Yikes! Almost a month with no blog post. Time definitely flies when you’re focused!

On my side of things, not much has been going on visually, hence the lack of posts. I’ve been helping Alex refine the AI logic and plotting out a first balance pass for our single player mode, the Blitz Royale. I’ve also been polishing up some sound effects, which I can’t wait for you guys to hear. Soon the minions will all be yelping and grunting!

Alex has a first pass on the AI and cinematic flow done, and he’s working on splitting the mode into Easy, Medium, and Hard now. When we have a good playable pass ready, we’ll be streaming to tell you all about it!

Check back weekly for more progress on our upcoming turn-based strategy game, Hex Gambit. Buy a copy today to save 10% on our $14.99 launch price, then give us some feedback to help shape the final product! If you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for our mailing list to get an email reminder for the official release on PC later this year.

Almost done tinkering with this arena background! I’m told Alex has AI working on a basic level today, and my first pass on the single player dialogue is ready to go. Can’t wait to get all this framework in place so we can start battling some bots!

Check back weekly for more progress on our upcoming turn-based strategy game, Hex Gambit. Buy a copy today to save 10% on our $14.99 launch price, then give us some feedback to help shape the final product! If you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for our mailing list to get an email reminder for the official release on PC later this year.

With a new rim and a nifty floating gear stage, things are coming along for Hex Gambit’s single player environment.

Check back weekly for more progress on our upcoming turn-based strategy game, Hex Gambit. Buy a copy today to save 10% on our $14.99 launch price, then give us some feedback to help shape the final product! If you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for our mailing list to get an email reminder for the official release on PC later this year.

Alex loads out with the new Sniper class, and Adam has the Pacifist in our first asymmetrical Hex Gambit stream.

Check back weekly for more progress on our upcoming turn-based strategy game, Hex Gambit. Buy a copy today to save 10% on our $14.99 launch price, then give us some feedback to help shape the final product! If you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for our mailing list to get an email reminder for the official release on PC later this year.

Big day for Hex Gambit Early Access: all seven launch minions are live! With the addition of the Pacifist today, you now have 21 different combinations of minions to use on your team, times six unlockable Captain’s Ultimates to choose from. You can carefully customize your tactics to taste, or go nuts and randomize your loadout every match.

Like the Sniper before her, our Pacifist is launching sans sound effects but fully functional. Infectious love and generosity are her specialties! Use her to nullify your threats and to block late game pillar taps.

1. Pacify: Don’t like what’s headed your way? Pacify it to disable tapping and specials for 1 turn. But be warned: this move’s cooldown is a window for revenge.
2. Donate: At 8HP, the Pacifist is Hex Gambit’s most durable unit. Lucky for her teammates, she’s also our most generous! She can give up to 3HP per turn to injured comrades.
3. Pillar Guard (Need 7 VP): Stand next to either friendly pillar to make it untappable.

Another big change this update: a better Motivator! Shout is now free with a 1 turn cooldown, and Intimidate now strips buffs from its targets. That means it removes shields and overwrites Inspire. Inspiration will resume once the Intimidate clears, but those shields are gone for good. Enjoy!

Gameplay

• New Unit: The Pacifist! A master of not fighting.
• Sniper’s audio has been added
• Sniper HP reduced to 3 (from 4)
• The Sniper’s Tapping Round no longer counts as his pillar tap for the turn. You can do both.
• Motivator Intimidate buffed: same as before, but now also strips any buffs on the target.
• Motivator’s Shout now costs 0 AP, with a 1 turn cooldown

Fixes

• Sniper’s longshot is now blocked by blockades as intended
• Sniper’s longshot now works properly when hypnotized by Lolli

Check back weekly for more progress on our upcoming turn-based strategy game, Hex Gambit. Buy a copy today to save 10% on our $14.99 launch price, and give us some feedback to help shape the final product! If you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for our mailing list to get an email reminder for the official release on PC later this year.

Slowly developing this Blitz Royale Arena into something neat. The latest additions even provide a hint to our plans for Hex Gambit’s single player mode. When we shift our focus to single player full time, we’ll tell you all about it!

