Hades is a great example of a coffee break game. You can play through a single run within 30 minutes, but if something comes up and you have to stop mid-run you can save and quit in whatever room you’re in and continue later. As the father of a toddler, I find this particularly appealing these days. I like to squeeze in a quick game during my baby girl’s nap time, and since I never know exactly how long she’s going to sleep for, I need games that can be played in short bursts. I’m starting this new mini-feature series with Hades, because you’re almost always guaranteed to have a good time, no matter how long you play for.
As with a lot of roguelikes, dying and losing a run in Hades is baked into the experience. You’re not expected to finish the game on your first try. It took me about 50 runs before I even made it to the final boss, but each run teaches you something new – whether that’s learning how to use a new weapon, discovering a new god-boon or simply progressing to a new zone that you’ve not seen before – no matter what happens, you’re always making progress.
Zagreus is a fun protagonist, and his relationship with all of the Greek mythological characters grows throughout your play time in surprisingly deep and meaningful ways. The story unfolds gradually, and I found it to be hugely rewarding to return to the hub world and talk to the characters and learn a bit more about their backstory each time I died. It kept the nature of repeating the same dungeon runs over and over feeling fresh and engaging, because there was always some new tidbit to uncover, or a bit of juicy gossip to listen to. The whole story is beautifully self-aware, running a fine line between melodrama and fantastical whimsy. It all looks and sounds great thanks to Supergiant’s signature visual flair and Darren Korb’s excellent soundtrack. Has that guy ever made a bad tune?
I haven’t gotten around to trying Hades 2 yet, but I hear it’s more of the same.
Dome Keeper is an excellent little spin on the tower defense game, in which you play the role of a jetpacking miner defending his base from swarms of aliens, whilst searching for a hidden relic buried somewhere beneath him. And now, with this huge free update, you can play it with friends.
I want to talk about Cloudpunk, a game where you get to be a flying-car delivery driver in a futuristic cyberpunk city. Its world is an incredible achievement of environmental design, and while the gameplay itself may be basic, the city of Nivalis is a thing of beauty to behold. Nivalis is built out of hundreds of hand-modelled cuboid buildings; there’s nothing procedural about it. Apparently it took 3 years for the devs to design the city, and it really shows.
I do love me some quality pixel art, and it doesn’t get much better than this. Cast n Chill is a cozy side-scrolling fishing game by small indie dev team Wombat Brawler, with absolutely gorgeous visuals. It’s simple to play, and you you can dip in and out of it at your leisure, making it a fine addition to our collection of coffee break games.
Now and then one can’t help climbing aboard the hype train. You work yourself up into a frothing frenzy in anticipation of some new game whose trailers and screenshots make it seem like the best…thing…EVER. That’s how I felt about Conker’s Bad Fur Day when I first read about it in N64 Magazine (before the internet butchered the magazine industry). They did several preview write-ups about it in the years before it was released, and it changed from being a cutesy 3D adventure, to merely looking like a cutesy 3D adventure plastered with a layer of adult filth. I couldn’t have been more excited to play it. Did it live up to my expectations? Hell yes.
The Trials franchise is surely the most successful game to ever start out life as a Flash browser game. I remember playing the original game on Miniclip back in the day, and I have played every single iteration since. The game’s core concept is simple – you control a trials bike, and must navigate it across a series of increasingly difficult obstacle courses on a 2D pane. It’s the perfect pick-up-and-play game, because it’s easy to get the basics, but insanely difficult to master.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a depressing game. It’s epic and majestic, but undoubtedly bleak. Luckily, it also has some hilarious moments timed with comedic perfection, which somehow never feel out of place. It’s a credit to the writers, and the performances of the voice actors. These are my favourite funny moments of Expedition 33.
Copyright © 2010 - 2026
Site designed and hosted by Tekamutt Media