endeavoring to play a short game before bed, i downloaded helltaker!
here’s a quick rundown of my experience playing it (it’s not what i care to talk about so i want to breeze through it):
- i tried to muscle through the puzzles myself and very quickly gave into just looking up a walkthrough. i’m not very patient.
- i did try to do judgment’s level myself but my hands started sweating and i kept yelling when i died, so i turned on god mode.
- i couldn’t figure out how to pause the game to find the option to skip puzzles, which they tell you in-game that you can do, until i played examtaker. lmfao. a girl who does not play a lot of computer games!
- thank you to the dev for putting these options in, by the way. christ. i just wanted to see the cute girls.
moving on!
a masterclass in self-indulgence
i knew about this game before i found it on steam in 2024, simply because porn of the female characters circulates my side of the horny web. the character you play as, The One Guy In The Game, never really shows up in said porn, so for a time i thought, doubtfully, that it was yuri, or at least yuribait. alas, of course, it’s explicitly a harem game for a guy protag. sigh. that won’t stop ME from being horny about the girls though!!!!!
i don’t talk about them a lot, but i like a lot of girl characters in pervert ways, the way i do my boy characters. although… hmm! i don’t think my type in girls is all that specific/niche, and thought i’d have at least 1 or 2 girls i’d really like from this harem. so i was sort of surprised that the only character i was really into was azazel, the angel… something so charming about a sweet/mild character with an unlockable freaky side.
(i could have also liked pandemonica for that reason, but her freaky side turned out to be sadistic… no no…)
i think part of my lack of interest in these girls might have had something to do with them being willing to be part of this big buff protag guy’s harem. I WISH I COULD EXPLAIN WHY. i just find it so boringly male-fantasy, and – perhaps subjectively – unrealistic for some of these girls’ character designs (like, really?! justice would be into a guy?). but i should probably think about all the very fruity guy characters i like whom i try my hardest to headcanon as bi, and then maybe i’ll remember to be more considerate.
still, i have to say, this game made me think hard about my instinct to roll my eyes at hornyish media made by guys. it was a short game, and incredibly male-fantasy, but also… WOW? i have to commend the ability to make something so self-indulgent that also is like, a polished, enjoyable, complete piece of media that has appeal to people that aren’t just you. WHILE STILL BEING INCREDIBLY SELF-INDULGENT.
this is literally page 1 of the artbook. “i refuse to fast when people next door are having a buffet!” incredibly resonant. i have to stan.
there are some people who look down on self-indulgent creations when they can spot the self-indulgence, and there are some people who find it very admirable. i’d like to say i’m the latter, but i’d be lying if i said that without a disclaimer. my full truth is that i find self-indulgent creations generally admirable, but find obviously self-indulgent creations that become popular admirable only if i think they are executed well.
sue me. i’m picky and a snob.
that being said: i think this is a self-indulgent creation that was executed well. i thought the visuals were amazing (those backgrounds! the animations!), and the puzzles were genuinely challenging! it wasn’t a serious game writing-wise by any means, but it owned its concept and went hard on the stuff it did want to be: silly and fun and aesthetically well-done. and complete, too – no overambitious goals that went beyond what i imagine the dev wanted to accomplish. he just wanted to see the thing (the thing being demon girls in suits) and built it. i seriously have to stan.
so generous with the pancakes!
i also really admire the artist, vanripper, for how generously he shares his work. helltaker is free to download and play. with passwords i found on the walkthrough, i was also able to get the digital artbooks for free as well. and on his FAQ, he gives permission for a lot of fan content. regarding fanmade helltaker spinoff games, he’s still very generous:
Sure! But keep in mind that, with a small game like Helltaker, it’s easy to confuse fan creations with the official content. Please help me keep the distinction between our games as clear as possible.
First, state clearly that what you’re making is an unofficial fan project or a parody.
Second, don’t use the Helltaker’s logo and avoid using the word “Helltaker” (or “Heaventaker” for good measure) in the title of your game. “Demon Date” is a good title / “Helltaker: Dating Sim Sequel” is a misleading title.
Third, please don’t use Helltaker’s official art in your game (even if slightly edited aka. sprite edits) That includes using it only for promotion or just placeholders to be removed later. Make your own art instead, community will love you all the more for it.
And forth. Please avoid large selling storefronts like Kickstarter, Steam, Google Play, Nintendo Shop etc. Those are better left for licensed products. Instead stick to their smaller counterparts like Patreon or Itch.
