If you own Double Fine’s Spacebase DF-9, you’ll get a free copy of Hack ‘n’ Slash – and the reverse also holds true, with Hack ‘n’ Slash owners getting Spacebase DF-9.
Double Fine are offering a neat little cross-promotion, presumably in an attempt to get back into the good graces of gamers after Spacebase DF-9 was declared “finished” despite missing most of its planned features. Now that Spacebase DF-9 version 1.0 has been put on Steam, people who own it on Steam will get a free copy of Double Fine’s coding RPG Hack ‘n’ Slash; by the same token, those who own Hack ‘n’ Slash on Steam will get a free copy of Spacebase DF-9. And if you own both… well, then you get a free copy of each, which you can presumably gift to others.
Double Fine have suffered quite a lot of bad press lately (and for good reason, some might say) but this might restore at least a bit of faith. I imagine many will still be wary of backing any more Early Access titles from the studio, though.
If you don’t have either but want both, you do have a couple of options. Spacebase DF-9‘s price has apparently just been dropped to $20.01 USD (it’s £14.99 in the UK, although with a 40% discount dropping it to £8.99) and an Amnesia Fortnight bundle of both that and Hack ‘n’ Slash is available for £11.39.
I haven’t yet played Spacebase DF-9, but Hack ‘n’ Slash is firmly in the camp of “nice ideas, but slightly disappointing execution.” Not a bad game, but more an interesting experiment than a must play.
