We’re back into Next Fest season, and you know what that means: a whole lotta demos. More specifically, I’ve been playing a bunch of demos for upcoming indie games, and I’ll be looking to share the ones I’ve found most interesting.
That said, some of the demos (a lot, in fact) are available ahead of the event’s October 19th starting date. As such, I wanted to share a few of the stand-outs before Next Fest kicks off. To that end, let me introduce you to Prison of Husks, which has to be one of the most “Steve-coded” things that I’ve played in a good long while.
As you can likely tell from the attached trailer, Prison of Husks is another in a long line of indie games that have taken inspiration from FromSoftware. It has respawning enemies, limited healing, you drop some of your currency when you die, and the combat is focused (primarily) on managing your stamina. So far, so FromSoft.
That said, Prison of Husks attempts to differentiate itself in a few ways, which ultimately saw me spending far longer with the demo than I intended. Seriously, I spent 3 hours with it, which is 2 hours longer than my normal cut-off time. That said, I don’t regret spending the extra time on it because I really enjoyed what Prison of Husks is putting out.
So, what exactly is Prison of Husks doing differently from its contemporaries?
For starters, there is no levelling.
Yes – unlike your traditional Soulslike, you do not accumulate experience, and invest it into your character to power them up over the course of your adventure.
Instead, you’ll gain all of your attribute improvements via the equipment that you find. For example, the demo contains knight armour that, when equipped, increases the player’s stamina to be almost double what they’re starting equipment provides. Obviously, that’s a huge boon in a game where managing one’s stamina is a significant part of successfully navigating combat.
Now, you may be asking: so what? Why does this matter?
I think the easiest way to articulate exactly why this is an interesting approach to character progression is to share my experience fighting the boss that book-ends the demo.
The first time I made it to said boss, I did not find any equipment aside from the long sword. As such, I was basically walking up to the boss with a level 1 character, which went about as well as you’d expect.
After an hour of smashing my head against the wall, I decided that I’d have enough. I was going to give up, and throw in the towel, but I decided to see if there was any useful advice in the Steam forums.
Thankfully, there was.
Someone mentioned that they were also having difficulty with the fight, and a commenter (BelleOverHeaven, featured above) noted that the boss becomes much easier with various pieces of equipment that are scattered throughout the demo. The trick was that neither myself, nor the original poster had taken enough time to really comb through the demo, so we missed out on many of the tools that were provided for overcoming the fight.
As such, I decided to take this advice to heart, and set about exploring the demo location a little more thoroughly. In doing so, I managed to find a new weapon – a rapier – which I was much more fond of using than the long sword. I also found several consumable items that’d allow me to light my weapon on fire. The item description was cut-off, but I assume this had the effect of increasing the damage I dealt too.
Furthermore, I also found the knight armour that I mentioned in my previous example, and a ring, presumably the one mentioned in the comment above, that returned stamina whenever I successfully parried an attack. That ring was especially notable since almost all of my deaths came as a direct result of running out of stamina while attempting to parry the boss’ onslaught of attacks. As such, I figured I was now well equipped enough to finally overcome the challenge that I’d found nearly insurmountable prior.
I walked into the boss room, lit my rapier on fire, and proceeded to absolutely destroy the boss. Seriously. I didn’t even need the ring’s effect because the fire was causing my rapier to do so much damage that the boss was locked into a stagger animation from which they could never escape. Were it not for the fact that I’d previously been tormented for almost an hour, I’d have found the whole thing rather anticlimactic. Instead, I found it rather cathartic.
But this all highlights exactly why I think the change to how Prison of Husks handles its progression is so interesting: it heavily incentivizes, and rewards exploration. When I made a bee line for the boss, I simply didn’t have the resources to make my way through the fight comfortably. However, once I took the time to comb through every inch of the demo, I was able to procure several pieces of equipment that meaningfully increased my character’s combative abilities.
It’s also worth calling out how packed to the gills the actual environmental design is. Before I’d taken the time to properly comb through the demo, I assumed it was fairly straightforward in its design. However, when I took to exploring it properly, I found several winding paths, hidden areas, and secrets packed into every corner of the map. That made the act of slowly unravelling the whole place incredibly fun even without the knowledge that I’d probably find a reward for my efforts.
Though, what really stands out to me about this system is how it completely shifted the behaviour that I normally exhibit in this kind of game. I can’t speak for everyone, but I typically get attached to a handful of items, and ignore basically every other option I’m given throughout the remainder of my journey. That simply won’t happen in Prison of Husks because it has deliberately designed itself in such a way where players are actively encouraged to regularly make changes as they find new equipment, and I think that’s really cool.
On a bit of a tangential note, I think it’s also worth noting that I really liked the feel of the combat too. It’s slow in the way that the original Dark Souls is, which won’t be for everyone, but it is something I have a fondness for. Plus the parry is so satisfying to land. The game makes a juicy clang sound effect whenever you’ve done it properly, and you can also perform a follow-up attack that deals an enormous amount of damage. Though, you do need to pick your openings with this follow-up strike, as parries do not stop enemies from continuing to attack.
I also really liked the overall aesthetic of Prison of Husks. It is a little grey, yes, but the whole thing is religiously faithful to looking like a game from the early 2000s. This includes rendering in 4:3 instead of 16:9, and also making use of a single shoulder button instead of the dual shoulder button design that all controllers have now. That might sound a little silly, but it’s rather harmless nostalgic framing that worked especially well on me since I was present during this era of gaming.
All said, I had a delightful time with Prison of Husks, and I look forward to combing through even more of its richly packed levels when it launches in January of next year.
If you’d like to try the free demo out for yourself, you can find a link to it right here, or via Steam. As I said at the top of the article, Prison of Husks is participating in the Next Fest that starts this Monday, so be sure to wishlist it if you, like myself, enjoyed the demo.
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