Check back weekly for more progress on our upcoming turn-based strategy game, Hex Gambit. Buy a copy today to save 10% on our $14.99 launch price, then give us some feedback to help shape the final product! If you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for our mailing list to get an email reminder for the official release on PC later this year.

Our attention is sort of whizzing around in all directions at the moment, but I found some more time to dig into the arena for Hex Gambit’s single player mode, the Blitz Royale. Here’s where it stands right now.

Check back weekly for more progress on our upcoming turn-based strategy game, Hex Gambit. Buy a copy today to save 10% on our $14.99 launch price, then give us some feedback to help shape the final product! If you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for our mailing list to get an email reminder for the official release on PC later this year.

Today we can happily announce that Hex Gambit‘s Apex Cup now uses the robust style of skill-based matchmaking you all enjoyed in our previous TBS game, Outwitters! That means we’ve added an under-the-hood skill rating that watches how well you fare against other players. As everyone starts to spread out across the skill range, your matches will become more and more even.

The Apex Cup is all about battling other factions for territory, so affiliation is a factor now, too. Here’s how it works:

1. The new matchmaker favors skill-based matching above all else.
2. Once it’s found a set of suitable candidates, it’ll match as many players as possible with an opposing faction.
3. Being that picky can really bog down matching for 2v2, so your faction is only considered for 1v1 Apex Cup matches.

To clarify: if two players in a similar skill bracket are queued for 1v1 and are on opposing factions, they will match against each other. But in scenarios where the matchmaker has candidates in your skill range and none are from an opposing faction, it will match with one of them rather than waiting for perfection. We’re striking this balance to give you a fair match as quickly as possible.

The first question that’s bound to be on every Outwitters fans’ mind is, of course, what about my skill tier? This update is strictly a server-side, invisible kind of thing. But we are looking into visible ways to showcase your skill rating to the world, and we’ll have a solution for that in a future update. Stay tuned!

Check back weekly for more progress on our upcoming turn-based strategy game, Hex Gambit. Buy a copy today to save 10% on our $14.99 launch price, then give us some feedback to help shape the final product! If you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for our mailing list to get an email reminder for the official release on PC later this year.

Hex Gambit Early Access gets a new minion today, so let the team customization begin! There are now six different combinations to choose from, or you can let yourself be surprised by setting as many minion slots to Random as you like.

The new Sniper class doesn’t have any sound effects just yet, but we thought, why wait to try him out? Add him to your roster to deal some damage at a distance. What he lacks in speed, he makes up for with insane reach. Here’s a breakdown of his specials:

1. Longshot: Deals the usual 2 damage at ANY distance along a straight path. This will fire through your teammates, but the bullet is stopped by enemies and barriers.
2. Airstrike (Need 3VP): A mortar-like move that only hits at a distance of exactly 3 spaces. It deals an impressive 4 damage, but you’ll need a turn to recharge it.
3. Tapping Round (Need 5 VP): If you have a straight shot at the enemy pillar, this move lets you tap for 1VP from across the map.

Another modest gameplay tweak was included in today’s update: we’ve standardized the special move unlocks into 3 easy-to-remember thresholds: Early Game unlocks all happen at 3VP now, Mid-Game unlocks are at 5VP, and a few rare Late Game unlocks will happen at 7VP.

Next on our agenda is the last minion class for Hex Gambit’s launch: the Pacifist. We’ll also be trying to squeeze in a few long-talked about character buffs before we shift our focus from minions to other features.

Check back weekly for more progress on our upcoming turn-based strategy game, Hex Gambit. Buy a copy today to save 10% on our $14.99 launch price, then give us some feedback to help shape the final product! If you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for our mailing list to get an email reminder for the official release on PC later this year.

Was hoping to have some textured stuff to show today, but I’ve been a bit distracted by things we’ve prioritized ahead of single player. You’ll have to use your imagination a little longer. I’m aiming to make this new arena stuff less drab than the current stadium, and then to go back and touch up some of my old work (again) later, time permitting.

In other news, I think we might have a silent, but otherwise working sniper class next week.

Check back weekly for more progress on our upcoming turn-based strategy game, Hex Gambit. Buy a copy today to save 10% on the launch price, then give us some feedback to help shape the final product! If you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for our mailing list to get an email reminder for the official release on PC later this year.