Hexoshi is a libre game generally inspired by the Metroid series. It is a work in progress, but once completed, it will be onpon4’s biggest game yet, with a maze-like world spanning hundreds of individual rooms. The intention is to make this one of the greatest libre free-roaming games to date.

This is a crowdfunding campaign for Milestone 1. The goals of Milestone 1 include:

Add new abilities for the player character, Anneroy, which will be obtained by collecting special artifacts. New abilities planned for Milestone 1 are an ability to transform into a little ball, allowing access to short passages; an ability to grow spikes out of the ball form, which can be used as an attack or to break special blocks; and an ability to wall-jump, allowing access to otherwise out-of-reach ledges.

Add death and teleport animations for Anneroy, which are currently missing.

Complete the first major area of the game, composed of approximately 30-40 individual rooms.

Add a proper background for the first major area of the game.

Add new enemies, which will be used in the first major area of the game.

Decide Anneroy's full name, the name of the planet, and the name of the first area.

Additionally, Milestone 1’s development direction will be influenced by the community. Those who contribute $10 or more will be given opportunities to vote on various decisions, such as the names of characters and designs of enemies. The community will also be given an opportunity to direct what aspects of Milestone 1’s development are prioritized first.

Where The Money Goes

Development of Milestone 1 will require at least $1,000, after taking into account credit card processing and crowdfunding fees. This is a phenomenally small budget for a game of this size, and it is made possible by careful design choices, a small elite team, and use of existing code. This section will detail exactly where that money is going.

The vast majority of the money, approximately $800, will be used to pay Luke Bunday, our graphics artist, for the graphical improvements and additions needed for Milestone 1. These graphical improvements and their respective estimated costs are listed here:

Anneroy death animation: $40

Anneroy teleportation animation: $20

Anneroy ball form animation: $40

Anneroy ball spike attack animation: $30

Anneroy wall jump animation: $60

Ball form powerup: $30 Development of Milestone 1 will require at least $1,000,

after taking into account credit card processing and crowdfunding fees.

Spike attack powerup: $30

Wall jump powerup: $30

Slope tiles: $40

First area background: $60

New enemies (estimated 5): $400

The remaining $200 will be used to pay Julie Marchant, our lead developer, to finish the first major area of the game as well as take care of whatever programming is needed to achieve the goals of Milestone 1. This pays for an estimated 20 hours of work at a rate of $10 an hour.

Funds above and beyond the above will be put toward extra features or future milestones, again driven by input from the community. Additionally, if any of the graphics above are done by a volunteer contributor before Luke gets to it, the money that was going to be allocated for that graphic will be put toward another graphical improvement decided by the community.

Features & Specifications

Genre: Free-roaming Metroid-like

Free-roaming Metroid-like Players: 1

1 Perspective: Side-scrolling

Side-scrolling Resolution: 400x224

400x224 Programming Language: Python

Python Engine: SGE Game Engine

SGE Game Engine Software License: GNU GPLv3+

GNU GPLv3+ Art License: Mix of CC BY, CC BY-SA, and CC0

Mix of CC BY, CC BY-SA, and CC0 Supported Systems: Windows, GNU/Linux

Development Plan

When funding for Milestone 1 is completed and funds are received, we will set to work on it right away. At the same time, the first vote, which will be on what Milestone 1 goal to focus on first, will be called. Game development is a highly chaotic exercise where the order things are done matters very little, so how development proceeds after this will be decided as we go along.

If everything goes smoothly, Milestone 1 should be completed by Spring of 2017. At that point, planning for Milestone 2 will begin.

Voting

Votes throughout the development of Milestone 1 will proceed in two phases: the nomination phase, and the voting phase. Some simpler votes will skip the nomination phase and include only a voting phase.

The nomination phase will last for one week. During this time, anyone can submit a suggestion for an option to place on the ballot. All nominations will be considered on a case-by-case basis to ensure the integrity of Hexoshi’s overall design. A given person may submit any number of nominations desired, and does not need to be eligible to vote in order to do so. At the end of the nomination phase, the ballot will be constructed, taking all nominations into account.

The voting phase will also last for one week. During this time, eligible voters will vote for one of the nominees given on the ballot. At the end of the voting phase, all votes will be tallied and the choice with the most votes will dictate whatever aspect of Hexoshi’s development the vote was designed to influence.

To be clear, one person is allowed to get multiple voting perks, and a person with multiple votes is allowed to vote on more than one nominee. For example, if you "ordered" four votes, you will be allowed to give three votes to your favorite choice and one vote to your second-favorite choice.

Risks & Challenges

Two things could potentially go wrong with the development of Milestone 1:

It could turn out that the funds raised were not enough to meet the goals of Milestone 1. It could end up taking longer than anticipated to complete Milestone 1.

To minimize the chance of either of these things happening, development of Hexoshi will be as transparent as possible. You can already check on Hexoshi’s progress by visiting the GitLab project page, and updates will be posted regularly regarding things like what is being done and where money is being spent.

Additionally, if our lead developer cannot finish her duties to complete Milestone 1 in the estimated 20 hours paid for by this campaign, she has elected to bite the bullet and finish them at no additional charge. This will ensure that extra funds truly do go toward extra things even if the programming or world design workload turns out to be greater than anticipated.

Questions

What happens if the money raised from this campaign exceeds the target goal?

Any overage will be used to fulfill the goals of future milestones. Exactly which goals are fulfilled will be decided by a vote. This will be done immediately after the goals of Milestone 1 are completed, before any additional funds are raised.

Is there any plan to add a level editor or community-made levels?

Hexoshi’s rooms are made using the Tiled map editor. There are no plans for developing a dedicated Hexoshi room editor at this time, since any added convenience from such an editor over Tiled would likely not be significant enough to justify the effort of developing it.

As for community-made levels, there are no plans for Hexoshi to have any rooms that are not a part of Hexoshi’s main world. However, anyone is welcome to create rooms and submit a pull request on the GitLab page to include them in Hexoshi.

Can I help translate?

Certainly! Hexoshi does not have a great deal of text, but all of the text that does exist is translateable via gettext. If you are interested in contributing a translation, you can clone the repository and create a translation file from "data/locale/hexoshi.pot" using the msginit command.