Recent Developments – Adventure!

Hey HEX addicts, this is Jacob Martin J, Game Designer: Narrative and Campaign. I’m here to give you some insight into the design and development of HEX’s exciting new campaign mode: Chronicles of Entrath.

Some of you already know me from my loss to Dinotropia in the finals of his celebrity draft. For those of you who missed that historic battle, filled with witty banter and questionable game play, here’s a little bit about me: I come from Milwaukee Wisconsin where I was raised by a family of gamers. As a kid I was taught classics like checkers, chess, and cribbage as well as a variety of modern board games. Every Christmas we would unwrap several new board games and get together with the extended family to game. Exposure to games and encouragement from my family saw me gaming competitively at a young age. I had some professional success playing trading card games and would continue to game for the rest of my life. My first career was as a Park Ranger with Washington State Parks. From there I moved to Portland Oregon where I spent several years writing and working in the independent film community. Most recently, I started my third dream job in a row, working as a game designer with the team here at HEX.

I was invited onto the HEX design team about a year ago as a story, thematic and quest architect. I was hired thanks to my passion and experience as a gamer and my expertise in plotting narrative and story. I would act as a bridge between the lore department and R&D, developing story and narrative in the HEX universe in a way that complemented and enhanced game play.

When I arrived, the HEX team had already spent a great deal of time working on Chronicles of Entrath. They had designed a variety of unique dungeons, some built to showcase the qualities of our digital TCG, some with interwoven story lines, but there was little to connect them all together. My job was to work with Director of Game Theory Ben Stoll on a project that he had conceived to bring all the dungeons together in a way that showcased the technical capabilities of HEX, as well as the unique world Cory Jones and others had created. This was the beginnings of an idea that would eventually become Chronicles of Entrath.

For those of you interested in a technical breakdown of creative world building, here’s a detailed description of the process as I worked with Ben to design the framework of Chronicles of Entrath.

Step 1: Study.

The first thing I did when I started at HEX HQ was to study everything that I could get my hands on. I spent hours in client memorizing cards, building decks, drafting, and running through the Frost Ring Arena. I spent even more time reading the extensive HEXipedia, learning about the world that these cards were a part of – the races, creatures, characters, cities, landmarks, and locales of Entrath. I took extensive notes at this time, listing races and characters that would fit into the specific locale of Chronicles Chapter One. I also kept in constant contact with Ben Stoll, lead developer Dan Clark and lore-master Michael Kirchhoff, discussing major story beats and characters. We wanted to make sure that there was a balance between the 8 primary races, but we also wanted to show off the impressive menagerie of creatures that make up the HEX universe. As Chronicles of Entrath Chapter One takes place mainly on the Howling Plains, you’ll encounter more coyotle here than you will elsewhere. There are plenty of other strange characters to be found, especially behind locked gates and on side paths. Make sure you explore every nook, cranny, and secret shortcut.

Step 2: Map Design.

Once I had a handle on the history and personalities of HEX, I devoted my attention to the map. Ben had already spent a great deal of time plotting locations and encounters, so for this first adventure I was mainly catching up with his vision, getting a sense of his top level hopes and dreams for the experience, as well as any particular details or encounters that he felt where necessary. One such detail was the inclusion of the Shroom Hauser, special encounters where the player is given a choice of treasures to take with them on their journey. We felt a reward node was necessary to showcase the differences between dungeons and the overland map as well as being a tip of the cap to overland adventure games of the past.

Once Ben handed off the map to me, I started re-plotting dungeons and major encounters. I developed a map that had a linear main story, but also gave the player opportunities to go off and explore on their own. Though the main story is extensive and rewarding, some of the most fearsome battles and greatest treasures are off the beaten path.

Step 3: Outline.

Once we had an idea of the overall placement of nodes, I wrote the desired encounters on numbered 3×5 note cards. Not a particularly in depth description, something along the lines of: Meet Snoodley the Snoodler. This gave me placeholders for where important decisions and encounters would occur and served as an outline for the work that was to come.

Step 4: Encounters, Quests, and Mechanics.

With the outline in place, I was able to move on to the detailed work of the encounters themselves. This was often top down work that started with a specific story beat and how best to represent that in a game of HEX. A lot of this work was done in conjunction with the rest of the design team. We would trade ideas back and forth, developing champions with hero powers that were fun, dynamic, and descriptive. Individual mechanics were designed for these encounters as needed and a number of new cards and champion powers were created to give each battle that “just right” feeling. One example of this is Snoodley the pumpkin farmer. Zombies are wandering down from the nearby hills and destroying his pumpkins. If the player decides to help Snoodley, they have to defeat the zombies before they use their SQUASHING PUMPKINS champion power too many times, or the player will certainly suffer defeat.

Quests are advanced encounters that take place across multiple locations. These were developed to tell stories that let us delve deeper into what makes a race of faction who they are. There is one quest I’m particularly proud of that has the player making an impactful moral choice and also showcases the coyotle and gives the player a glimpse into the ins and outs of their culture, their coming of age ceremonies, and how they view the cosmos.

Step 5: Encounter and Quest Development.

This is an important part of the creative process that let me play around with the narrative, pacing, and overall tension of the gaming experience. I would set the now detailed note cards out on a giant table with the map nearby and imagine the experience from the player’s perspective. What would it be like to visit the encounters in this order? What about this? What if the player took this side path early and got a hint regarding the stories main villain? How subtle should we be? I’d then switch cards around and revisit all those questions from my new perspective until I discovered the perfect combination.

Step 6: Transfer from paper to electronic.

During this part of the process, I discovered just what it meant to design a video game. I spent weeks taking the world that I had created and inputting it in spreadsheets for the rest of the team to work off of. There were many challenges to this process: making sure that nothing was left out, making sure quests were forwards and backwards compatible, having entries for every piece of information that we give to the player, thinking through every possible step to head off bugs before they occur. It was an exhausting but crucial part of the design process that set the foundation for the most important work coming down the road.

Step 7: In office play through.

Once all the information had been entered, we printed paper versions of all the encounters and dungeons. In an effort to spot as many potential bugs as possible, we were joined on our play through by members of QA. We spent a week playing over the campaign in the office, tweaking numbers for the encounters, designing new cards and champions, and completely redesigning some encounters as needed.

Step 8: Development.

After a week of play testing, I took all the teams notes and implemented whatever changes I could to the Chronicles documents.

Step 9: Play through.

After the major development pass, we had another big play through. For the second play through we focused on the overall feel of the game play and whether or not the changes we made had the desired effect. We didn’t want to make any major changes, just tweak a few nobs and dials. Even so, one major encounter came out of this play through session, the Army of Myth. This encounter was designed and developed to give an exciting and dynamic encounter to players who are looking for an extra level of difficulty. Let me know what you think of Army of Myth in the forums discussion link at the end of the article.

Step 10: Final Edits. Pass off to Engineering.

After the final play through, I entered the last wave of changes into the Chronicles documents. We were locked in and asked not to make any further changes unless absolutely necessary. At this point the importance of all the play testing and double checking became clear as the documents are sent over to engineering to enter in client. From that point forward, my design work was minimal and the bulk of my day was spent going back and forth with our incredible engineers, troubleshooting issues and redesigning as necessary.

As you can see a ton of thought and care has gone into crafting a campaign for HEX that not only feels like a role playing game, but an exploration of a small part of an enormous world. I love reading your reactions online and seeing what people think of their first steps into the world of Entrath. I learned so much about the incredible and expansive world that Cory and the team at HEX have created and I’m excited for you guys to explore that world as it unfolds in Chronicles of Entrath.

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