Like a customer in hell

Hades

HADES

Hades is a roguelike action role-playing video game developed and published by Supergiant Games. The game was in early access release since December 2018 and then released on September 17, 2020.

Why should marketers play it?

  • Focus on how do people feel about the choices we give them

  • Shows the Compound effect created by of a lot of small, great details

  • Design choices influence the whole experience

  • Why we should test constantly


Why it's so good?

Because of how it balances  FOREGROUND and BACKGROUND elements.
What takes our active attention, and what doesn't.
And then it uses our expectations as leverages to introduce:

  • Repetition (background elements)

    • create a pattern that is recognizable and allows for faster decision making

    • create muscle memory that improves performance over time

  • Variation (foreground elements)

    • Randomly created the rooms, but based on a common patterns, allow for the environment to feel familiar, but not the same.
      Familiarity, not blind memory, makes people feel comfortable.

  • Customisation (against boredom)

    • Make variations interesting and not overwhelming (not 100 choices, but only 3 / 6 meaningful ones)

    • Offers deep alternatives: i.e. one weapon can become interesting once it's modified in a certain way, it reframes the expectation in an encouraging way


real life marketing example

  1. Liziqi
    Surprise is to find out that she is not just a fantastic content creator, she's a super businesswoman.

  2. Apple Watch Studio
    The price of the watch fades away in the background while you choose the colours and the armbands, increasing the perceived value of the object because the more we make it "ours", the more we grow fond of it

  3. Apps design UX
    Think Uber, or Airbnb. Or Google homepage. They kept removing clutter and simplifying the experience and make it more effortless.

  4. Stories (Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, etc)
    It's a response to the over edited, over professional content from the pro-Instagrammers that makes the rest of us feel ashamed to post. It promotes content over form.