We’ve all been waiting patiently for the full list of platforms that Hex Gambit: Respawned is headed to, and my publisher Blowfish Studios has finally pulled back the curtain!
Grab the Steam Demo here!
Upcoming Streaming event, this Sunday
This is the most platform logos that a One Man Left game has ever had to squish onto a marketing piece. Kickstarter backers will be thrilled to hear that the promise of a Hex Gambit game on Switch, years in the making, is finally happening (and then some).
I’m also excited about this mysterious little blurb on the Steam store page:
To be clear I didn’t put that there, and I don’t exactly know what it means, but I have heard that it’s a thing being worked on. Pretty neat.
These are some changelogs for internal Hex Gambit: Respawned builds. Just dumping them here because it’s where I tend to look.
v0.2.11
- Fixed a bug where the Captain’s Gambit Ready animation was playing when Gambits were set to Stock and opponents had a handicap (only supposed to play if set to Comeback)
- Fixed a bug where Captain’s Gambits were setting two Undo snapshots instead of one, so you had to undo them twice to undo the previous action.
v0.2.10
- Adjusted menus to work better with localized text.
- Improved 4:3 aspect ratio support.
v0.2.9
- Added internal ‘hide UI’ mode for footage capture. Only works in Cheater builds.
v0.2.8
- Hiding language options for the time being.
- Slowed down loading screen for the demo by 0.8 seconds so you can read.
v0.2.7
- Demo: Added wishlist nag to the level select
- Fixed icon on Steam- was the Unreal icon
- Demo: Added full game nags to the multiplayer setup screens
- Demo: Updated style of Custom Rules nag
- Custom Rules: changed Captain’s Gambit options’ display text, changed default to Stock to match Campaign.
- Demo: Added “only in full game” to Captain Select for locked captains
- Added Enter as a more widely-supported Confirm input
One Man Left is proud to announce that Hex Gambit: Respawned was awarded an Epic MegaGrant!
You might remember that for the first eight years or so of my career I was an indie game artist and a game designer, but not a programmer. When my programmer, Alex, had to bow out in 2019, I was desperate for a way to keep making games. I asked whether he thought it was possible to ship an entire game with Unreal’s Blueprint Visual Scripting. He said yeah, pretty much, and that was good enough for me.
So I spent an entire year, full time, watching Youtube, reading docs, and experimenting. Then around November 2019, I started applying what I’d learned to start my first solo project, a complete reimagining of Hex Gambit made entirely in Blueprint called Hex Gambit: Respawned.
All of HGR’s 3D artwork and animation was done for free in Blender. Everything else (aside from sound and music) was done for free in Unreal Engine 4 by one very determined guy in his basement. It has single player, local multiplayer, full controller support, AI, you name it. Blueprint is amazing!
This crazy endeavor was not without risk, and Epic’s grant money is a MUCH needed shot in the arm as HGR approaches the finish line. I’m eternally grateful to Epic for making Unreal Engine freely available for broke game devs like me, and for choosing to support my project. If they hadn’t made Unreal free to use, OML would have been done for a long time ago.
So THANK YOU again to Epic Games. Let’s keep going and ship something awesome.
Today I’m excited to get the “final” version of Hex Gambit: Respawned into the hands of our beta testers! If you have a preview Steam key for HGR, update today for the full campaign experience, with dialogue and jokes and an EXCELLENT new soundtrack by our Outwitters composer, Mike Reagan.
Check back later for news about Hex Gambit: Respawned’s launch date on Steam and some unannounced platforms!
0.2.4 was the build that added all kinds of polish and cinematic stuff to flesh out the campaign, and I’ve done some bug fixes since then. Here’s what’s new:
Big Changes in 0.2.6
- Added all single player cinematics, lots of visual tweaks.
- All new battle soundtrack! No more Outwitters placeholder music.
- New Crown Match arena background.
- Added outlines to make enemies easier to identify.
- New KO standards for team battles. Teammates can be individually KO’d now.
- PC back button prompts use Esc instead of Backspace now.
- Molera AI is more aggressive with her Captain’s Gambit.
- Increased Hard Mode’s turn timer to 45s.
- Reduced Crowned Minion HP to 2.5x for Normal, instead of 3x
- Made Royal’s Revenge level more difficult on Normal
- Made Medic! more difficult on Normal and Hard
- Made Long Live the King less frustrating
- Made Final Gambit level more difficult on Normal
Little Fixes
- Fixed a bug with pausing/unpausing during cinematics.
- Tweaked when the End Turn nag appears and dismisses.
- Made End Turn nag text clickable
- Lolli no longer magically steals unoccupied toggle spaces when using his Gambit.
- Resetting Campaign Progress no longer resets your user preferences.
- Modified cursor snapping when using controllers. Auto-snaps less now.
Having gotten Hex Gambit: Respawned into a launch-worthy state, the project has been passed along to a publishing partner to explore some porting options! This is pretty exciting stuff, but I won’t have details for you until that’s all further along. Check back later for info on platforms, release date, etc.
The porting and certification process will take months, so what’s a One Man Left to do? I’m fixing the odd Hex Gambit bug here and there, but mostly I’m prototyping!
My current experiment: a split screen FPS like the ones I sunk hours into as a kid. Am I serious about making this one? I dunno, but it’s something to play with my nieces and nephews.
