There are paintings that have been defaced by stickers, closets full of junk, and a pitiful kitchen that leads to some insight into how these children have been living (i.e. HOMESTUCK HIVESWAP XEFROS PLUSĬared for by an alcoholic babysitter with a heart of gold). I almost wish there were more things you can click on - for instance, you can’t click on all the items in Joey’s room, though you can on a fair number of them - because a big plus for me is learning more about the characters. Hiveswap looks great - detailed backgrounds, beautiful colors that pop, and simple yet expressive characters. I loved all the detail crowding Joey and Jude’s house, and I enjoyed Xefros’s cartoonishly bizarre alien homeworld. The soundtrack was also charmingly upbeat.Īll the illustrations are hand drawn and brimming with personality. It included some crunchy chiptunes, and bears the mark of Toby Fox, creator of the indie hit Undertale, who contributed to Hiveswap’s soundtrack along with previous compositions for Homestuck.Įach of the characters has their charm, but I didn’t feel like I connected with any of them as much as I did with Joey. She’s the one I spent the most time with and the one whose character arc got developed. In the first half of the game, I got a clear idea of how she felt about her various family members, I knew what she wanted to be when she grew up, and I knew her values and priorities. I appreciated her acerbic sense of humor and perspective, and I started caring about her. And then it swapped her out - but only for a moment. It seemed like it was out of convenience Joey needed to solve a puzzle, and suddenly I was playing as her brother, Jude. After fiddling around as Jude - for not even five minutes really - I got the puzzle piece I needed and swapped right back to Joey again to continue on as before.

Other character swaps felt just as unnecessary.

I learned a little more about the alien world when I played as Xefros, but I didn’t really feel like I got a chance to know him the way I did with Joey. Maybe I would have appreciated it more if I knew the characters from Homestuck, but since I came in as a newbie, it was just kind of baffling.

Hiveswap xefros kitchen