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[Ralkarin]

Hey all,

I'm Josh, an independent game developer from Red Clover Games (http://www.redclovergames.com).  I'm starting a 2 week sprint on my current project code named: "HexDev" and thought I would share the link here for those of you interested in following an indie game through its development cycle.

HexDev is a hex tile game built on the Unity platform where players layout a map from a very high level using a collection of tiles and enter Adventure Mode where you experience the world in higher detail with some systematically generated surprises.



My blog has a dedicated page at the top for the latest build (updated nightly during the sprint), and the history of its progress.  Stop by, subscribe to the RSS feed for updates, add your comments if you have any, I'd love to get the community involved in building this game!

Thanks!  

Blog: http://blog.redclovergames.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/Ralkarin
RSS: http://redclovergames.com/blog/?feed=rss2

[Ralkarin]

It's been a while since I've updated here.  I primarily update my blog (http://www.redclovergames.com), but I thought I would share my progress with the indie community!

Latest HexDev Build


I posted just before my 2 week sprint on the game, which only lasted 3 or 4 days, but since February I've been working more frequently on the project.  It has a long way to go and I have so many ideas to implement, but I hope to have community support with the idea.  

If you like what you see, subscribing to my Blog RSS or following my Twitter are the best ways to get updates!  I will be checking back here and posting progress as major milestones are complete.

Thanks for checking it out!

P.S.  I'm looking for a better name than "HexDev" for the project, so your name in lights (or the credits) if you capture the essence of my game better than I can.

[Ralkarin]

Posted a new HexDev build tonight.  This build includes some canned content: Debug Quest 1!
If you enjoy map editing, feel free to make custom maps and play around! 

Lots more to come, stay tuned, comments are welcome here or on my blog.

Latest Build: http://redclovergames.com/blog/?page_id=397
Blog: http://blog.redclovergames.com/

[Geti]

Looks interesting, but seems like it'd be much more effective with consistent texturing, either everything purely coloured or everything using photoreal textures or everything using pixel art textures, or.. you get it. I quite like the almost solid colour look you had going in the first shot so maybe go for that? Just soft touches of darker and lighter in the same colour as the base on each object.

It's hard to think of a name without knowing what you're going for here.

[Ralkarin]

Hi Geti, thanks for the feedback!  I completely agree with the texturing, in fact, I spent about an hour just tweaking the coloring and shaders before pushing that build.  I'm definitely not satisfied and most of the textures are just placeholders.  I'll play with the solid color more and see if I can refine it.  I do want a cartoony feel, definitely not photorealistic, but not pixelated either. 

Yeah, the name thing I'm still up in the air about.  I was just brainstorming names this morning on Twitter.  Here are a couple names I'm playing with: PatchQuest, Fabric, StitchWorld, QuiltLand, JourneyCraft, Atlas...

The core of the game is about creating and exploring maps/tilesets that are created from a collection of tiles, each tile adding new game mechanics to the adventure.  My hope is that people can create their own tilesets and share them with others or play with friends on their tileset.  Popular tilesets can be shared or played by many people.  I think there could be a certain emergent gameplay factor as well, where people create new gameplay objectives by using certain tiles in certain arrangements.

Thanks again Geti, I appreciate constructive feedback!

[Geti]

Patchwork sounds nice, and seems to encompass what you want - things stitched together to maked something nice. You could call the worlds quilts, have the player, enemies etc be made of buttons, pins, patches and embroidery. That'd be a pretty unique look, actually.

You should also consider having each tile placed on the world have some variations but also allow a mapmaker to select each tile exactly, so if you want to scatter down a random forest you could just drop a bunch of the "tree" arche-patch, but if you wanted specific paths through that forest you could put down "tree 1" and "tree 2" etc. That applies to mob patches too, put down "rabbit warren" to get a random one, or choose a specific one if you want the warren that has a tree in the top right hand corner.
Your emergent factor could simply come from mobs interacting with other tiles, or trees near water growing larger over time.

I figure that people creating patches are probably going to want to make specifics, but people making worlds are likely to want to put down generics, so allowing for both would suit everyone.

You're welcome for the feedback. Keep the project active, people will have a look

[Ralkarin]

Posted a new build today with a couple changes and a small amount of content to test the mechanics.
Latest HexDev Build
Red Clover Blog


Quests

• Added Debug Quest 2 – Collecting a Crystal.
• Added Debug Quest 3 – Survive the Gauntlet!
• Quests now highlight in yellow when they are complete.

