Hydra Slayer

[i]Suppose you are given the following: [list] [*]an integer [b]heads[/b] representing the number of heads a given hydra has [*]an array of tuples [b]weapons[/b] such that [b]weapons[noparse][i][0][/noparse][/b] indicates the number of heads a weapon will remove and [b]weapons[noparse][i][1][/noparse][/b] indicates the number of heads the hydra will regrow after being struck by the weapon[/list] Write an algorithm which calculates the fewest number of blows required to reduce the hydra to exactly zero heads.[/i] This is the point in the review where I would laughingly reassure the reader that the above gobbledegook is a misrepresentation of [i]Hydra Slayer[/i] and that it does not require a calculator to play. But that would be a lie -- there's math here, full stop. If you don't like arithmetic, I recommend running away (and perhaps check out the developer's also-very-good and less overtly mathy [i]HyperRogue[/i]). I'm astonished that this game even exists. Traditional roguelikes are already a niche genre, then top that with raw calculations burdening the player. I didn't even think [i]I[/i] would like it until I downloaded it to see if it worked on macOS Monterey (it does!) and somehow got stuck for hours. It helps that it is very easy to play: there are tiles by default and optional (very good) ASCII, you can play with keyboard (with vi keys!) or mouse, and there's a whole lot of available customization. I've had a lot of small moments of joy playing [i]Hydra Slayer[/i], like deciding not to use a scroll which enhances a weapon because then it would be [i]too[/i] strong and therefore worse(??), or finding a weapon called a Decimator, realizing that that literally just means division by 10, then unironically getting excited about the implications. If it's the kind of thing you think you'd like, then it's a full recommendation from me.

Nice relaxing horribly complicated math game

I bought this game along with Hyper Rogue (same developer, great game as well). I wasn't sure what to expect, only knowing that it was a traiditional roguelike but with combat essentially being mathematical puzzles. Your enemies (all of them), are Hydras, and you have to find the right weapon to cut off all of their heads before they grow back. There's a basic elemental damage system, and using the wrong element tends to make your enemy stronger. Equipment is fairly simple, there is no armor so you really only have to deal with weapons (and with the nature of combat, weapons rarely feel outdated), and you also have potions and powders (powders add an effect, such as stun, to a weapon for one turn). Combat is mentally engaging, and defeating a difficult opponent feels like an accompishment. Also, despite the focus on mathematics, the game does a great job of telling you how the numbers add up. On the right side of the screen, you can see the elemental properties and number of heads each hydra has, and it will also tell you what results to expect your weapon to have on a hydra in terms of heads cut off and grown.

Do your newly-homeschooling kids need a way to keep their arithmetic skills sharp? Then look no further than Hydra Slayer! The music is not great, but surely your children are tech-savvy enough to work around that issue. Meanwhile they get to indulge in gratuitous sprite-animated decapitation while they use their arsenal to subtract, add, and divide their way to gory victory. For extra fun, see who in your family can set the high score. Show those little runts how it's done.

Don't buy this game unless you already know you will like it from the description. If you're not sure, you probably won't like it. BUT! If you are a fan of math and oldest-school roguelikes, and you have a few dollars to spare, I highly recommend Hydra Slayer as well as its companion, HyperRogue. It's worth noting that the game is free (minus a little content) from the author's website so buying it here is more a way to show your support. This is a game about optimizing numbers. There's very little room for mistakes. It will bring you back to old games like NetHack and Angband; not nearly so complex, but equally hard and rewarding.

Game flat out crashes every single time I kill a hydra without fail, which is a bit of a problem in a game titled "Hydra Slayer".

Even though I like [i]Hydra Slayer's[/i] core gameplay loop and how Zeno Rogue managed to keep the gameplay both simple and deep, I cannot recommend it due to [h1]UI being irritatingly buggy.[/h1] (At least on Windows 10?) [list] [*]Default window size is too small, but maximizing the window somehow... offsets every tile's mouseover area? So when you want to get description of, say, a hydra, you can't simply right click on it, you need to right click on [i]a 1/5th tile-wide strip[/i] on its right. [*]In one game, I couldn't even do that - the game would identify me trying to hover over a hydra as either [i]"an empty tile"[/i] or [i]"Powder of Growth"[/i]. Later it turned out that the hydra was, indeed, standing over Powder of Growth, but I genuinely can't tell whether that's an odd design decision (show info card of an object that's completely obscured by an enemy, instead of far more pressing info about the enemy, like in [i]virtually all other roguelikes[/i]), or yet another bug. [*]In another game, right clicking stopped working - it would bring up description screen, and [i]then immediately close it[/i]. That is game-breaking in a roguelike. [/list] All small things, but together they were so disruptive, they gradually overwhelmed my threshold for annoyance. I'm extremely surprised how a game by the celebrated Zeno Rogue could be in such a poor state.

Hydra Slayer is one of those games that you end up either loving or hating. That's not a knock against the game in any way; Hydra Slayer is incredible. Zeno Rogue clearly designed for a very specific audience, and Hydra Slayer so good because it is designed for that audience. If, like me, you like traditional roguelikes and you're a math nerd, you will love this game. This game is catnip. It's incredibly addicting, and enormously fun. It's a gigantic math problem that changes and mutates over time, which asks you to plan in both the long and the short term. It's simple on the surface, but the surface-level simplicity belies a frightening amount of complexity. I adore it. The one negative thing I will say is that even for a traditional roguelike, the UI is fairly unwieldy. I'm very comfortable with the genre, so it wasn't that hard to pick up, but it definitely gave me pause at first. If you're reading this, Zeno, thank you so much. Hydra Slayer scratches an itch I didn't know I had, and I can tell that I'm going to be playing it for a long time.

Hydra Slayer es un 'roguelike' que satisface un 'kink' muy particular: el de aquellos jugadores que quieren combinar matemáticas y mazmorras procedimentales en un mismo juego. Y lo hace muy bien. Dentro de estas mazmorras es posible matar hidras con sumas, restas, multiplicaciones y divisiones. Es más, normalmente tendremos que resolver ecuaciones mentalmente antes de lanzar el primer golpe. Tanto la idea como la ejecución son brillantes. Mi único problema con el juego es que, por desgracia, mi brillantez matemática no está a la altura de las hidras a las que hay que matar. Quién sabe, quizá sea una bendición, porque le he metido cuatro horas en dos días y preferiría que esos números no creciesen exponencialmente.

Good stuff. 6.4/10