HexLands News

[h2]Hey guys![/h2]
Finally, after 4 months of development, 0.36.0 is here! I'm sorry for not finishing it sooner, but while I didn't have a dayjob, I started putting lots of new features into the game. Once I had one again, my free time shrank and polishing and testing all these new features took a looong time.

Before I would begin: if you'd like to get instant access to the playtest then all you have to do is join my Discord server! Just hit me up and I'll grant you access. I'd love to hear you feedback! :)

Here's a quick summary: Now you can end your turn, which works just as it does in other deckbuilders, and there is also a health system called "reputation". Quests appear every few turns, offering rewards or punishing unmet demands. Between levels, you can trim your deck or recover reputation. The update also improves tutorials, settings, and visual clarity. Hope you like the changes, let me know what you think. :) Anyway, here are the changes in detail:


[h2]Reworked Turn System[/h2]

• Like in other roguelikes, now there is an end turn button which discards all cards in your hand and draw you 5 new ones. This gives me more opportunities game design wise and players will have one less thing to learn due to being already familiar with this system.
  
• Due to this change, card selling is now removed and drawing card is only possible once per turn. (but it became much cheaper)

[h2]Reputation System[/h2]

• Functions similarly to a health system: you have 3 "health", lose it all, and you lose!

[h2]Quest System[/h2]

• Every third turn, your people have a task for you. Sometimes they instantly tell you their wishes, sometimes you have to claim the tile first on which a golden exclamation mark appeared.
  
• Completing a task gives you various rewards, though right now it's either resources or a card into your hand. But a task is only available for a given duration.
  
• Every second task is a demand. It gives you no reward, instead you lose reputation if you not complete it in time.

[h2]Removing cards from your deck[/h2]

• After every level, now you have the option to remove a card from your deck.
  
• Before every level, now you have the option to either remove a card from your deck or restore a reputation.
  
• I know this feels a bit clunky right now, but these were needed features and it couldn't wait till I implement a proper, branching node selection screen, like in Slay the Spire or other roguelikes.

[h2]Tutorial System Rework[/h2]

• When you run the game for the first time, instead of going through a series of "lecturing" levels, now you immediately jump into a normal run/session and these helpful tutorial texts appear as you play and discover the features.

[h2]New Settings[/h2]

• Basic graphics settings! No quality settings yet, but you can already change resolution, window mode, refresh rate, VSync, etc.
  
• Mouse and scroll sensitivity settings! Sorry guys for taking this long...
  
• Now that settings became quite big, it was necessary to implement tabs. So all new and previous settings are now grouped neatly into tabs like Controls, Gameplay, Graphics or Audio.

[h2]Improved Card Adding Screen[/h2]

• All offered cards are lame? If that's the case now you can grab a pile of resources instead!
  
• Can't remember what cards are in your deck? Now you can inspect it while choosing, so you can make the best decision. (Map inspect is coming too!)

[h2]Improved Highlighting[/h2]

• Unusable cards are now desaturated for better distinction. Now it's clear which cards are usable right now.
  
• Tile highlighting has now a better color palette, because previously e.g. the green tile highlights were hard to see over plains or forests.
  
• Highlighting now also includes outlines! Some tiles' highlight were hard to see with all the trees or buildings on it, so now they are outlined.
  
• Also, tiles no longer rise from the ground: I think highlighting is good enough now and this immersion breaking feature became a bit redundant.

[h2]Other changes[/h2]

• Discord Rich Presence: now your friends can see which level are you right now.
  
• Some other systems have also been in development, but they are not yet visible to the players. This is because they are kind of "empty" as of now. But they are working for sure, for example the game now has localization, statistics and achievement system! Before the Steam Demo I'll add extra languages, all kind of stats and achievements, so stay tuned!
  
• And obviously lots of smaller fixes and polishes, algorithm fine tuning, etc, you know how it goes.

Next, I'll be working on adding some goals and meta progression so players will feel the urge to start a new run! :) Once again, thanks for sticking around, and let me know what do you think about these new, big changes, I would really appreciate it.

As always, join my Discord server, just hit me up and I'll grant you instant access to the playtest! I'd love to hear you feedback!

Thanks for reading, and have a nice week! :)
Tudvari a.k.a. Portgate Studios

[h2]Hi guys![/h2]

Not so long ago 0.35.0 was released, but I didn't post the patch notes because first I wanted to make a devlog :) Feel free to check it out here:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Before I would start listing the changes: I'm giving away 2 full release keys! :)

• All you have to do is join my Discord server and say something in the #giveaway channel till the year ends!
• But to make things a bit more interesting, you can double your chance: you just have to try HexLands and submit at least a bit valuable feedback through the ingame dialog. (If you also participate in the Discord giveaway, make sure to use your Discord handle in the contact field)

[h3]And now here are the changes:[/h3]

• Treasure chests which when claimed, offer you new cards into your deck. This way you have another type of objective on the islands and also deck building has a faster pace.
  
• New card mechanics, with a few initial cards already added:
  • Per turn resource generators, so e.g. now you can build on a Forest either a classic Lumbercamp, or a Forester's Hut which gives you more lumber but over 5 turns.
    