Combat

• Weapon Proficiency – Your skill with “bare hands” now improves over time as you defeat enemy units using it.  At the moment, every 5 points in proficiency gains you 1 new combo counter.
  
• Action spam clicky support – I got some feedback about the combat system.  1 person summed it all up: “If I’m not holding down the mouse button, I’m doing it wrong.”  And I think that person was absolutely right.  So, I’ve revised the mechanics a little bit to allow combos even if you’re not holding down the mouse button.  I’ve done this by adding a small delay in between combo attacks.  If you have more combo points available in your combo chain, a small delay will be started (for example 1 second).  Within that 1 second timeframe, if you attack again, it will continue the combo.  I think this does 2 things:  1) it allows you to spam click because the tolerance window is much greater and 2) it allows you to time your combos if you want to elongate a combo chain for some reason (probably more valuable later when certain attacks can stun or knockback).

Game Mechanics

• The game now supports 5 saved worlds instead of 3.
• An Inventory System – To support Debug Quest 2 and the item collection mechanics.
• Carrying items – Added support for “carrying” items as well. (like pots in Zelda).
• Physics Based Mechanics – Just messing around today, I added a sphere with a rigidbody in town and I spent a good 20 minutes today kicking around this soccer ball with my little avatar and I had a ton of fun, so I want to add more things like this.  So, maybe town tiles will spawn children that play soccer and want you to play with them or maybe add a castle with physics based walls that you need to crash down to get in?

[Ralkarin]

Small update:

Latest HexDev Build
Red Clover Blog

No new Debug Quest, so to see the updates you'll have to create your own map in the Custom Worlds menu.  Go ahead and build a map!  I'd love to see some custom worlds, so send me a screenshot ([email protected]) and I'll post it on my blog! [and I'll plug your indie game too]

Here's a sample of a custom map I call the "Spiral of Doom".  Pretty impossible given the current game mechanics, but it's a good look at the kind of things you can create with HexDev.



Check out my blog for some future design considerations (with cool diagrams!) and feel free to comment on desired features/tiles or what would really bring the game to life for you.


Features(?)

• Added some sound! Ambient music, punch, bombs and bomb towers.
• Recolored the avatars and slimes again.

Tiles

• New Mountain Tile - Used as an obstruction and spawns copper ore nodes which in the future can be used for crafting. (right click to collect)
• New Swamp Tile - Emits poisonous gases which deal damage to the player over time while they are in or very near the swamp.
• New Blacksmith Town Tile - Spawns a blacksmith which will someday have quests to gather/collect ore and produce metal to craft weapons/armor.  For now, there's a cool forge to look at.

[Ralkarin]

More Updates!  Who doesn't love updates??

Red Clover Games now has a Google+ Page: Red Clover Games on Google+
I think this may be the option where I stream the most media and get the most feedback, so if you have a G+ account, follow and join in the development stream!  Most ideas for the game so far have come from random ideas that grow into fruitful features. Get your ideas out there and see them come alive!

Weapons:
Pickaxe - Used to loosen copper ore from mountains so you can collect them.
Bow - Typical bow, shoots arrows.

Emergent Gameplay Mechanics are being introduced:  Here bombs are creating fire which is burning the trees, which is burning more trees, which is lighting slimes on fire, which are burning more trees!  Oh and slimes are absorbing poison too.


My son wanted alligators, so I delivered, which spawned the idea of nests and baby alligators!  Man, these guys mean serious business...


New tile tonight: Ice tiles... with meltable pieces when touched by fire + slippery surface.  Baby gators are placeholders for penguins.

[baconman]

Sweet. You should look up hexatron.org if you haven't already. There's lots of cool stuff you can use this to build off of, although I personally have always found the horizontal alternative layout more friendly for developing playable layouts.

[Ralkarin]

Small update: http://blog.redclovergames.com/

Penguins
Swappable Weapon links for testing - Bow & Arrow, Pickaxe
Mineable Copper Ore (may have been there)
Ash
Caves
Skeletons
Treasure Chests (with nothing in them and very cool audio)

[laxwolf]

Really looks like it's coming together, great job.

Keep updating!

- Laxwolf