12, I think? With an Artemis crit bow build.

During early access, my first escape was 15 with the shield. It took 44 minutes. Everything else in the security log is redacted. I think I focused on Zeus boons and used the special attack mostly.

For V1.0, I cleared Hell Mode on run 5. Shield with charged shot and sudden rush.

15 also!

8 or 9 with the twin fists and poison (hangover?) attacks but I put down 10-20 since I had a decent number of early access runs a year or two ago.

My go to loadout still tends to be poseidon's call (can get an easy 300-1000 damage per pip) and athena's deflect dodge (useless for the final boss but VERY useful for getting there with full health).

God dammit. you guys are the reason why they tuned this game to be so difficult for us folks who suck at video games.

I must suck, I didn't escape until 37. I used the shield.

I got to the last boss with the spear and shield, both with high dps builds, but didn't make it. I finally made it out (probably run 28 or 29?) with the gun thanks to a modifier that made my special shoot 3 times and an auto-health regen boon. It was a matter of patience, really.

I'm usually right there with you. Don't give up, though! I was thinking about it today and realized that this is probably the first roguelike I've ever "beat."

Mine was about the 3rd or 4th attempt on switch but that's only because I had played on pc previously and knew what to expect. It's cool how the writers had to account for beating the game super early and not have it completely derail the dialog in future runs while you're still sort of getting to know the characters.

That is really neat. It's insane the amount of dialoge they had to write for this game. I've escaped more than once, and am still nowhere near beating this game. From what I understand it takes hundreds of runs to actually "beat" the game.

I think my first successful attempt was number 22-ish. I have 3 clears so far with 30-35 attempts; two with Heart Seekers Bow and one with Twin Fists.

Since then, Theseus and the Minotaur get me occasionally and one time, uh spoilers(?), I died the first time I fought Charon, but got him the second time. Most of the time, I'm making it up to the Temple.

Stubborn Roots really did it for me this run. It almost as if I was allowed to cheese the game a little bit.

I got out at 20.

This poll has a pet peeve of mine, which is overlapping numbers, so someone like me has 2 entries that apply.

It should be "1-10, 11-20, 21-30" etc...

Darn you @pfhor. Darn you to heck!

It was 21 for me. Hades took a LOT for me to get over. I am fairly certain from run 10ish to when I beat him I was getting to him every time and just not able to get past him for whatever reason.

Then it was like something clicked and my last 8 out of 10 I've beaten him.

Yeah I realized it as soon as I posted it. My wife (the smart one) who is a college professor told me "not to worry about it", so I didn't... until you posted this...

Now I'm going to lose sleep over my horrible life choices.

@redcream said:

good idea! How do you get to this log?

Yeah he wiped the floor with me the first (and only) time I borrowed money from him.

I did it on my seventh run which was also the first time I encountered Theseus and Hades. It was pretty close because I really wasn't expecting a second phase or the whole laser thing. I had a pretty safe Doom build for the Aegis, so I was just shield spamming at a distance. Did mean that the run took 45 minutes. I had 250 darkness invested with the extra dash, which is vital if you're not a god at dodging with i-frames, and one death defiance.

Took me until run 17 to clear it a second time, but I've gotten pretty consistent since then. I'm now at 29 successful runs out of 50 total and I've had a couple of runs where I didn't even need my death defiance. My average run time has also gone from a high 30 to mid 20's. I'm pretty proud of myself for how well I'm doing in this game, haha. Have only gone up to 6 heat yet though since I'm constantly switching between weapons.

@pfhor: You find this log in the House of Hades - west hall, administrative chamber (southern room). It has to be unlocked during the course of the story though.

My first clear happened back in early access before the "Nighty Night" update, I think. Kind of a hilariously bad build that won on the back of triple + rocket bomb. Hard to specifically remember though, since so much changed up until now.

According to my records it was the 29th attempt and that was 2 weeks before it came out of early access.

Welp I got all the Steam achievements after 99 attempts and 45 clears. Game is spectacular ya'll.

Is there any reason to continue playing the game once you escape?

@dgtlty: Absolutely, both narratively and because it just gets more fun.

Yes. Minor spoilers here: You won't see credits or have conclusion to the "main story" until you've actually escaped several times - not sure of the exact number but it's quite a few. I presume there is then something of a second ending that then opens the "epilogue" but I don't know that for a fact.

Also, there are new gameplay elements that won't unlock until after your first escape.

12th . I feel like I got lucky with the build I got , but man did it feel good.

I was slightly off on number AND build. My memory is real good.

Most definitely! I've spent more time playing after my first escape than before it. The first escape is only the beginning...

13th run. Did it with fists, had all charges of Death Defiance on the final boss and had a lot of health upgrades (275 or 300hp I think).

@pfhor: As far as I know you have to have escaped the first time and, shortly thereafter, the Administrative Chamber will be made available to you via the Contractors for 2 Diamonds. Sorry for the late reply!

Still fresh into the game, no escapes so far but I did finish Tartarus on 3rd run? That's bad I guess?

