Production 3: Foundations from Caillois to Bogost
The game Hades II, a sequel to one of my favourite games Hades, was released on September 25, perfectly coinciding with this production and course's purposes. I have always maintained that Hades, a game of the roguelike/rogue-lite genre, is a masterclass in storytelling and provides immense value through its procedural rhetoric (and have made a video critique about this in undergrad). However, for the purposes of this production, I will be analyzing Hades II through the application of Roger Caillois’s The Definition of Play and The Classification of Games.
Rogue-likes/lites are single-player, progression-based games defined by decision-making, where procedural generation (stochastic systems, or dungeon-crawling) and permadeath (irreversible states of loss) form the core of the gameplay. Players engage in iterative playthroughs that emphasize adaptive learning rather than linear progression, with each dungeon random and slightly different each time. In Hades, "death is not the end", and every permadeath allows the player to adapt their strategy and grow a little stronger. However, when they begin their "run" again, they start from the very first dungeon, as progress cannot be carried over. The story also cannot be completed or understood by reaching the final boss in one go. Rather, the player must die several times to progress, as interactions that occur between dungeon-crawling shape the plot.
Hades II follows the same structure as the first game, though in a slightly different setting. It stars Melinoë, the chthonic daughter of Hades and Persephone, in her desperate attempt to save her family from Chronos, her grandfather who has assumed control of the underworld.
Caillois’s classification of play can be applied to Hades II and the rogue-like genre across all four categories. However, the genre’s core characteristics position it at the crossroads of agôn and alea.
Rogue-likes are highly competitive in the sense of skill mastery as players must optimize strategies, resource management, and tactical decisions to survive permadeath. Its single-player style “leaves the champion to his own devices, to evoke the best possible game of which he is capable, and it obliges him to play the game within the fixed limits, and according to the rules applied equally to all” (Caillois 132).
At the same time, the heavy use of procedural randomness introduces alea because the outcome of a given run is shaped by dungeon layouts, loot distribution, boons (power-ups from Melinoë’s godly relatives), and enemy encounters that are largely beyond the player’s control. “Here, not only does one refrain from trying to eliminate the injustice of chance, but rather it is the very capriciousness of chance that constitutes the unique appeal of the game” (Caillois 133). A player may have their idea of a perfect run, with precise loot and boons appearing that aid their journey to the end of the last boss battle, or it may actively hinder them, contributing to an early permadeath.
Hades has been lauded for its storytelling, netting numerous Game of the Year awards at the time of its release, and mimicry is considered a central aspect to its appeal because of its narratively rich plot and immersion that places the player in the perspective of the protagonist. Immersion is deepened through visual novel-like mechanics such as gift-giving and forming bonds.
Finally, while less pronounced, moments of ilinx emerge in the disorientation produced by sudden difficulty spikes, unexpected enemy swarms, or the abrupt finality of permadeath, which destabilize the player’s sense of control.
In Caillois’s spectrum, Hades II leans strongly towards ludus (rule-heavy, structured) since the game relies on strict mechanics, but its elements of randomness inject paidia-like unpredictability. This mixed bag approach to Caillois’s classification no doubt contributes to the game’s appeal and will likely continue to be the reason I spend upwards of eight hours per day playing it.
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