
- 50/100
- Players10 ratings
- 65/100
- Critics4 reviews
More scores
- Metacriticcritics
- 73/100
- Metacritic usersuser score
- 53/100
- GameFAQsTough
- 3.37/5
- Player reviews
- 57% positive538 reviews
- Steam Deck
- Verified
- Runs on
- Windows, Mac, Linux
- Price
- US$13.37
Where to get it

2014 · Double Fine · Action-adventure · Adventure
Hack 'n' Slash
Hack ‘n’ Slash is a puzzle action game about hacking — reprogram object properties, hijack global variables, hack creature behavior, and even rewrite the game’s code. The only way to win is not to play... by the rules!
- Released
- 9 September 2014
- Platforms
- LinuxWindowsmacOS
- Genres
- Action-adventureAdventureBeat 'em upIndiePuzzle
- Developers
- Double Fine
- Publishers
- Double Fine
- Modes
- Single-player
- Perspective
- Bird view / Isometric
- Themes
- ActionEducational
- Country
- United States
- Languages
- English
- Time to beat
- 4.5hmain story6hwith extras6hcompletionist
About
Hack 'n' Slash is a video game developed by Double Fine Productions. Prototyped during Double Fine's open Amnesia Fortnight 2012, Hack 'n' Slash is a top-down action-adventure game similar to The Legend of Zelda, though with in-game weapons and objects that allow the player to hack the game's world to achieve victory. The game was released to Steam's Early Access on May 6, 2014, for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux computers. It left early access status and became a full release on September 9, 2014.
Players say
Media
The articlegameplay, story, development, reception
Gameplay
The player controls the game's primary character, Alice (a reference to the common Alice and Bob placeholder names), armed with a "USB Sword" from a top-down view. While the player can use the sword and other weapons and tools to explore dungeons and fight enemies in a traditional manner, the sword itself can also interact in special ways with any game object, including enemies and obstacles, that has a USB port. At this point, the player can alter the basic parameters of the object to alter their behavior. Examples include adjusting the movement speed of an enemy, or setting a container's hit points to zero, causing it to collapse and release its contents.
The player can also hack Alice's variables, such as her name or health points. For game objects that lack these USB ports, the player can use limited bombs that pause the execution of code from objects caught in the explosion, allowing them to temporarily hack the object's code, such as setting a flag that gives these objects a USB port to be hacked further.
Development
Hack 'n' Slash was one of several ideas presented for voting for Double Fine's Amnesia Fortnight 2012 project, where users would be able to vote for the game concepts they felt they would want to play the most. Hack 'n' Slash was an idea presented by senior programmer Brandon Dillon, as a Zelda-like game with the ability to hack the game's features. The title received the most votes and was one of five other titles that Double Fine stated they would develop into full games. A full commercial version of the game was announced in December 2013, with expected released on Windows, Mac, and Linux in the first half of 2014.
The announcement also revealed that part of the game's funding will come from the Indie Fund. The announcement also contained a single image that linked to a large compressed computer file that users have decoded to find out information about the game's world.
Reception
Hack 'N' Slash received "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic.
IGN gave the game a 7.7 out of 10, writing, "for all the very smart, ambitious, and never-before-tried stuff that Hack N'Slash does so well, it has a tendency to drop the ball on the easy stuff. Its maps are a nuisance to get around, with slippery controls...[it has] a tendency to get so wrapped up in being clever that the gameplay suffers for it...", and ultimately concluded that programmers would have a good time with the game. Eurogamer praised the game's graphics and the manner in which the game demanded the player's attention, calling the title "something of a perfect storm of indie game design", while criticizing its unfair obstacles, obtuse visual cues, and lack of polish. GameSpot and PC Gamer found the game's humor to be both unique and clever, and took issue with how "if you're not familiar with making games yourself, you may find each joke is lost on you whilst solving its associated puzzle, and is only funny in retrospect after its completion".
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Collections1 collection
Years
- Games released in 2014List › July–September
Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.
