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Double Fine’s Hack ‘n’ Slash snuck out early

Hack n Slash

Double Fine’s Zelda-like deconstruction, Hack ‘n’ Slash snuck up on us today. The Early Access game upgraded to 1.0, a day ahead of its release date, and you can grab the finished adventure on Steam right now. 

A release date surprise that’s good, what a world we live in. 

Hack ‘n’ Slash, originally conceived during an Amnesia Fortnight, is a strange beast – part action adventure, part hacking game. With a USB sword in hand, the hero must overcome insurmountable puzzles and challenges by simply not playing by the rules.

A door is guarded by an enemy that’s overwhelmingly powerful? Hack him and reduce his HP to 1.

Low on health? Slot that sword into an enemy USB port and change their damage output to a negative number – now they heal you with every hit.

Enemy and NPC behaviour can be changed, global variables can be fiddled with and the game’s code can be rewritten. It’s loopy stuff.

New to this finished version of the game is the final dungeon, additional puzzles and tweaked hacking mechanics, and Steam Workshop integration. The latter is a big one, since the game ships with the source code, and Double Fine expects people to really dig in and fiddle with the flexible engine.

Until September 16th, Hack ‘n’ Slash has a 33 percent discount, putting it at £10.04/$13.39.