Hadean Lands Has an Interesting DLC Offer

If you’re not familiar with Hadean Lands, it’s an interactive fiction game. This is a genre also known as a text adventure, where interaction with the world id done entirely through text. A description of what is going on is given to the player, and they type instructions on what to do next. These types of games were hugely popular in the '80s and early '90s with owners of home computers, and whilst not as popular, they still have a cult following these days. This particular title has been around for a while, winning a few awards in the process, but only recently came to Steam. 

With Hadean Lands being a very traditional adventure, it follows the theme of many of those early text-based games by being ultra-hard. To make the sci-fi survival game even trickier, developer Zarfhome Software, are asking players to attempt to play without using any cheats or walkthroughs, and without searching answers to puzzles on the internet. The latest DLC for the £8.99 game takes this even further by offering, for the astonishing price of £27, three times the price of the game itself, a “promise certificate”. This certificate is for players to sign, pledging they will complete the game the hard way.

On the Steam page for the DLC, the explained the DLC:

About This Content
This DLC pack contains a high-quality certificate saying that YOU, the player, solemnly promise to finish Hadean Lands without looking at any hints or walkthroughs on the Steam forums or anywhere else on the Internet.

That's all! You print out the certificate, sign it, and hang it on the wall. This is strictly on the honor system. The DLC does not change the behavior of the game at all.

I'm sure you have questions...

The DLC is just a certificate? Really?
Yes. You get the certificate in PDF format and, what the heck, I'll throw in a JPEG too.

Does it unlock new puzzles or rooms or other game content?
Nope. Just a certificate.

One of the most popular developers of interactive fiction, Infocom, used to have a concept known as "feelies" which were tangible things, often amusing in nature, that were included in the box. This DLC is very much a throwback to that, and of course serves as a novel way for fans to help a small indie developer get some extra income. Yes, it might be a fairly useless product, but when that's the point, that kind of makes it useful?