  • Building converters, e.g. now you can upgrade Houses into Manors.
    
  • Demolish buildings to free up some space!
    
  • Buildings which provide bonuses based on nearby resource providers
  • Buildings which provide bonuses based on nearby population
  • Buildings which provide bonuses based on nearby tiles, e.g. water or mountains
  • Cards which give you a new card after using them, e.g. a Pasture gives you Manure.
    
  • Cards which can be only used on specific buildings, e.g. Manure gives you extra food if used on Wheat Fields.
• Balancing & polishing existing cards, removed placeholder portraits
  
• Gold is unlocked after the second isle: all isles offer gold using cards and with that towns also start generating gold on level up
  
• Tile claiming visuals improved: slight UI improvements, and if the claiming is due to a new House that's being placed, the House card will be anchored to its future tile.
  
• Island affixes are clearer to read: they are grouped into good and bad affixes, and within a group they are sorted by impact.
  
• Specific error messages, so now you know why exactly you can't e.g. build on a tile
  
• Map and card algorithm fixes and improvements
  
• Now you can replay the tutorial
• A toggle to confine cursor to the game's window
  
• Tiles have tooltips when hovered and also increased resource tooltip visibility
• And other various small features, polishes and fixes.

Now I think I'll stop adding new cards for a bit. Instead I'll gather some feedback on the ones just added while I start implementing a new level of progression, the final one, throughout a run. Hopefully development will fasten up a bit, now that I've lost my dayjob. ^^

As always, join my Discord server, just hit me up and I'll grant you instant access to the playtest! I'd love to hear you feedback!

Thanks for reading, good luck with the giveaway and have a happy new year! :)
Tudvari a.k.a. Portgate Studios

[h3]Hi guys![/h3]

Sorry for not posting earlier, but ~17 days ago 0.34.0 was released, but I was too lazy to post the patch notes.
The reason is that I immediately got a lot of feedback, and jumped into developing because I guess it's much more fun! ^^
But here are the changes, better late than never:

• Reaching higher than the required population increases the starting resources of your next island!
  • Now that highscore is no longer the goal of the game, it felt wrong that overachieving didn't give you anything.
  • So now there are 3 tiers, which upon reaching, each gives more and more extra percentage of resources on your next island!
  • This way if you are good at the game, you get rewards, but the rewards won't scale endlessly, so you won't feel like you have to optimize the hell out of the game. ^^
• You no longer automatically carry over 10% of your resources to your next island.
• Instead there is a new Trading Port building. Each time you build one, you'll increase the starting resources on your next island by a fixed, additive amount.
• Updated the image of Fishing Hut.
• Small balance changes and fixes.
• Lots of DevOps improvements.
• Updated the game's description accross the stores to indicate that the game is no longer highscore but a campaign oriented. 

That's it, I know it ain't much, but a good step towards the right direction. And due to this delay of publishing the patch notes, I'm happy to announce that v0.35.0 is soon out with tons of new cards and card mechanics! They are going to increase the depth of the game tremendously! ^^

Can't wait to show you all the new stuff, and as always, join my Discord server, just hit me up and I'll grant you instant access to the playtest! I'd love to hear you feedback!

Thanks for reading and have a nice week!
Tudvari a.k.a. Portgate Studios

[h3]Hi guys,[/h3]
[h3]Long time no see, the last update was 5 months ago... Sorry for the long wait, let me tell you what happened... ^^[/h3]

First, I "just" wanted to add a huge feature: choosing your next island! It wasn't just a quick feature, so it took some time. Thus as the weeks went by, unfortunately, I got out of the habit of releasing and iterating quickly. So when I finished the feature, seeing that I was already a bit late, instead of releasing, I thought: why not add another feature as a compensation? And everytime I finished something, I still had this mentality so I started developing the next feature. Well... and that's how 5 months quickly flew by! 😅

And with finally releasing this huge update, I'll let in the next wave of playtesters! Still, if you don't want to wait in the queue, and for a more open discussion, join my Discord server! :) Just hit me up and I'll grant you instant access! I'd love to hear you feedback!



Without further ado, here are the major changes:


[h2]Deckbuilding[/h2]

• Instead drawing cards from an "infinite deck", now you have a "regular" deck which in the beginning only contains the basic cards.
  
• Collect cards, adapt to your luck and build synergy.
  
• Each time your deck is out of cards, reshuffle it, select a new card and fill your hand to 5 cards!
  
• Added a 6th tutorial level to teach the deck mechanics.

[h2]Choosing your next destination[/h2]

• After completing an island, you can choose your next destination!
  
• Choose from 3 islands, all having random card rewards and affixes.
  
• Maybe you'll find an island with cool cards but the affixes make it really hard... Or maybe you find a perfect island with both awesome affixes and great rewards!

[h2]New resource: Gold[/h2]

• Build Gold Mines or sell resources to get some gold! (new cards)
  
• Once you acquire a card requiring gold, your town's level up grants you increasing amounts of gold.
  
• You can buy resources or spend your gold to use some other cards.

