminder of what your next objective is]].
44	** The Sage's Labyrinth in the sequel can be pretty annoying to traverse due to the first-person perspective. Finding every treasure, though? It can be a nightmare, thanks to the fact that everything is behind false walls (and lots of them don't have any hint to their presence). In fact, a paper cup and an entire OptionalBoss can be missed within it.
45	* HaveANiceDeath: In both games, the game over animation shows Wayne's flesh melting off his face, leaving him as a skeleton.
46	* HopelessBossFight: The first encounter with [[spoiler:Gibby Redivivus]] in the sequel.
47	* HubWorld: The Afterlife.
48	* HumanResources: After battles, you obtain Meat, which can be exchanged for health in the Afterlife. In the sequel, the first Meat you are likely to collect is from what appears to be an injured and dying Wayne that lacks a carapace.
49	** [[spoiler:Also, the money machine in the first game, processing 3 subjects into 250K bucks each.]]
50	* HumanoidAbomination: Due to the intentionally surreal and dream-like feeling of the game, along with its claymation, every single character and enemy in the game, with notable exceptions in Somsnosa and maybe Pongorma, is either this or a downright EldritchAbomination in terms of design.
51	** Made even more apparent with the enemies in the second game due to the higher amounts of animations and their otherworldly designs, combining to form creatures that might belong in nightmares.
52	** The Waynes play this straight in the second game. In the first, aside from various cats that look like him, Wayne seems to just be a man with a strangely-shaped head. In the sequel, the Wayne "lineage" is revealed to vary in body type depending on age — Old Wayne is now a slug-like creature, whose only resemblance to the first game's Wayne is his yellow color and headshape.
53	* ImprobableWeaponUser: ALL party members use gloves as weapons. Not to punch enemies, mind you, but to amplify the power of Gestures.
54	* LastDiscMagic: The Skill learned from the Three Sages in the first game, Legend of Melting.
55	* LegendaryInTheSequel: The sequel starts at Waynehouse, in which an entire generation of new Waynes are raised and guided by Old Wayne.
56	* LudicrousGibs: When killed, enemies in the second game explode in what can only be described as giant pieces of meat.
57	* MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext: To be expected, given that most of the dialogue and location names in the first game are randomly generated, and the sequel is still quite strange even without randomized dialogue.
58	* MagicalGesture: 'Gestures' seem to be the primary form of magic in the setting, including the standard Snap that replaces any other RPG's standard attack.
59	* MeaningfulEcho: One of the first trash cans[[note]]The game's version of treasure chests[[/note]] you can find in the game gives you nothing, but instead collapses, with the message "You accidentally crushed it." You'll find trash cans like this several times throughout the game. In the final steps of the game as you make your way towards Gibby, Wayne is faced with an onslaught of enemies marching towards him. But when you touch one, instead of a battle... "You accidentally crushed it," and it collapses. Cue massive ConservationOfNinjutsu as the party simply walks through Gibby's entire last line of defense, making the final boss himself seem all the more powerful in comparison.
60	* MeaningfulName: Gibby and Wayne as mentioned below, but the title of the game, Hylics, is a reference to Gnosticism. A hylic is a body that's completely material -- fitting for a world made of clay.
61	* MythologyGag: Somsnosa is named after [[http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=18575 another game]] Mason made for Ludum Dare 26.
62	* NonStandardGameOver: Touching Ambulant Skulls and the statues in the graveyard causes instant death.
63	* PreAsskickingOneLiner: "You dare approach me? My feelings will embrace your memories until you beg me to hark! Now pardon thine little spirit. It is the last time you will." [[spoiler:Spoken when you challenge Gibby.]] Somewhat downplayed, since it's just as subject to random word replacement as any other dialogue.
64	* ResurrectTheVillain: In the sequel, preventing this is your main goal. [[spoiler:You fail, and Gibby Redivivus must be defeated.]]
65	* Really700YearsOld: [[spoiler:Pongorma and Gibby are old enough to have lived in the pre-accretion world and witnessed the Empire of the Sages in its full glory.]]
66	* ShoutOut:
67	** Somewhere on the world map is a house that is a recreation of Crono's house from ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', complete with a woman and a cat on the first floor.
68	** When the Mustelid enemies attack, the flavor text is "Mustelid (A/B/C) ripped your flesh!" This is a reference to the album ''Weasels Ripped My Flesh'' by Music/FrankZappa.
69	* StealthPun:
70	** Gibby and Wayne, as in a Gibbous and Waning moon respectively. There's also Viewax in the sequel, referring to a Waxing moon.
71	*** Gibby is a double-layered pun. Gibby also brings to mind the word ''gibberish''. [[spoiler:The second game fully reveals that it's his influence that caused all the characters in the first game to speak nonsense, as he does the same when he's revived.]]
72	** Another example is the Meat Grinder in the Afterlife. [[note]]You literally [[LevelGrinding grind]] to gain extra health.[[/note]]
73	*** Additionally, the text displayed when using the Meat Grinder is "1 meat tendered." Meat is the ''tender'' (payment) for increasing your health, and it also gets ''tenderized'' by the grinder.
74	* SurrealHorror: The game has some dark imagery, such as being knocked out in battle represented as ''skin melting from your face''.
75	* SurrealHumor:
76	** Most of the first game's dialogue randomly replaces certain words and phrases, often causing non-sequiturs, strange grammar and misspellings.
77	** Beyond the random text, the actual plot-relevant dialogue uses archaic and obscure words, possibly because of how [[InherentlyFunnyWord silly]] they sound.
78	** The sequel is much more comprehensible, but still extremely weird.
79	* TempleOfDoom: Wayne's crew needs to infiltrate one mid-game to prevent [[spoiler:Gibby's resurrection]].
80	* UnreliableNarrator: Save for a few phrases, Dracula's narration is as randomly generated as the other {{Non Player Character}}s.
81	* UselessUsefulSpell: Played straight in the first game, then averted HARD in the sequel. While the first game fell on the 'more effective to just beat the enemies then move on' camp, but the sequel makes charging up your attacks a major mechanic in combat to hammer it in.
82	* WholePlotReference:
83	** The first game could be considered a ''very'' loose one to ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV''. There's a progression from boat to airship to [[spoiler:spaceship]], a knight in a spiky helmet that switches sides, a tower level, a lab full of secret experiments, sages, crystals, and, most notably, [[spoiler:a final battle with a powerful magic user on the moon]].
84	** Similarly, the plot of ''Hylics 2'' includes a FloatingContinent, a deranged godlike antagonist, an explorable airship you can pilot, and [[spoiler:a final act that takes place after a cataclysmic event]], all possible references to ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI''. The Accretion is also reminiscent of the War of the Magi, both of which take place before their respective games' main stories begin.
85	* WordSalad: The entire first game and a final third of the second.
86	** Most of the dialogue is randomly generated, using a list of bizarre song lyrics mainly from Music/TheMarsVolta.
87	** The sequel averts this until [[spoiler:the awakening of Gibby Redivivus]], implying cases of this in-setting are due to outside influences.

Context VideoGame / Hylics