Hytale retrospective, and plans
Apr. 3rd, 2026 01:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arisoturaThis is going to be another gaming post. I plan to post about more technical stuff - the Wii U gamepad stuff would be very interesting to get into. But, one thing at a time.
Some people are saying that Hytale is dead now. I don't agree with this take - the initial hype has died down, but in my opinion, the game has a lot of potential.
I've had a lot of fun with Hytale, but I've been playing it less lately.
One reason is mental health, as that's still complicated... things were good in January, but lately it's been complicated again. The path to recovery isn't linear...
The other reason is that I've pretty much exhausted the currently available progression in Hytale. I've seen a lot of the common stuff. I've accumulated a sizeable supply of adamantite, the highest tier of metal that is currently available. I've collected 200 memories - there are 241 in total as of now, but not all of them can actually be collected in survival mode, and 200 is the last milestone that gives you a reward.
So yeah, there isn't much else to do in the game for me. I started building a large castle, but it's the kind of project that will take a while to be completed. Other than that, there is little direction to the game when you've come to this point, which makes it feel shallow. But that's to be expected of an early access game.
The memories quest appeals to the completionist in me. Same reason why I've enjoyed Super Mario Odyssey - constantly getting sidetracked to collect all the moons instead of strictly sticking to the storyline - and B3313, for example. However, such quests are like an exponential taper: the more you go and the longer it takes to progress further, it requires more work for less returns. This can end up being a motivation killer if too much effort is required for too little gain. After all, this is just a game.
Development of the game is, at this point, focused on building a solid base, upon which actual content can be added later. I think it's a good way to approach it in the long run, but it's a balancing act too - you have to keep your community interested somehow, and purely technical changes aren't that interesting to the average player.
So far, I like what I've seen. The movement and combat mechanics are pretty good. I used to think I wasn't a big combat person, but Hytale made me like it. Exploration is interesting, with pretty large and intricate structures that you can find. The scenery in itself also looks quite nice. I'm a big fan of Hytale's visual style.
Speaking of exploration, however, it does start to feel same-y when you've already seen the most common structures. As of now, structures are based on what they call "prefabs", which are basically pre-built templates for various elements, from trees to entire villages. From what I've read, there are plans to add variety through procedural generation.
It would be interesting to see how they carry it out. What comes to mind is larger structures in Minecraft, like mineshafts and strongholds: those are made of basic blocks (individual rooms, tunnels, ...) which are randomly chosen and placed at specific connection points. I don't know the technical details behind it, but that's the basic idea. It also shows the challenges to generating worlds this way: you not seldom find generation oddities in both Minecraft and Hytale. It's also worth noting that Hytale's structures have a lot more detail to them, so making it work nicely could be more difficult.
I like how the development process of Hytale is woven into the storyline. For example, the "Fragments of Orbis" you can explore are previews of things to come, including, among others, the new world generator. One of these worlds features a dragon bound in an eternal slumber, which is code for "this mob isn't programmed yet". Even though I have quite a technical mind, I appreciate this sort of storytelling.
I'm eager to discover what the developers will add to the game. The new world generator (named Worldgen V2) is looking particularly interesting. From what I've gathered, the generator itself is done, and the task is to recreate Orbis in it. There is also concept art and screenshots showcasing ideas for other worlds, which is interesting.
I wonder how this Worldgen V2 will be rolled out. I thought it would be like Minecraft, where whenever the world generator was changed, you had to travel really far to generate new chunks (and have a visible seam where the new chunks begin), or make a completely new world. But someone else on the Hytale server brought up another possibility: crafting a portal leading to "Orbis V2". I didn't think of that, because I wasn't thinking outside the box of what Minecraft supports. This would be interesting, there's an opportunity to wrap this into nice storytelling.
This is what I like about Hytale. It's an ambitious project, there's so much opportunity. I hope the developers will be able to deliver. As I said in my previous post, I feel that they have a clear vision of what they want Hytale to be, and I hope they can stick to this vision. They want it to be a forever game, and I wonder how they plan to do this without making it a bloated mess.
-
In less Hytale-y news, I have a few other things I could talk about.
I felt like trying Infdev+, a Minecraft mod based on the Infdev versions. I've been playing a bit with it, and it's been interesting, though I haven't explored it in depth yet. It's largely nostalgia and curiosity, I must admit.
I also have some basic ideas for a game I'd like to make. My idea is color-based mechanics, where for example collecting an item of a certain color would activate blocks of that color, which could either help you progress further or hinder you. This could also be extended to enemies for example: collect the red item and the red blocks materialize, opening up a path, but the red enemies also become active. I can imagine several possibilities for puzzles and such. I just need to actually build the base for such a game.
Another idea, which Nadia gave me, would be that of a "DS consolizer". A random idea we pondered, that basically consists into turning a DS motherboard into a home console. It's a thing for older handhelds, apparently. Doing it with the DS raises several questions regarding input. I kind of want to try and build something, using a FPGA to add the needed supporting hardware...
