Hyper Light Drifter and the kippled imagination
I’m playing a lot of Hyper Light Drifter. I finished the game, and restarted with the Alt Drifter. Going through it a second time brings a few of its features further into relief, and I want to talk about those, but I also want to note that it’s simply amazing to be able to enjoy a game this much on a second play through.
I’m noticing lots of little things: purely incidental touches in the sides and corners of level maps that make the game world feel lived-in, and in many cases, died-in. Quite often, the character meets grisly scenes over which a peaceful layer of moss has grown. Partially dismembered corpses huddle around some important artifact as though waiting for it to reanimate them, or cling to mountainsides, seemingly stranded there. Body parts, fluid smears, random discoloration, and miscellaneous kipple are everywhere.
Reading all of these little details, most of which can’t be interacted with in any way, one assembles a different timeline than whatever the Drifter is contending with in the frequent visions/cutscenes. From a (perhaps) forensic point of view, there seem to be different vintages of corpses in different parts of the game world and in different parts of the world the character inhabits (the one with the porous boundary between internal and external). There was not just one apocalypse, there have been numerous nightmares.
Being able to dance through such a world so effectively, and kill far more efficiently than anything else in the game, gives one a monstrous feeling while playing, if one dwells on it.