Where do your eyes go? | Radimentary
When my wife first started playing the wonderful action roguelike Hades, she got stuck in Asphodel. Most Hades levels involve dodging arrows, lobbed bombs, melee monsters, and spike traps all whilst hacking and slashing as quickly as possible, but Asphodel adds an extra twist: in this particular charming suburb of the Greek underworld, you need to handle all of the above whilst also trying not to step in lava. Most of the islands in Asphodel are narrower than your dash is far, so it’s hard not to dash straight off solid ground into piping-hot doom.
I gave my wife some pointers about upgrade choices (*cough* Athena dash *cough*) and enemy attack patterns, but most of my advice was marginally helpful at best. She probably died in lava another half-dozen times. One quick trick, however, had an instant and visible effect.
By watching my wife play, I came to realize that she was making one fundamental mistake: her eyes were in the wrong place. Instead of watching her own character Zagreus, she spent most of her time staring at the enemies and trying to react to their movements and attacks.
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