HEX Update – Bards of Fate

Hi HEXers. Today, we’ll talk about some Armies of Myth but first, a message from Cory and the Bard promos!

A Bard’s Tale

Hello everybody!

One of the interesting things about our Kickstarter was the HUGE number of industry people that jumped in. I guess it makes sense, many of the people involved in the project have been around the games industry a VERY long time and know tons of people. Naturally our friends wanted to support us and they were primarily video game people. It was cool to see industry people we’ve long admired pitching in to help get our game get made.

One of those people is Brian Fargo, a titan of the games industry and a pioneer of crowd funding indie video game development. As a matter of fact, his success was one of the reasons I thought Kickstarter might be a possible solution for HEX.

Brian truly is one of the ORIGINAL pioneers of the games industry. He started Interplay Productions (“By Gamers, For Gamers”) when he was only 21 and grew it into a company with over 600 employees and an amazing number of hit games. Heck, he even gave the Blizzard guys their first contract to make a game, back when they were called Silicon & Synapse.

His post Interplay accomplishments are even more impressive with three back to back multi-million dollar Kickstarter campaigns. Amazingly enough, he still finds the time to advocate for independent creative development with his “Kicking It Forward” program that reinvests in helping other worthy Kickstarter projects.

Naturally, I was thrilled that Brian had backed the HEX Kickstarter. What was even cooler was that he had backed at a level that included a vanity card! I was chatting with Brian about his vanity card and the subject of his next Kickstarter came up. As it turned out, the game he was re-launching was Bard’s Tale, a game I absolutely loved. I pitched him the idea of using his vanity card as a cool promotion for the upcoming Kickstarter, I thought it would be a great way to give some exposure to a game maker that has done a lot to give back and support Kickstarter and the gaming community, plus a VERY cool way to do a vanity card.

So that’s just what we did!

Here is the Exiled Bard vanity card:

And to make it an extra cool promotion for the Kickstarter, we did an alternate art version:

PLUS we made a cool sleeve:

Here’s how the promotion works: to celebrate Brian’s Kickstarter, we will be giving everyone with a current HEX account the very cool AA Exiled Bard Sleeve when Armies of Myth launches! Additionally, if you are interested in playing Bard’s Tale IV and donate $20.00+ to the Kickstarter, you will receive a play set (4) of the AA Exiled Bard cards. These cards will come via a code emailed out a few weeks after the Kickstarter ends.

Typically this is not the sort of thing I would do. It’s going to be VERY rare that you see promotional stuff associated with HEX, and for something to actually be “in-game” is going to be almost non-existent. But this is a good example of just the sort of thing we would consider, to help out a Kickstarter backer (with a vanity card they were already promised) and giving a HUGE Kickstarter advocate and video game icon some support.

Love, Cory

Armies of Myth Test Server

We will be launching an Armies of Myth test server next week. More information to follow. If you would like to participate in this event, make sure you have a game account registered and activated (with Family Name) today, June 12th.

Twitch Plays HEX

A community-built tool using the HEX API, UDraftBot connects your HEX game client to stream chat. Players can then vote on which card you draft. This level of interactivity brings a new way for you as a streamer to interact with your viewers and give them some stake in your deck’s build. You win (and lose) together!

UDraftBot had a big update yesterday, providing far more deck and card information to the users. You can now see what your splits are in terms of card cost, card type, and shard. You can even run giveaways through it. If you’re interested in streaming or drafting with all your friends, take a look at the UDraftBot in the HEX forums.

One More Champion

Last week, we showed you all 20 new champions that we’re adding to the available Constructed decks options and will replace the existing champions in Sealed Deck, Booster Draft. But, there was one special champion waiting in the wings. You don’t choose this champion at deckbuilding. No, your chosen champion transforms into the Paragon of Righteousness! Dedicate your life to healing and good, you’ll be imbued with the powers of Angels!

That’s all for this week. Please leave any questions or comments in the forums, and don’t forget to Follow us on Twitter, Like us on Facebook, Follow us on Twitch, and register on our forums.

Discuss this article in our forums!