Announcing a New Project: Hex

Two Wills Fight for Dominance

Magic power comes at a grave cost.

A mage only has so much power she can use in her lifetime, and when she runs out, her soul leaves and her body can be possessed by a demon. The more powerful the mage, the more power is ultimately at the command of the demon. These demon-possessed mages are called witches.

When a powerful mage conjures a desperate firestorm to save her homeland, expelling all her magical energy, a lowly succubus manages to take control of her body. At first, the succubus can’t believe her luck; power she never could have dreamed of was finally hers for the taking.

But, against all odds, the former soul still lingers. Whatever miracle or secret of magic she used, this disembodied soul still clings to its shell, and threatens to bend the succubus to her will.

Introducing Hex

More information will be revealed soon! A playable pre-alpha demo of the game will be made available to patrons in spring or early summer 2023.

As for what to expect from this new project, it will be very similar in overall structure and feel to Succubus Stories, but with more of a focus on voyeurism and corruption thanks to the constant presence of your "roommate." Sexual encounters will feature deeper, more "strategic" gameplay, and combat will be more of a focus, though generally optional in many cases. The game's presentation will be markedly different, featuring more of a visual novel interface, but text sequences will still be fairly common as well when appropriate.

Two principles guide the development of Hex at this stage. First, "Succubus Stories already exists." This principle means that even though this game will be similar to its predecessor, it can still be free to have its own identity. It doesn't have to have every fetish or feature the last game. The second principle is: "Fap-material first." While I intend to tell a more dramatic story with higher stakes and more combat and characters and relationships, I still intend to use this new story, the new world, and the "two souls in one body" concept to further the eroticism of the game first and foremost. Sharing a body with another entity is a great source of drama, but also a constant means for voyeurism, corruption, and exhibitionism to be injected into every part of the game, and I intend to use that to the fullest to provide the sexiest content I can!

Staff

I now have twice the manpower at my disposal! Thanks to the generous support of my patrons I have hired a long term staff member and partner: Ecchi. The only way I was able to realize a project of this scale with this much artwork is thanks to Ecchi's hard work and dedication, and again, thanks to the generosity of all of my patrons! Thank you so much!

Ecchi made the awesome artwork featured in this post, and will be creating character sprites, CGs, promotional artwork, and even logo and icon designs for the game. You will be able to see more of his work very soon!

Some Questions You May Have

While I don't want to reveal too much, I'll leave you with this brief FAQ. Feel free to ask questions in the comments or on discord and I'll try to answer what I can, or use those questions for future editions of something like this. I don't want to reveal too much about the game's story or content, but I do want to be as transparent as I can regarding the development process.

What about Succubus Stories?

Nothing has changed and nothing will change. I've been working on both games for some time now. I dedicate approximately ⅕ of my dev time to Hex. The issues that caused me to fall behind with Succubus Stories also impacted the production of Hex. This will continue to be the case at least until Succubus Stories reaches v1.0.0, at which point I will shift the balance of my time.

Will Hex feature [insert fetish]?

First, please understand that there's no way a new game can come out of the gate featuring every fetish a game as mature as Succubus Stories has. On top of that, I do want to refocus this new game a bit more onto voyeurism, corruption, and exhibitionism as its main erotic themes. That said, many prominent fetishes from Succubus Stories will be added to this game over time.

The squicky bodily fluids stuff, including watersports and cumplay, will be less prominent and more optional, though still present. (However, getting dirty and having to bathe regularly is still very much going to be a feature of this new game, so don't worry about that.) I also hope to more fully integrate futanari content, but this will probably not be in the game at release. Hex will also feature more lesbian content from the jump, and lesbian-only playthroughs are intended to be possible, though again this may not be possible right from the start.

Eww combat…

I think I've hit on an interesting combat system that's based around stacking buffs and debuffs and converting them or using them up to deal massive damage or have other, more interesting effects. You'll only be able to "equip" two of the spell schools you have access to, and each school will have a few spells and one buff or debuff associated with it. Later in the game you'll probably gain the ability to wield three schools of magic at once, but we will see how the balance plays out.

This will be a much more involved and refined combat system compared to what I've done before, and I think it may actually end up being quite fun. Even so, most combat is avoidable, and losing fights will typically lead to alternate events (though there may be cases where game overs are possible, I haven't decided exactly how this will work yet).

Will there be 3D renders?

No. There will not be alternate artwork of any kind.

I'm sure some people will be disappointed, but I think this is a reasonable decision. The time investment alone doesn't seem worth it. Plus, while player choice is a great thing, and something I always strive to include where appropriate, there's something to be said for a single cohesive aesthetic as well. The sheer volume of artwork planned for this game also blows Succubus Stories completely out of the water, so focusing that amount of work into a single set of artwork seems wise.

Is the game going to be a VN?/To what extent is the game going to be a VN?

The game will feature VN scenes as one of the two main forms of delivering story content, the other being normal prose like in Succubus Stories. Dialogue-heavy scenes will usually feature the VN interface, while other scenes will feature simple prose. Thanks to the presence of a constant companion, there will be a lot of dialogue-heavy scenes in the game.

I think VNs are really great for delivering dialogue, but for delivering anything else, the format is awful—there aren't enough words per page and it feels slow and cumbersome to read. The volume of art required to make a VN wasn't the only reason I didn't, for example, make Succubus Stories a VN, but also because I thought the VN format was too slow and had too few words per click. That remains true here, so don't be surprised to see a lot of prose sequences, too.