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Hyper Light Drifter released, some thoughts

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The rather pretty action adventure game Hyper Light Drifter is now available after a lengthy development period. I dove in right away to see if it was any good.

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I should start start with a disclaimer. Hyper Light Drifter is a game I backed on Kickstarter nearly two and a half years ago; I was taken in by the beautiful art style and promises of exploration and rewarding gameplay. Crowdfunding is always a risk and, as we Linux gamers know all too well, our platform usually gets games with some delay if at all. Thanks to Knockout Games we’ve managed to get the game as a day one release.

I have to start my impressions with the few niggling problems that affected me when first launching the game. For starters, the game supposedly officially supports Xbox 360 and PS4 gamepads but I was unable to get my wireless Xbox gamepad working right away. I had to resort to xboxdrv to get it to work properly. It seems like this problem isn’t just limited to Linux so we might get a fix sooner or later. The second annoying thing is definitely an oversight by the porter as the game requires the 32-bit libraries for OpenAL but doesn’t ship with them bundled. This caused music to be missing for me on a fresh install on a machine other than my main desktop – took a few minutes to figure out and checking terminal output but still annoying.

For those unfamiliar with what the game is about, Hyper Light Drifter is clearly heavily inspired by the 8 and 16-bit generations of the Zelda games. Gameplay consists of exploring different areas and dungeons, fighting monsters and bosses, navigating hazards,collecting pieces of equipment and upgrades, and finding secrets. Combat is fast and fluid, more so than Zelda, and it rewards mastery of the dash function to dodge oncoming attacks. This is a game that’s clearly taken lessons from its predecessors and, after about three hours with the game and killing my first boss, I came away feeling satisfied with its gameplay. I think that some players may find the combat a little too punishing but I felt it was just the right level of challenging. Dying isn’t a big deal, anyhow – fall and you respawn at the beginning of the room you’re in, all ready to try again.

There’s a stylistic simplicity which sets the game apart from most things I’ve played recently. The game has nearly no text at all – the story is advanced by short scenes and and images here and there and NPCs’ backstories are equally shared through series of images that do a very effective job of replacing the traditional short lines of dialog. This simplicity extends to all aspects of the game word: purchasing upgrades at stores require self-explanatory amounts of yellow dots that you pick up exploring he world and advancing past barriers or closed doors require whatever symbol happens to be etched upon it. It’s an effective way of immersing the player in the game world without bothering to drown the player in overdrawn tutorials and explanations.

I’m admittedly a fan of pixel art and I can think of only few indie games in the last few years that manage to mess it up. That said, the art in Hyper Light Drifter still stands apart from most other pixel art games. The fluidity of animations are impressive as are the backgrounds and effects like beams or rain. It’s clearly a labor of love and looks convincingly modern and clear when fullscreen in a 1080p monitor. So far I’m enjoying the visual differences between enemies as well as the contrast between environments. I’m not sure how much content will be reused as the game goes on but hopefully it’ll continue to keep me surprised.

The sound design is subdued most of the time, with often background noises being things like wind on a snow-swept mountaintop with synth-heavy music punctuating moments here and there. It definitely transmits that somewhat lonely and vaguely futuristic vibe of the setting effectively. Most importantly, there’s nothing overly annoying or repetitive that I’ve found. Nothing bothers me more than a game with bad music that loops over and over.

I suppose the real question for anyone thinking of getting the game is whether or not it has enough content for the price tag. There’s no real way of knowing how long the game is as of the time of writing but, judging by the size of the overworld map and other games of its type, I’d guess it’s probably somewhere between 7-10 hours.

I’m reluctant to recommend any game after only a few hours and, as much as I’m currently enjoying the game, I’d suggest to those on the fence to first look at a few gameplay videos to see if they’d like it. Combat might be a little hard to get into for players that prefer slower-paced games and, since it’s a big part of progressing through dungeons, I think it’s something worth thinking about first.

You can grab Hyper Light Drifter DRM-free at either GOG or the Humble Store. Alternatively, you can grab it through Steam instead. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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About the author -
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History, sci-fi, technology, cooking, writing and playing games are things I enjoy very much. I'm always keen to try different genres of games and discover all the gems out there.

Oh and the name doesn't mean anything but coincidentally could be pronounced as "Buttery" which suits me just fine.
See more from me
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18 comments
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Glog78 Apr 1, 2016
the following should do the trick if i remember right.
sudo apt-get install libopenal1:386
dilly Apr 1, 2016
Quoting: Glog78the following should do the trick if i remember right.
sudo apt-get install libopenal1:386

Thanks, but it didn't work. :/
(I have multiarch enable, by the way)
Glog78 Apr 1, 2016
Quoting: dilly
Quoting: Glog78the following should do the trick if i remember right.
sudo apt-get install libopenal1:386

Thanks, but it didn't work. :/
(I have multiarch enable, by the way)

was there any output after you ran the command, cause this is useally the way it should work.
sobkas Apr 1, 2016
I have two problems with HLD:
First, is there a way to change controller bindings? I would like to change them to more Dark Souls ones(X-health, A-interaction, B-dodge, Y-bomb, RB-sword, aiming with right stick)
Second, when choosing new abilities it would be nice be able to try them before purchase. How I'm supposed to know with one to choose when there is no description and animations next to them aren't so descriptive?

Also game is too good, need to get some sleep but still want to play!

About controller problems:
With xpad driver for xbox 360 wireless, you might need start controller(big X button, you won't miss it) before starting game otherwise there will be no js device for game to open.

Game length: at 6h I might be on 1/3 of the game or at least I was able to get 6 triangles things. Bosses are brutal, so try patience.


Last edited by sobkas on 1 April 2016 at 8:33 pm UTC
dilly Apr 2, 2016
Quoting: Glog78
Quoting: dilly
Quoting: Glog78the following should do the trick if i remember right.
sudo apt-get install libopenal1:386

Thanks, but it didn't work. :/
(I have multiarch enable, by the way)

was there any output after you ran the command, cause this is useally the way it should work.

I dunno what happened!
Someone on Steam Forums said the same command "sudo apt-get install libopenal1:i386" and, when I tried it again, it worked! :]
Inspector_Gidget Apr 4, 2016
Sooo does anyone have a link to the libraries required for the linux DRM installation? I don't care which Distro it's for I'll install whatever it is if you can find some damn libraries for this. Mainly ia32-libs though. I can't figure out how to get this.
vermillion Apr 9, 2016
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I bought the game on Saturday and my wireless XBox 360 controller wasn't getting picked up. As of today, both steam and GoG releases have been patched and now my controller works! I was frustrated that the patch took 4-5 days longer to reach GoG, but a dev said that they were using Steam as a beta of sorts to make sure it all worked.
GloW Oct 8, 2016
I just finished the main storyline, and i very much liked this game, the universe has a kind of fez feeling to it, while the gameplay is solid.

No controller problem with my xbobx style gamepad.

It even have coop play, gonna check that out after.
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