However I'm also caught into another big phase of melonDS work, which consists into reworking CPU timings to be more accurate.
So, we'll see how that all goes...
Some people are saying that Hytale is dead now. I don't agree with this take - the initial hype has died down, but in my opinion, the game has a lot of potential.
I've had a lot of fun with Hytale, but I've been playing it less lately.
One reason is mental health, as that's still complicated... things were good in January, but lately it's been complicated again. The path to recovery isn't linear...
The other reason is that I've pretty much exhausted the currently available progression in Hytale. I've seen a lot of the common stuff. I've accumulated a sizeable supply of adamantite, the highest tier of metal that is currently available. I've collected 200 memories - there are 241 in total as of now, but not all of them can actually be collected in survival mode, and 200 is the last milestone that gives you a reward.
So yeah, there isn't much else to do in the game for me. I started building a large castle, but it's the kind of project that will take a while to be completed. Other than that, there is little direction to the game when you've come to this point, which makes it feel shallow. But that's to be expected of an early access game.
The memories quest appeals to the completionist in me. Same reason why I've enjoyed Super Mario Odyssey - constantly getting sidetracked to collect all the moons instead of strictly sticking to the storyline - and B3313, for example. However, such quests are like an exponential taper: the more you go and the longer it takes to progress further, it requires more work for less returns. This can end up being a motivation killer if too much effort is required for too little gain. After all, this is just a game.
Development of the game is, at this point, focused on building a solid base, upon which actual content can be added later. I think it's a good way to approach it in the long run, but it's a balancing act too - you have to keep your community interested somehow, and purely technical changes aren't that interesting to the average player.
So far, I like what I've seen. The movement and combat mechanics are pretty good. I used to think I wasn't a big combat person, but Hytale made me like it. Exploration is interesting, with pretty large and intricate structures that you can find. The scenery in itself also looks quite nice. I'm a big fan of Hytale's visual style.
Speaking of exploration, however, it does start to feel same-y when you've already seen the most common structures. As of now, structures are based on what they call "prefabs", which are basically pre-built templates for various elements, from trees to entire villages. From what I've read, there are plans to add variety through procedural generation.
It would be interesting to see how they carry it out. What comes to mind is larger structures in Minecraft, like mineshafts and strongholds: those are made of basic blocks (individual rooms, tunnels, ...) which are randomly chosen and placed at specific connection points. I don't know the technical details behind it, but that's the basic idea. It also shows the challenges to generating worlds this way: you not seldom find generation oddities in both Minecraft and Hytale. It's also worth noting that Hytale's structures have a lot more detail to them, so making it work nicely could be more difficult.
I like how the development process of Hytale is woven into the storyline. For example, the "Fragments of Orbis" you can explore are previews of things to come, including, among others, the new world generator. One of these worlds features a dragon bound in an eternal slumber, which is code for "this mob isn't programmed yet". Even though I have quite a technical mind, I appreciate this sort of storytelling.
I'm eager to discover what the developers will add to the game. The new world generator (named Worldgen V2) is looking particularly interesting. From what I've gathered, the generator itself is done, and the task is to recreate Orbis in it. There is also concept art and screenshots showcasing ideas for other worlds, which is interesting.
I wonder how this Worldgen V2 will be rolled out. I thought it would be like Minecraft, where whenever the world generator was changed, you had to travel really far to generate new chunks (and have a visible seam where the new chunks begin), or make a completely new world. But someone else on the Hytale server brought up another possibility: crafting a portal leading to "Orbis V2". I didn't think of that, because I wasn't thinking outside the box of what Minecraft supports. This would be interesting, there's an opportunity to wrap this into nice storytelling.
This is what I like about Hytale. It's an ambitious project, there's so much opportunity. I hope the developers will be able to deliver. As I said in my previous post, I feel that they have a clear vision of what they want Hytale to be, and I hope they can stick to this vision. They want it to be a forever game, and I wonder how they plan to do this without making it a bloated mess.
-
In less Hytale-y news, I have a few other things I could talk about.
I felt like trying Infdev+, a Minecraft mod based on the Infdev versions. I've been playing a bit with it, and it's been interesting, though I haven't explored it in depth yet. It's largely nostalgia and curiosity, I must admit.
I also have some basic ideas for a game I'd like to make. My idea is color-based mechanics, where for example collecting an item of a certain color would activate blocks of that color, which could either help you progress further or hinder you. This could also be extended to enemies for example: collect the red item and the red blocks materialize, opening up a path, but the red enemies also become active. I can imagine several possibilities for puzzles and such. I just need to actually build the base for such a game.
Another idea, which Nadia gave me, would be that of a "DS consolizer". A random idea we pondered, that basically consists into turning a DS motherboard into a home console. It's a thing for older handhelds, apparently. Doing it with the DS raises several questions regarding input. I kind of want to try and build something, using a FPGA to add the needed supporting hardware...
However I'm also caught into another big phase of melonDS work, which consists into reworking CPU timings to be more accurate.
So, we'll see how that all goes...
