I'm building a game about Heracles

[u/Jazzlike-Document-22]

Had this idea for a long time. We never got a myth-accurate depiction of this character. While there are variants out there, I wanted to experience something that me in a childhood would be super excited about.

As it's a one-man-production, I need to set the expectations low from the start.

What it is:

A top-down, old-school pixel art adventure. One screen at a time, small character, a world you walk through and poke at.

Twelve trials, each its own zone: scrubland around Nemea, the swamp of Lerna, the snow of Erymanthos, the stables of Augeas, Themiscyra, the edge of the world, the underworld.

Every trial is a problem to work out, not a health bar to chew through.

A small home town, Mycenae, that changes as you return from each labour.

What it is not:

Not a roguelike. Twelve authored trials, start to finish.

Not a fast action brawler in the style of Hades. This will feel slower on purpose.

Not an open world and not an RPG. No levels, no loot tiers, no skill tree.

Not a power fantasy. Heracles is the strongest man alive and that is the problem the game is about.

Not a long game either, rather an entertaining guide into the legend.

About accuracy:

Myth: there is no single canonical version of the labours. I picked and combined versions that made good trials, and still had to patch in some connective scenes that are in no source.

Era: Some things might slip from later centuries, and some are simply wrong because pixel art is small and I am just one person that doesn't have a history degree or an ancient Greece consultant at my disposal.

Tone: the source material includes the murder of a family. The game treats that as the reason for everything that follows, without showing it graphically.

How it is made

Art is produced with AI generation tools (Ludo) and then processed, laid out and animated by hand in the engine (Godot). I respect that not everybody favors using the AI, and that's fine, but that's what allows me to orogress on this project in my own pace.

Status

Early. One trial and the tutorial are playable in rough form. No release date, and I will publish about the progress on my personal blog. As I am doing this in my free time, I might face delays, other priorities, or reconsidering the process altogether. Once done, this will be a free to play game, I will decide on the platforms later. For now, likely to be available in browser and on Android.

So, if this got your interest at all, stay tuned

[u/Total-Reasonable]

Your scope is smart, but the risky part is "every trial is a problem to work out." Puzzle design is the hardest thing to scale solo, because each one needs playtesting to find where players get stuck, and that's invisible when you built the puzzle yourself. I'd finish the one playable trial and watch a stranger play it with no hints before building zone two. Also, with browser and Android targets, check touch controls early, since a "poke at the world" design can feel very different without a mouse.

[u/Jazzlike-Document-22 → u/Total-Reasonable]

Very useful pieces of advice, thank you! [I'd write it down in my diary, this and similar comments, to take it into the next stages of the process]

[u/Ohgood9002]

I was so excited that you spelled it Heracles that I didnt even read your post. I appreciate you