@ulfhedinn: It's fine. Meg can be a significant roadblock when you're initially getting a feel for the game. This game is a marathon, not a sprint, and every run progresses the plot in different ways regardless of your success or failure.

I'm not one for rogue likes. Don't think I beat a single one before this. I'm also an old man with bad reflexes playing with a keyboard and mouse. I escaped around try 30. Think I cleared it 4-5 times in a row this weekend.

If you can get your HP maxed to 100 when you first start via the mirror, that's a huge help. Also, sometimes you just get super lucky with your boons. First time I beat the game, through luck, epic duos, and the bow's special, I could just melt things with a point blank special, dash away and apply doom, and re-apply my hasted special two-three times before needing to dash away again.

Also, my first successful escape, I had god mode on. It's not really god mode, but gives you a pretty sizable damage reduction. The first few times I made it to the last boss, I was limping on one life and enough health to take two hits. It made me sturdy enough to learn the later level/bosses without getting disheartened. Now I'm clearing the game without god mode with some heat and can always get to the last boss.

I voted 30-40 because I went by memory. Turns out my memory is trash.

Took me quite a bit longer than most, but I'm seeing my time is much quicker than those posted here, so that's something I can hang my hat on?

Athena's call boon is something I use a LOT whenever I can, but I feel Poseidon and Ares always work as invulnerability calls as well. Athena and Aphrodite also have damage reduction boons, and those always feel useful to me, especially when the final boss can deal HUGE numbers.

So I am like 60 runs or more and the games difficulty drops quite a bit if you just invest in the mirror. I can consistently kick the shit out of my bad dad if I'm not messing around with a weird build that is bad. You will also discovery ways to "control fate" and get the boons and upgrades you need. There is even a way to restore all you death defiance if you eat shit early in a run. There are also upgrades that give you things that increase your health when you collect darkness and other such things.

My tips for folks having trouble -

The difficulty early on its built in. Just keep investing in the mirror and you will get past the hump.

Try to focus on 2-3 gods per run. You are better off going deeper into their boons, which often have stacking effects.

If you eat shit early, keep 200 gold around to buy a death defiance. Also some of Athena's boons restore death defiance.

But just keep plugging and dash all the time.

Ah I see. I've actually skipped that one since I've been trying to get some of the more useful upgrades.

God I really hate the fists. I haven't been able to finish the game with them yet. Think I've died on Hades twice with them.

@pfhor said:

Honestly, it was a really lucky run. I had so many health upgrades and damage mitigation boons I literally ignored all his summons, stacked shards on him and just wailed on his backside. I had multiple stacks of Death Defiance and only burned one of them at the end.

I love the fists, they're just a ton of fun.

The key is to accept that you gotta be mad reckless at all times and just build for the damage you are definitely going to take in the process. Get a strong Call like Poseidons and load it up with boons that raise it faster based on damage dealt and received. Then dive face first into every fight with abandon.

@efesell: I tend to be reckless as hell with all of the weapons so it makes total sense that the fists are my favorite.

Yeah, I really feel like some of the mirror upgrades are huge game changers. The combination of "get 3 health when passing through a door", "get 3 death defies", and "start with +50 max HP" means you should almost never die in Tartarus or Asphodel anymore.

It's a bummer that you have to divert so many early game keys to unlocking the new weapons, because if you just put enough keys into the mirror to reach that "start with +50 max HP" perk, it's such an enormous boost to your early game survival.

As part of this line of thinking, I'd probably recommend that early players take any Poseidon and Chaos boons that give extra darkness and gems, because your first 10-20 runs you just need to farm a lot of upgrades so that you have enough support to actually reach the later parts of the game.

Yeah I was always taking those boons. I really approached my first 20 or so runs as farming runs, which made the later runs much easier.

Run #17 for me. With the spear, the beam cast from Demeter, Athena deflect dash, 225 max health, and the +400% against armor on the spear throw

Reached Hades for the first time about 12 attempts in with the Rifle/GL weapon upgraded to allow 3 quick fires of the GL in succession plus a high crit chance for my special, got to his second form and wiped immediately. Reached him again with no health and lost quickly. Then on my 26th attempt I had a crappy build but carried on anyway and I got a boon that gave me regenerating health if I had no death defies left and I just used that to cheese him by dashing around for 2 minutes whenever my health was low. Took about 20 minutes to beat him because of said cowering and my low damage output but I did it!

@frymillstrum: Congrats. No shame in hit and run tactics. I've had Hades fights that were down to the wire that relied on invulnerability from Athena's Divine Protection and Broken Spearpoint to steal victory from the edge of defeat. Very tense.

I don't have anyone to brag to so I'm just going to do it here. I mentioned earlier that I beat Hades the first time I encountered him on my seventh run. Now I've beaten Extreme Measures Hades (only 12 heat total though) on my first time encountering him. Glad I had a decent Rail build, because with a melee weapon I would not have won that first try. I'm now up to 71 clears out of 97 runs. I didn't have a whole lot else to do these past two weeks... Also, it's really silly that I've put so many hours into this game and have still not received the final aspect for the Rail.