hex games – YoboWargames

Where does the time go?

Well, I know where 6 hours of it went – The SuperBowl! What a great game.

As you can see from the header picture I now have the splash screen for Invaders from Dimension X.

I got the game working on my Android tablets this past weekend. I use them to check that everything is resizing correctly and that the game works well for touch screens which more and more laptops have. The desktop PC is my main focus but I have to say the game looks really good on a tablet!

My focus for the next two weeks will be on testing and to get the first drop to my chief tester and to Mark, the publisher of the original board game. Battle for Korsun work is temporarily on hold while I do this.

In the background, I have been looking for an artist to work on Battle for France that I so proudly announced 9 months ago as “coming this year” (meaning 2017 – oh how young and innocent I was back then!). I don’t want to use my main go-to guy as I want him to focus on Kampfgruppe next. If you are a graphics artist reading this blog then do feel free to reach out to me. I am always happy to give someone new to the industry a chance.

I am now averaging about 20 hours a week on game development. A little crazy when I also have a full-time day job. But I love what I am doing and this is my big year to see if I can really make a go of wargame development.

And finally

Another reason I wanted to get Invaders from Dimension X working on a tablet device….. I can test the game while in bed! Don’t say I am not committed!

This week turned out to be a mixed bucket of good and bad things with regards to game development.

Translating Kursk – Battle at Prochorovka

This weekend I had planned to import all the translations I received a couple of weeks ago into Kursk – Battle at Prochorovka. However, it transpired it was not quite as easy as I initially thought.

I had expected there to be problems with some of the string lengths being longer than the English version and thus I would need to do some work to get all languages fitting correctly in the areas assigned. What I had not expected was that the font sets I was using did not have all the characters I needed.

This is a real pain in the ass. If I switch to another font its likely that all the English text will also need reworking.

I have paused this effort while I get up the courage to tackle this in depth. The good thing is I can take this knowledge and make sure I am better prepared for the next game.

Battle for Korsun

Every evening this past week I have been whittling down the list of unfinished items needed to get the two player game working. This is the worst part of game development – getting the game to the finishing stage.

I still have the AI to work on but I need to get something finished so I can send it out for testing.

It’s also getting to the stage in development where I am nervous whether people will like the game. Luckily I am not dependant on the success of this game for a living but it would be nice for it to be liked by the market I am aiming at.

Invaders from Dimension X

I have been waiting for my graphics guy to come back with some more graphics for this game. They finally started to arrive this weekend.

As a little taster here is the front and back of one of the alien activation cards.

Finally

I have been trying out scrib.com. It looks like this could be an excellent way to do research my games or indeed anything else that takes your fancy. They do a 30 day trial and if you decide to subscribe its $8.99 per month.

I wanted to do some research for the Pacific war game I am thinking about for next year (one of many games I am thinking about!).

Tag: hex games

Its February already?

A mixed Bucket