If you want to use Mittsies’ music non-commercialy, provide credit and youtube link. Do not use the music for commercial purposes without first contacting Mittsies.
(emphasis mine. no spelling/grammar corrections made.)
stuff i like about the above answer:
- “please help me keep the distinction between our games as clear as possible” makes clear the principle he has in setting the rules that follow. this is how to respect his work – to help avoid confusion and keep his own intellectual property his. or at least that’s my interpretation of it. and it’s perfectly reasonable and sincere.
- he provides examples of what is and isn’t a good title, examples of various things in which one might use his official art inappropriately. he ends this point on a positive, inspiring direction to the reader: to make something original that people will love.
- he advises people to avoid large storefronts and keep it indie. this feels like it should be an unspoken courtesy one does when making a fan game of something that is ALSO indie, but some people might not know without it being explicitly laid out.
- he redirects you to the person who made the music for their specific commercial permissions.
- he seems to have clearly thought through what strangers might or might not do when given permission to go ham on his IP. good foresight!
for merch, his permissions are pretty similar. says it’s fine as long as it’s made distinctly unofficial, kept small-scale in production, and not sold on large corporate platforms.
these are all reasonable requests, and they are clear without being tedious. but i still think it’s a big thing for him to trust the general public to operate on an honor-based system, especially as an indie dev. or am i exposing my own paranoia and distrust of general audiences by saying this? lol.
in addition, the “artbook” is really just a zip file with ALL THE RAW ART MADE FOR THE GAME. the sprite frames! the backgrounds! and this artbook is free! you don’t know if it’ll end up in the hands of a normal fan or some evil, opportunistic rando, looking to plagiarize and take advantage of your good faith. again, i think i’m revealing myself here, but listen. the chances of this happening are low but never zero. there have been worse people on the internet.
but helltaker’s been around for a couple years and i’ve never heard anything of the sort blow up like that, so i guess his rules have worked. people have been mostly respectful, or the community’s managed itself. amazing. a high trust society is really nice. would love to let myself experience it someday.
the joy of creation
by the way, the artbook also has this folder that teaches you how to make pancakes (it’s a thing in the game). it’s a little multimedia comic with the helltaker characters + some of their dialogue overlaying gifs of, i assume, the creator’s hands actually preparing the pancakes step by step. the instructions for the pancakes (and the apple pie, in the anniversary artbook) have some notes that indicate some Polish-Style Flavorings of the recipe. the artist is polish, which is why i think this is his actual handiwork and not just him screengrabbing from a youtube video.
the recipes were not at all necessary additions to the artbook, nor were the comic panels and gifs showing you the steps of him making them by hand. so it’s extremely cute that the artist did it anyway. it feels lovingly, effortfully made, and personal and human (despite this being a game about demons in hell).
i’ve said this in other ways already, but i think it’s really admirable to just… want to make a thing, and want to keep making things related to that thing, and decide to share it with the world unprompted. it seems a very natural thing for humans to do, but a lot of people are afraid of the thing they make not being well-received or good. i’m like that a lot.
and there are still others who don’t actually like making things, and just want an output that is nice and laudable and comparable to this other thing they have opinions on. sometimes i’m like that too, with certain ideas. books i want to write because i hate whatever romance is popular on booktok at the mo, graphic novels i want to draw to prove i am a Real Drawer™, things like that.
so whenever i see someone just do something for (what i, from a distance, assume to be) the joy of making it, i find it heartwarming. if it’s very well done and got mass appeal, well, very cool too, but i also really like things like this pancake recipe presentation sitting in a folder in a free artbook zip file on an indie store, about a free niche indie game. it’s the silly works made out of love, made for fun, made just for you and the people who will see the beauty in the small thing, that make me really hopeful as an artist.
(is this a lot to say about a horny harem game set in hell???? MAYBE. but i just have a lot of feelings okay!!!!!!!!!!)
things helltaker might inspire me to do
- make a game
- make a harem game ft. my own favorite tropes (of girls? of boys? of the forbidden s-concept…)
- or even just a concept cast…
- make a harem game ft. my own favorite tropes (of girls? of boys? of the forbidden s-concept…)
- compile an artbook of something i’ve spent a lot of time developing (everbloom, my oc/canons)
- design girl ocs i can be a pervert about
- make a multimedia project (like the pancake recipe/comic/gif/folder)
- write a faq?
- put more effort into my self-indulgent work!!! polish it up! make it something other people can enjoy!!
- and share it with more people than Just Your Friends, man
- be horny on main (undecided about this)
- have more faith in the world…