[h2]New cards[/h2]

• Fill water tiles with soil, turning it into land! (even if there's a fishing hut on it)
  
• Get some free supplies from the capital!
  
• Claim tiles for your settlements without building a thing!
  
• Plant forests! (even if the tile already has a building or some other resources)
  
• And some more! (also don't forget the cards mentioned in the other sections!)
  
• Feel free to suggest some card ideas! And keep in mind that some has placeholder art. :)

[h2]Better card drawing and starter hand[/h2]

• Drawing a card now lets you choose from 3 cards, but it costs more! Previously you had to frequently spam card selling and then card drawing. With this change it feels like it's no longer case. Also spending resources just to draw a bad card wasn't really good. This way most likely you'll be happy with at least one of them.
  
• Rather than starting with just a single Town Hall, you now begin with 5 cards. One of these is a Settler's
• Wagon, which essentially functions as a free Town Hall. This way you can see your initial cards, therefore you can make a better decision regarding your first settlement.

[h2]Other Changes:[/h2]

• Cards when selected are now attached to your cursor, instead of just being higher in your hand than the rest of the cards. While holding a card, the cursor is also highlighted with some visual effects.
  
• New loading screen! It's been 2 years, so it sure needed to be improved.
  
• Tile hovering is enhanced for the sake of better readibility: now highlighted hexes also rise from the ground!
  
• Card drawing algorithm improvements, less chance to be unlucky! :)
  
• If there aren't enough resources for something, the missing resources also flash on the resource panel. Also now only the missing amount is displayed in the error message.
  
• Existing tutorials got a more immersive look and they teach the mechanics better.
  
• Various other smaller fixes and polishes.

Once again, sorry for taking this long, I'll try to release the next feature a bit quicker! ^^ (Though a new WoW expansion has just come out, so who knooows... :| )

Feedbacks, bug reports are always welcome, good luck and have fun!

Cheers, Tibor a.k.a. Tudvari a.k.a. Portgate Studios

[h3]Hey guys,[/h3]
[h3]After months of closed and semi-open playtesting, finally the gates of Steam Playtesting are open! [/h3]



Now everyone can test the alpha of HexLands! This phase focuses on the core gameplay and the mechanics found on the early levels. Later phases will include progression between the islands and then even some metaprogression.😄

[h3]So hop in, I would love to see you in the playtesting![/h3]

And here comes the twist: after a few hours of being open, I had to turn off auto-accept due to too many of you joining.😅 It's better to let people in gradually, more and more after each update, because this results in a nice, iterative development.

[h3]But you can still sign up for playtesting and I'll let you in as soon as I can! :)[/h3]
[h3]Click here to sign up![/h3]

And for a more open discussion, join our Discord server! :) I'd love to hear you feedback!

Oh, and I already had to update the build, because as it turned out that some of you experienced a "Thanks for playing the Alpha!" dialog at the end of the tutorial levels, instead of the intended story transition to a normal level. Sorry, now it's fixed!😅 But before I could notice this issue, I already implemented volume and autonaming settings, so enjoy!

Now let me talk about this version's changelog, for those of you who were in the private alpha: the last release was nearly 1.5 months ago. But the wait is over and here's a relatively huge update! :)

Finally the learning curve is a bit smoother due to a cool new tutorial system! In these early levels you can meet some people and also a pivotal figure in the game's story: King Aedric! Can't wait to start working on the lore.

The update contains a balance change regarding tile selling, and lots of quality of life improvements! Thanks again everyone, most of them were due to your awesome feedback!

Features, improvements:

• Tutorial levels to smoothen the learning curve, help panel is also adjusted accordingly.
  
• You can only sell town tiles and tiles neighbouring your towns' borders.
  
• Settings where you can adjust various volumes and whether you want to name your islands & towns or not.
  
• New resource panel visuals.
  
• Currently usable cards are highlighted in green.
  
• Card selling is now more intuitive: you click on the button, then you click on the card you'd like to sell. (And not the other way around, like it was previously.)
  
• Sellable cards when selling is toggled are highlighted in gold.
  
• Draw card, sell buttons are highlighted if they are your only option.
  
• Next island button is highlighted if you are ready to leave the island.
  
• New cards have a blueish temporary highlight.
  
• Highlighted tiles rise from the island's plane.
  
• Fish tiles are a bit more apparent.
  
• A town's borders at tiles which contact other towns are no longer hidden, thus it's easier to distinguish the two towns.
  
• Card hotkeys adjusted to the most common keyboard layout: left-most card's hotkey is 1, right-most card's is 0.
  
• Camera setup is also saved with the level.
  

Fixes:

• Hotkeys, camera movement is fully blocked until the game is full ready for start.
  
• If tried to quit the game when a feedback dialog was open, the quit confirmation dialog was behind it.
  
• Mines' sound effect was too harsh/high pitched.
  
• Sometimes draw card button's resource cost was red, even though you had enough resources.
  
• Sometimes fishing huts were placed on the water tile's water end, and not on the shore.
  

Feedbacks, bug reports are always welcome, good luck and have fun!

Cheers, Tibor a.k.a. Tudvari a.k.a. Portgate Studios