Hylics

Hylics

Hylics is a recreational program with light JRPG elements.

About

Hylics is a surrealistic stop-motion style JRPG game created by Mason Lindroth. It boasts unique claymation graphics, RPG battles, and "overuse of random text generation", spread across 2+ hours of content. It's praised for its abstract, uncanny art style, as well as its alien atmosphere.

Hylics is Lindroth's 8th game, and his first game created not as part of a timed game development challenge. As such, it was his most technically complex work at the time.
Hylics was made in RPGmaker VX Ace v1.01. Ostensibly, its development took approximately two years; Lindroth announces a new project in October, 2013. Before this date, he posts several screenshots of assets that are used in-game, and artworks that might be concept pieces.

Lindroth released an official trailer for the game on July 21st, 2015.
Hylics was fully released on itch.io on August 7th, 2015, for $3USD.
On August 15th, it was submitted to Steam Greenlight, and was officially released for sale on Steam on October 2nd, costing $2.99 USD.

Reception

"I'll be honest with you, I haven't got a clue what's going on in it. [...] [Hylics] is basically a malaria dream about sausages or something." - Rock Paper Shotgun
"[...]some of Lindroth's most wonderful animation so far." - Kill Screen
"Hylics is a masterwork in absurdist art and literature in game form, and is a specimen that could only have arisen from the primordial soup of indie gaming." - Indie Ruckus
"It's bonkers." - Destructoid

On Steam, Hylics is reviewed as Overwhelmingly Positive, with 97% positive reviews as of September 2nd, 2023.
Positive reviews tend to mention bafflement and the game's absurdity, praising it first as an artistic experience and only secondarily as a JRPG. Negative reviews tend to mention the lack of an overall story and occasionally clunky mechanics.

Synopsis

A game in three acts, revolving around Wayne, a man with a moon for a head. He travels through a surreal chain of islands on a quest to defeat Gibby, the king of the moon.
Wayne meets many characters who speak in randomly-generated and nonsensical dialogue, and very few who retain their coherency. Even the game's narrator, Dracula, speaks mostly nonsense. It is implied by later-released content that this due to Gibby's influence. As such, Hylics is very story-light, even as compared to Hylics 2; the player is given very little direction and so must rely on a few NPCs mentioning locations, and their own intuition and exploration to guide them through the game's content.

In the first act, Wayne travels to a mountainous city. Here, he meets a horned archaeologist, and helps them find a paper cup. They jump at the opportunity to help Wayne learn, and ask to join the party. The two work together to defeat a cult residing in the mountains. They then journey through a mysterious blue landscape, and meet a moody magician who has an established friendship with Wayne. After helping her find her gloves, she agrees to join Wayne on his quest.
In the second act, Wayne can now travel between islands, and meets a powerful knight, who joins them after being beaten in combat. The crew becomes extremely powerful as they explore, even achieving Ultimate Magic. After gaining riches, they're able to purchase a space shuttle to the moon, and are able to defeat its king.

Walkthrough

Hylics/Walkthrough

Related Links

Hylics 100% Playthrough Video
Hylics 100% Guide/Checklist
Cut & Unused Content
Locations
Enemies

Maps

Map:Hylics World Map
Map:Recolored World
Map:Moon

Trivia

• Hylics has a subtitle only seen on the itch.io page of the game, "Approach our homunculus."
• The theme used for battling bosses, Boss, is reused in Hylics 2 during some cutscenes. Additionally, the theme used for battling Gibby is reused for the fight with Gibby Redivivus.
• Defeating Gibby gives you 999,999EXP. This is the only battle in the game that gives you experience. It is enough experience to bring every party member to level 63.
• Absent Moon's fifth song, Spell of Absurdity, is sung by Clawman.

Screenshots

Map 1

Wayne's face melting upon death.

Wayne's house.

Battle with a Ghost and two Despair Puffs.

Moon Exploding