| 1/8/2021 |
Ydrasse |
Hectic |
I think that most people can recognize that what Hectic does with his games is special. It’s one thing to run a game and run it well, but some just have a special spark to them — for him, it’s not just one game but all of them.
Kill Switch was simple in concept, but a strong start to modding. What happens when you give everyone’s life the value of one button press, and that button thrown into the hands of the town to deal with? Kill Switch happens! And what a good first showing for town in this game, neatly beating the scum. Better yet is an introduction to the quirky sort of flavor that Hectic likes to include in his games, fun and witty to read and always worth reading. It’s that very spirit that fills his games.
And then Silent Star begins. A saga of games each with their own unique mechanics that tempt you with their mystery beforehand and terrify you when you’re within them. Lunacy, the first installation, does what everyone has always wanted: everyone is a wolf... or so they think. Cleverly, he flavored everyone as wolves and that alone caused tension in spades. Everyone thought they were the scum team! Everyone wanted to guide the game to their wincon. It was the bravery of the players taking the plunge into the concept firsthand to figure it out, but watching up until that point is a delight. And in the end, it was so very much worth it for that moment of realization about the game, and how his simple twist on it made it that fun. With great and immersive flavor for those involved again!
Menagerie goes a bit off the rails in comparison. Who in their right mind thinks a mod would only let players post in animal sounds? A player in Hectic’s game should. Animal sounds at the beginning as players fight to communicate, only to end up free to speak their minds and do as they please... until the lover pairs and treestumps are introduced to us all, a twist that truly no one could expect as six players fought for the right to survive. It sounds crazy, but somehow it worked; never once did it feel like the setup was a poor amalgamation, but each part of it flowed into the next with an ease that made it a truly enjoyable experience.
He wasn’t done there. The latest Silent Star game, Royalty, was muted at first. All vanilla town trying to scumhunt, a mysterious wedding in the backdrop. Nothing that seems as wild as the other two... until the reveal. Nearly half the game made up of conspirators fighting to keep every single person alive for fear of an instant loss, while all the town were unaware. Under their noses, a grand conspiracy, and then what happens next? They dance! Conspirators shunned into stumps as the town coordinated itself following the aftermath, while those still in on it tried hard to evade the hammer and infiltrate the dancing pairs to keep themselves safe. Two dearly loved concepts in mafia games, and yet again he managed to combine them.
And finally, who could forget it. A contender for Game of the Year, filled with so many moments that it’s hard to keep track. A spectator thread filled to the brim with people following. Thousands of posts from several players and 400 pages of content. Almost everyone’s heard of Death Curse in some way, and know what an amazingly unique game it was beyond the simplistic mechanics of passing a death-scroll after an elimination to players. It’s hard to explain why, but this game is the rare sort that comes around only once in a blue moon. Hectic’s hard work in running it and writing some truly amazing stories for flavor this one only served to make it all the more wonderful.
It’s not just that he runs good games to the point that they fill within minutes at times; it’s that the games he runs are crafted with a passion that bleeds through every single time that he makes something. Hectic puts his all into making a game good, creating heartfelt flavor, and tinkering with the mechanics just the right way for every single game. It’s never going to be a repeat experience, but it seems impossible that he’s going to run out of ideas to work with. When you join one of his games, you know that you’re going to have a moment in it where you recognize how good it is and how amazing it is that a single person could think it up.
For what is an astounding body of work already that will only continue to grow in time, I can think of no other moderator this year that better exemplifies the Modfather than Hectic. |
