How Award-winning Games Captivate their Audiences – A Thematic Analysis of Hades Reviews across Multiple Platforms

Abstract: Stories are as old as humans themselves and have always been a key part of what makes humans human. One of the newest forms of storytelling can be found within games. This thesis conducted a thematic analysis on reviews of the successful game Hades, investigating why it captivated its audience. Based on this analysis, a set of guidelines for creating a captivating game was created, as well as a demo of a game to illustrate selected guidelines.