Interesting, if long, steam review:
Developed by narcissist Alex Kanaris-Sotiriou, Mythwrecked is the product of workplace abuse, deceptive social media manipulation, and games industry nepotism. It is baffling to comprehend why this game took so many years to be released, or why Alex kept delaying the game (oftentimes: without making any announcements!) since it was announced in 2022. The release date was only revealed WEEKS BEFORE RELEASE and the pricing has been kept secret (It’s TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS?!? This should have been a $4.99 mobile game). More on the game below, but keep reading for a comprehensive history of this title’s troubled development.
Starting development in 2021, Mythwrecked is a game that seems to be created out of generous art grants and expectations to keep receiving those grants. The developer hired a number of contractor employees to work on the game (no clue if they were paid), with the most interesting one being Malindy Hetfeld, a former coworker of Kim Belair. Malindy wrote the initial first draft of the game and seems to be a 1:1 model for the main character of Mythwrecked, Alex.
Tragically, Malindy would attempt to take her own life after a falling out with Alex and Polygon Treehouse. She was under the assumption that the writing position would lead to her being hired full time, which didn’t materialize and resulted in a number of extremely unsettling social media posts. Alex ignored all of these. Thankfully she received help/intervention and is still alive. At a March GDC event in 2023, Malindy was shocked to discover that she was banned from even entering the Mythwrecked booth, or promoting that she worked on the game. Frustrated, she vented that she wasn’t even sure how much of her original script was left in the game. It seems that Alex hired this contractor “narrative designer” simply to use her likeness and hard work, then distance himself to make HIS game look better. In a series of now deleted tweets on March 21st 2024, Malindy posted: “You know what, I’m gonna say this once and I don’t care who sees it, to be cut off from a game in such a way you don’t know it’s being shown off at GDC, literally while you’re there, f---ing sucks. I would’ve loved to be able to tell you about it. I would have loved to be able to tell you to go see it. Instead, I am now terrified of it myself, with no idea what, if anything, of my work remains. And that. F---ing. Sucks.” Followed by: “Sorry guys, I’m supposed to tell you that my words, aka the unedited first draft, are still in the game, haha, you can play Mythwrecked at the Expo floor at GDC, or not, I’m not the boss of you. I left Mythwrecked at a previously agreed to end date for my contract.”
Mythwrecked is a slow, boring, unimaginative game that has you solving puzzles meant for toddlers. Line up the lines to make the door unlock. Fetch the item for the Greek God. Run for long stretches of time with nothing happening. The start of the game is a complete joke: a boat animation is reused for the first 5 minutes, with a bad green filter, to convey that there’s a big storm…the development team must have run out of budget, because there’s a flash of white and the character is on the island. First impressions of the island: there is literal areas that are off the beaten path that look like they have secrets, only to have absolutely nothing. The island is lifeless, sterile, and boring. What’s the first observation to a nearby mysterious tower? “That’s a door!” Alex exclaims. Yes Alex, that IS a door! What insightful writing! The main character then tells you to check the wreckage for potential items to use. If you ignore this? The game gatekeeps you and tells you that you cannot proceed until you search the beach debris. What happens when you inspect the correct pile? “My phone is smashed! I better search the island for help.” NOW you can continue the game? Why did the developers insist on completing this tutorial, which teaches the player nothing? This isn’t helpful in a puzzle game: this is immediately annoying. Want to save your save or pass time at the benches? Sorry…you’ll need to travel ACROSS THE ISLAND to find a bench in a lighthouse to do those thing. You did? Great: NOW you can use those mechanics! What’s that? You want to change the time of day? Silly player…only DAWN is selectable for you now, other times of day are locked until you progress enough. Wouldn’t want to overwhelm the player with choices right away!
The character models are extremely disturbing. Their eyes look in random directions, with mouths opening to only give grunts, laughs, and giggles. Alex might have run out of funding, because seeing a paragraph of text appear on screen, only to have the character say “HAH!” is jarring and amateurish. When speaking with another character, they reuse the same animations over and over again. You’ll see the same mouth open/close reaction….about 20 times during a conversation with Hermes. These slack-jawed expressions are literally copy pasted between multiple characters. It seems like AI made them, with trying to appeal to early 2000’s Tumblr users.
Do you enjoy loading screens? How about every minute of gameplay? Mythwrecked will load each individual screen to achieve a Resident Evil-style camera angle, which becomes annoying quickly. In areas where the developers couldn’t figure out the camera? It awkwardly snaps to a different perspective, just like the original Resident Evil. This disjointed feel disrupts every single area of the game, as the developers didn’t think you deserved to be able to control the camera. To go from one puzzle to another, you might experience 6-10 “fade to black” loading screens. Just watch any streamer play the game and you’ll immediately notice there is TONS of map checking, running for long stretches of time, and zero things to keep you engaged (except for fruits in bushes! What does the fruit do? It’s used for fruit swapping with characters. What’s that? You want to fruit swap with Hermes? Nah: you need to increase your friendship level before you can swap fruit (“When we know each other better maybe we can swap fruit” ???). How do you increase your friendship level? You need to feed seagulls the fruit for a small increase: more busywork for you to do! The implementation is lazy: when leveling your friendship, the bar reaches the max (level 1 to level 2, for example), but the number doesn’t change…nothing. No, the game just tells you that your level increased in a separate line of dialogue. A more competent developer might include a flourish, or SHOWING that you leveled up the rank. Not in Mythwrecked!
The writing is awful. Simplistic and boring, the main characters observations will leave you dumbfounded. There’s a ruby at the top of a statue? And the main character can’t read the text? OK…oh, you found a statue with a sapphire gem? You get the EXACT SAME DIALOGUE, right down to the “I wish I could read this” sentence. There wasn’t ANYTHING ELSE that could have been put here? More descriptions of the gem? How long the text on the statue is? Nothing? Conversations are written like a bad visual novel: even the flirting comes off as wooden and lifeless. Don’t expect to romance those cute Greek gods though: these are strictly platonic friendships. This is not how characters talk: how did Alex make GREEK GODS boring to interact with? Characters react to your decisions, only to be caught in an endless loop of that animation until you continue. It’s funny to see a character step back in surprise, only to have that surprise (and lifeless eyes) cycle over and over again until you proceed.
It's fitting that Mythwrecked has “Ambrosia Island” in the game title. In Greek mythology, ambrosia is consumed by the Gods to grant immortality. This game will never achieve this, destined to be forgotten within an hour of you playing it. The game and developer are completely rotten to it’s core, like a discarded fruit on an island. Dear reader: save your money.
).
