I had planned to release 0.2.4 today for the beta players, and do a little playthrough video of the first few levels of the game for you in their completed state, but development has gotten slightly more complicated this month IN A GOOD WAY.

There are things about Hex Gambit: Respawned that I can’t say yet, and I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say why I can’t say those things, so I’m just not gonna say much of anything. Suffice it to say, I have very good news that I can’t wait to tell you.

What’s the state of the game?

Campaign mode: DONE. It has 21 levels, three difficulties, some story/dialogue/jokes sprinkled in, and a brand new soundtrack by our excellent Outwitters (etc.) composer Mike Reagan.

Local multiplayer: DONE. 2-4 players, free for all and teams, AI players, lots of match customization options, seven maps per number of players.

That was pretty much everything I set out to do, so why no release date yet? Because… I’ll tell you when I can! We need a few more months for exciting, magical stuff to happen. Follow us on Twitter or sign up for our mailer if you want to stay on top of it.

Big milestone for the beta today: I have the full, 21 mission single player campaign ready for testing! It’s all the gameplay without any of the dialogue stuff yet, but I do have a How to Play resource in the Pause menu that will tell you everything you need to know.

The game now has four Crowned minion missions, which are this game’s equivalent boss fights. Crowned minions have bonus health, can’t be targeted by your Captain’s abilities, and are immune to statuses like Intimidation.

I’d REALLY like to hear some feedback from the beta testers on this one, so if that’s you, check your steam library for the update today. Once you’ve spent some time with it, I want to know:

1. Was it fun?
2. How far did you get, on which difficulty?
3. What captain did you use most?
4. Favorite mission?
5. What was your least favorite mission and why?
6. Would you say the game feels too easy, too hard, or about right?
7. How often did you die? Was there a particular level you got stuck on?

Send your feedback to contact@onemanleft.com.

What’s new this update:

• Completed a balance pass for 21 campaign levels and 3 difficulties.
• Improved existing level balance and changed order.
• Changed some level backgrounds for added variety.
• Added Crowned minions and adjusted AI for them.
• Fixed bug where KO’d players froze multiplayer matches.
• Fixed a bug that locked the game if you flipped a hex mover switch indirectly and finished moving after the hex mover animation finished.
• Fixed a bug with Molera KO’ing herself.
• Fixed a bug with Hexpert’s glitch, ironically.
• Improved AI for the Defender and Runner.
• AI will no longer try to cover your spawn if your spawn pool is empty.
• Tweaked the logic for starting spawns and minion selection.
• Fixed an issue with lasers firing after Game Over in certain circumstances.
• Fixed bug where Pause could trigger during KO, and you’d control both Pause and Game Over.
• Fixed visual glitches for the cursor Highlight Ring
• Fixed an issue with the campaign map camera getting misaligned.
• Improved consistency when the punk rolls through a minion on a switch – if he kills them it flips to his color.

If you tried that last Campaign update, you may have noticed that it didn’t work at all! Fix is uploaded and should be live for you soon.

I tried a little experiment with the first level and didn’t quite set things back where I found them, which froze the AI. Thanks to everyone for reporting that bug! If you hit anything else, let me know at contact@onemanleft.com.

What’s new this update:

• Fixed major issue with the campaign AI locking up.
• Fixed major issue with Toggle Spaces on the Summit map breaking the game.
• Amended when icons show/hide for the player cursor.

I’m getting ready to run some in-person testing, so I figured I’d throw out a build for our beta testers with some new levels today. I’ve got sort of a “Minion 101” challenge for each of the eight classes, then some toggle space missions at the end.

A warning: if you played 0.2, some of the medallions you earned may appear on the wrong levels, and some levels you’ve played won’t be unlocked yet (they moved to the end). This will keep happening as I inject new content. You won’t lose medallions, but they may jump to different levels. You can start over by resetting your progress in the Options menu, or just shrug it off and keep playing.

You may also find some Captains and multiplayer levels that weren’t locked now require medallions to unlock. That’s gonna be in flux until the levels are finalized, too. Your medallions will carry over between updates, but the amounts required for unlocks will change.

The total mission number is still up in the air, but will probably land in the 15-20 range. I’ll be switching up the backgrounds for variety and adding some dialogue once I have all the level content filled in.

What’s new this update:

• 6 more campaign challenges, level order tweaked
• Unlock pass: new medallion goals and progression, more representative of the final version.
• Edited the Crossfire mission balance
• Improved Punk and Sniper AI
• Fixed a bug with Hex Movers

Very excited to announce the arrival of Hex Gambit: Respawned 0.2 today! All the 0.1 builds got our local multiplayer up and running, and 0.2 introduces a single player campaign for those that prefer to play alone.

With today’s update, our beta testers have 6 levels to try with three difficulties to choose from (1-2 hours of play), and I’ve also given our demo players access to the first three challenges to help you learn the ropes.

The game will tell you there are 84 medallions to earn in total, but honestly I have no idea what that number will be.

Next up: I’m experimenting with some different level types and ideas, thinking about dialogue, and generating more single player challenges!

What’s new this update:

• Campaign with 6 Sample Levels and a “World Map”
• Captain’s Gambits can be switched to Stock for the multiplayer, giving you a number of uses that are always ready.
• Earn medallions to unlock Captains and Multiplayer maps
• Added a Language placeholder to the options screen and a button to reset your progress.
• Added minion count to the score mount
• Modified when the ‘Out of AP’ or ‘on Cooldown’ nags will show.
• Updated Help Menu with more info on Captain’s Gambits and Medallions.
• Reworked the way AI is paused/unpaused
• Fixed some Turn Timer bugs

Some fixes for Hex Gambit‘s multiplayer are coming online today before we dive full time into single player. It’ll be a few weeks before our attention returns to the multiplayer side of things, but we’ll have some neat bots to fight when we reach the other side!

The biggest change launching today: our cheaper Captain Ultimates will now recharge for a second use! We’ve also tweaked some costs to balance for this change. As far as the current Captain roster is concerned, this is good news for Bjorgolf and Penny Miser but bad news for Lolli, whose bonus cost went up.

So ults that cost 4VP or less can now be triggered multiple times if your opponent lands on certain scores. But savvy opponents can block those extra uses if they avoid ending their turns with certain VP amounts. It won’t turn the metagame on its head, but it provides some flexibility for future Captain additions and gives us a neat tool for the single player mode.

Here’s a full rundown of what’s new today:

• Captain Ultimates are now rechargeable, and we’ve taken a pass on some of their VP costs. More on that above.
• Added some audio for the Pacifist
• Tweaked some audio for the Sniper
• Captain voice-overs have been adjusted to be less chatty when a lot of VP is earned.
• Fixed replay functionality for the Pacify special
• The Pacifist’s Donate move had an issue on the server side, but now works as expected.
• Fixed a bug with Pillars having shields