I’ll get this prototype into a decent state, and then I’ve got a short list of other project premises to play around with while I wait for Hex Gambit news.
First, two notes:
- This is only a Hex Gambit thing. Outwitters and Space Food Truck‘s servers are still going strong.
- Adam is still working on his first solo project since Alex’s departure. It’s self-funded and going well.
Now bad stuff:
It’s costing us more to run the Hex Gambit servers than we make from selling the game. So it’s with a heavy heart that we announce the end for HG, probably my favorite game design in our nine years doing this.
Servers will cease operation for online matchmaking starting Tuesday, June 18, and the game will no longer be listed on Steam or the Humble Store.
Anyone following Hex Gambit’s development knows that the road to our intended Switch release has been a bumpy one. We over-extended ourselves trying to make the game console-worthy. It took an extra year rushing like mad to deliver on all our promised features, and that’s a long, expensive delay. We were counting on our Steam launch to put a little extra gas in the tank to finish the Switch version, something in the ballpark of Space Food Truck‘s performance. But alas, there was no gas on Steam for poor Hex Gambit.
After Alex bowed out for a full time job, he planned to peck away at the remaining work and eventually make good on the Switch port, maybe sometime in 2020. But the prospect of bleeding money until then just isn’t an option. We know that the Switch version was the big deal that everyone was waiting for, and we threw everything we had into making it happen. If I’m ever in a position to make it up to our Switch Kickstarter backers, I will. We’re both very sorry that this is how it ends.
From the Desk of Alex Okafor
Hi OML fans!
Just wanted to start off this post with a huge thanks to our entire community of fans, players, and supporters! We wouldn’t have made it this far without you guys. It’s been a minute since our last update, and I wish this was more of an uplifting “bringing in the new year” post. Unfortunately, the last few years haven’t been the kindest to our studio, and to the indie game development scene at large. The combination of difficult market realities, and having burned the midnight oil for years on end is finally catching up with me (oh, to be young).
Going forward, OML is no longer a full-time endeavor for me. I’m currently happily in a new full-time position at another company. When I think back on the years of development, the thing that sticks with me is the encouragement and excitement from our fans on what we were working on. You guys made it worth all the effort. I’m still in awe at the fan art, tools, community led tournaments, and support our fan base had shown over the years.
- So what does this mean for our online games? Our current game servers will continue to operate. If the situation changes with any of them, we’ll notify players on appropriate channels (this blog included).
- What does this mean for the Hex Gambit Switch port? It’s still in development, but at a much slower pace after hours. As such, I can’t really give an estimate on when it’ll be ready.
Again, I can’t emphasize enough how great these last 9+ years have been, and can’t thank you all you enough for that awesome opportunity.
What About Adam?
First of all, I’m grateful to Alex for taking me on this adventure in the first place, and I wish him the best.
We’d both like to offer a sincere apology to our Switch backers for all of the delays you guys have endured. After a rougher-than-expected Steam launch, we just found ourselves without any options to continue HG development full time. We over-promised, and we’re doing everything we can to make it right. Thank you all for your support and your patience.
While (as an artist) I can’t help Alex finish Hex Gambit any faster, I’m exploring my options for working on another game (don’t worry, there won’t be another Kickstarter) while taking on some contract work. If you’d like to see whatever might come next from me, make sure you subscribe to our mailing list and follow me on Twitter @oneadamleft. I have literally no idea what will happen!
If you’d like to contract me to help out with your project, I do all kinds of art with a specialty in UE4, and you can check out my portfolio right here.
Space Food Truck is complete. We have a lot of features, expansions and gametype ideas we could still add to it (maybe we’ll post some of that later), but there was another project being tossed around that we’ve really been itching to green light.
In 2012 we made our first strategy game called Outwitters, and ever since moving on from that game we’ve had a pet obsession. When I looked through our “Outwitters 2: Think Again” folder just now (that was a working title), I counted 9 hex-based, PvP strategy prototypes we’ve tinkered with. Some were a lot like Outwitters, and some were barely recognizable. Finally, after 4+ years on and off experimenting, we’ve got it. A worthy successor. And that’s what we’re working on full time, starting next week.
In about a year, we hope to have it ready for launch. There will be a Kickstarter, and we will need your help! If you haven’t signed up for the mailing list yet, definitely do to keep up with our progress. And you can also check back here weekly to peek over our shoulders while we work.
Our cooperative card adventure Space Food Truck arrives on iOS and Android tablets today! Now you can scour the galaxy for exotic ingredients on the go, asynchronously, or pass your device around the room. The game even has cross platform support, so any iOS, Android, or PC user can join your crew if you meet up in the same lobby.
With the smaller screen comes a smaller price of just $9.99.
PC Version is 50% Off!
And for a limited time at SpaceFoodTruck.com, we’re matching that tablet price for the PC version to celebrate the launch! The 50% discount also extends to our 4-pack, which already saves you 25%. We heard you liked discounts, so we put discounts on our discount.
No matter what platform you’re on, it’s a great day to grab Space Food Truck.
Space Food Truck is 33% off for the Humble Store Summer Sale, now through September 16th at 10am Pacific. That goes for single copies of the game, and the already-discounted four pack! We’ve just recently added asynchronous support to the game, so this is fantastic time to find a crew online and whip up something spacious. And don’t forget to check out our quick tutorial series to learn the ins and outs of Space Food Truckery.