Hillbilly Apocalypse

It's been years now since Khaos first arrived

But this rotten land will never recover.

Ashes rain from the skies

The smell of putrefaction covers every corner of the 3 Great Kingdoms

Swarms of ravenous moths come out at night to feast on the orphans

Whose parents died in Civil War

And all their tears are still muffled

By the sound of this piercing silence

I am 32 years old.

My ex-wife and I have a daughter together, and we adopted our son together. Both are now 4 years old.

When we were going through our separation, I felt lost and unhappy. I was self-destructive. One day, I was so angry with everything spiraling out of control that I punched a concrete wall in a moment of overwhelming emotion. This resulted in breaking my fifth metacarpal in my right hand—the hand I worked with, played games with, and used to carry my children to bed—the hand I desperately needed to ensure I could continue providing.

Upon learning the severity of the self-inflicted damage, I became almost suicidal. Keep in mind that just a few months before this, I was the happiest man, with no history of depression or anxiety. I had never experienced anger outbursts, nor was I the type to break down and cry, but I was in a tough situation that truly prevented me from seeing the light on the other side.

With nothing better to do, I looked for a game I could play WITH ONE HAND while recovering. Somehow, I stumbled upon this game and read some of the comments. I decided it was worth a try... I must admit I didn't beat the game, nor did I play as much as some of you. In fact, I may have played this game for only a day or two. That being said, after doing so, I had a new joy and hope for life. I managed to leave behind the pain and suffering that had been thrust upon me. I could experience the joy and happiness of other people. I relaxed for 5 ♥♥♥♥ minutes listening to this music, long enough to realize that I would be okay.

After realizing this, I turned off the game and went back to work. My hand hurt a lot, but I was motivated. I stopped feeling so sorry for myself and became the father I needed to be at that moment, not the weak boy I was behaving like.

Today, I am close friends with the mother of my children. We don't fight, argue, or say hurtful things to each other. We are parents and friends.

Now I have 3 children. My third child is, wait, ALSO 4 YEARS OLD. The woman I am with was going through a very similar situation at the time of my separation, and we just unexpectedly stumbled into each other's lives. We have been dating for a year and are very happy together.

Moral of the story: you never know what life has in store for you, and if I had given up when all odds were against me, I wouldn't be where I am today. This silly little game helped me realize that.

Thank you.

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there's game-crashing missing codes that makes the game unplayable

No one is going to read this comment so i'm just going to say that i'm gay

What I liked :

- Run-and-gun gameplay and graphics that would feel right at home on the Super Nintendo or Genesis

- The weapons are fun to use (I love the shotgun) and the gib effect when you blast an enemy adds a lot to the gameplay

- There's some secrets to find If you're willing to explore the levels properly



What I disliked :

- The difficulty is all over the place, some parts are too easy while some are way too hard and you have to start the game over once you die enough times (which is bad when you don't have much chances to earn additional lives except by buying them at the merchant). The whole thing is made worse when you consider the many different ways to die instantly (especially in the minigame in the ''Descend'' level which requires a lot of reflex and is pretty punishing)

- The music is quite repetitive and gets annoying after a while

- The game crashes if you gameover on the ''Descend'' minigame (which I honestly hated)

- The platforming design and enemy placement in some levels really needs some work


Should you play it? :

Hillbilly Apocalypse isn't a bad indie game at all and is pretty much what you could expect from a retro Super Nintendo or Genesis game (good and bad). The graphics/themes are alright and the music, while repetitive, is somewhat catchy.

The gameplay is fun at first but becomes unbearable once you've done the first levels enough times (only to die randomly during a minigame that has nothing to do with the rest). I don't mind dying a lot of times If I somehow progress a bit while doing so (think roguelikes) but some quality of life upgrades would probably make everything better for a modern audience.

Give it a shot if it's on sale (or If you're a fan of challenging platformers) but I wouldn't recommend it to everyone.

You hold the shoot button while moving forward and jumping, very innovative gameplay. The menu key after starting the game is "Space", which I find very stupid and unintuitive.

Four people listed in the dev room and they did amazing. I see a cheap violent 2D pixel game on Steam and I'll give it a try, but this is what you hope for and never get. It's like the f*cked up SNES game you never knew about. Great physics, perfectly responsive simple controls (jump+shoot,) looks fantastic, overall worth every bit of the price.

Needs work. but pretty solid i guess.

I don't think I have the required skill level to proceed further into this game but I really enjoyed what I was able to play of it. If you guys liked Broforce or maybe Super Panda Adventure or any other games like that you'll probably enjoy this. It's got some ok humor and the explosions are pretty awesome. I'm going to go ahead and recommend it even though I wasn't able to beat the game because what I was able to play was really cool.

Check out my video if you want to see the part of the game I was able to complete:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttprQMcbeKA&t=1s