ten. one. twenty twenty.
In the previous episode...
A prototype for a mobile multiplayer, PvP/PvE, last man standing game led to the creation of "Into the Dungeons", a world setting for stories and games. The prototype itself got shelved, I started working on a board game (still going...), a comic (that I need to finish writing) and a PC Game (which took some concepts from the mobile game, but is the one I'm now unsure about 🤷♂️). And because I wasn't making progress fast enough on either of those I started working on a word game, Skitrix: Two vs. the Words (I have a beta version done. Hopefully I release it soon!).
Surprise!
HexaGrid (https://medium.com/designing-building-hexagrid), the prototype for my abandoned mobile game project is back in development. I certainly didn't expect it, and with all the surprises I don't know if it'll actually get finished or launched, but for now it feels like the right thing to do, and for once, I'm trying not to overthink it and just go with it.
How it happened is quite a funny story.
Twitter and the search for pixel artists!
I was looking for pixel artists on Twitter after my bad experience with HexaGrid. The fact that my contract artist was using someone else's art had been what led to me to abandon it completely.
I found @OfTetris on twitter and we hit it off! He created the two characters that I needed for Skitrix: Two vs. the Words and we remained in touch.
A few days ago, he shared a few characters. It was around the same time I had been reminiscing about HexaGrid. Looking over old reddit threads and demo videos wondering what if.
The four characters in the center of the image immediately drew my attention. I got a very sci-fi/techno vibe from them and they looked amazing!
I didn't want to try and force fit the Into the Dungeons theme on HexaGrid. The characters gave me a clean break!
Out of the dungeons and into the arena!
I'm back to calling the game HexaGrid, with the addition of the word Arenas. HexaGrid Arenas is a 4 players battle across three arenas for three minutes and the last man standing wins.
The battle mechanic is very much like Rock-Paper-Scissors. Each arena has colored tiles and players are able to attack each other only when they have a tile advantage (Green/Earth > Blue/Water > Red/Fire > Green/Earth).
There is a stamina cost to moving which limits the ability for players to just run around (I'm still playing around with this and might get rid of it completely).
The second arena also has two elemental robots (blue/green, blue/red, or green/red) that keep spawning while the players are in the second arena. These robots can attack the player on any tile that shares their color or is weak to their color. Whereas the player may only attack them when the player is on a tile that is strong against their color. For example, the red robot can attack a player standing on a red tile or a green tile. The red robot can only take damage when it is attacked by the player while the player is standing on a blue tile.
The color of the tiles in each arena changes after 30 seconds, and after a minute the players are transported to the next arena. At the end of the three minutes or if 3 out of the 4 player get eliminated, the game ends. In the event that more than one player is left... I'm still thinking about a few options there 💭.
The road ahead.
There is a lot left to do!
I am searching for a pixel artist who can work on the UI based on my wireframes
I'm working with a developer on the game
I need to find a large number of testers for the game when it is ready
and I think the way to do that will be to generate some art material, gifs, press kit that I can use to get the word out
Lots of other stuff but ^ this is what I have on my mind at the moment.
This has been quite a year... and there's still a quarter of it left. Hopefully it ends better than it started.