outsiderartisan

The free edition of the Hex alpha will release on July 5.

No one asked, but: I was gonna release it on Thursday, so the normal one week later, but I am gonna be busy this weekend, and I'm worried if there are major issues with the alpha, I won't be able to address them. I also don't really want people to have to wait until next week, and I have SS stuff to do too and need to focus on that next week, so I decided I'd release it a day early. That way, I...

Yukata

A new outfit for SS. Three or four new outfits are planned for the next release later this month!

I didn't put SS "on hold" or "cancel" it!

I feel like I've been pretty clear about this, but some of the exit surveys from dearly departed patrons are mentioning SS being on hold or no longer in development. That's not true. I'm still working on SS. I said back in late April that I was gonna take some time and shift Hex to my priority 1 project for about 6 weeks (wound up being like 8 or 9, so yeah, sorry about that) so I could get the...

Boy that was an alpha, huh?

Upon release, the alpha had a few minor bugs and errors, and one major problem--the game was too large to be served on the web by Itch.io.

After a few hours, I managed to correct several of the small bugs and I butchered the web and browser versions to make them smaller as a temporary fix. I can, and will, have a more permanent fix in the future though! Hex will have a web version! It's n...

Hex v0.0.1 (Alpha) Release Notes

Patrons can click here to access the alpha.

Regarding the web version: I have removed the higher res assets from the web and browser versions of the game. This was a quick and messy fix, so please let me know if any art assets appear to be missing. A better fix will c...

2023-06-29 17:26:48 +0000 UTC View Post

The Hex alpha will be released to patrons on Thursday.

The Hex alpha demo will be distributed in the same manner as the patron edition of Succubus Stories, that is, through Itch.io. You will need to connect your Itch.io account to your patreon account and claim a key to access the alpha.

Since this gives patrons who stop supporting in June only two (ish) days to claim their keys, if you for some reason can't claim a key in t...

Succubus Stories will get a patch soon.

I haven't forgotten about our pink-haired spunk tycoon. I have been working on Succubus Stories, too! 

Our intrepid hero will be getting some additional outfits and some more hot dates to go on in July (probably). This will be a patch, not a full-on update. The focus will be mostly on adding more romance content. It'll probably be similar in size to the patch that came out i...

Looking a little crowded on mobile...

It is what it is. I'm committed to making the mobile experience as usable as possible, but it may not always look super pretty. The little minus (-) buttons can be clicked to collapse their respective UI elements, so you can reclaim a lot of screen real estate by keeping things you aren't using closed (see the second image). The game also allows you to switch the side of the screen some UI elem...

💋

Like in Succubus Stories, as she has sex with men, Iris will get dirtier and dirtier. New in Hex, however, are lipstick marks (and some hickeys, and maybe even some other marks ;P ) which will accumulate on Iris's body as she has sex with women.

And yes, these are tracked independently, so Iris can sport both a coating of semen and an Avon catalogue's worth of lipstick a...

Sprites revealed so far... (and some alpha demo talk)

I figured I'd put these all in one post for your viewing pleasure! I really, really love the character designs Ecchi has come up with! They all look great in the game too, with a huge variety of different expressions. 

Hex has so much art that the current build of the game is already about 20% larger in terms of file size than Succubus Stories! I think the game will...

Meila as a human

Meila's human form. Compare and contrast to how Iris wears this same outfit...

Meila's spirit form is the version you've already seen in the white robe, this is her as a human in the past before being possessed by Iris.

For obvious reasons, this sprite will mostly appear in flashbacks, but the properly worn version of the outfit will probably eventually be made into a cosmetic outfi...

The offering box and tinctures.

I never really liked the way the patron edition cheats were implemented in Succubus Stories. Instead of doing something like that again, Hex will instead feature the offering box. At the chapel where the player ends up living, there is an offering box that a mysterious benefactor (me) leaves items in. Patrons will be able to claim these items/sets of items onc...

Gemma

Gemma was Meila's adjunct and closest friend. As an adjunct, it was her solemn duty to euthanize Meila if she were to ever run out of magical power to prevent a demonic possession. Of course, things didn't work out that way, and Meila was ultimately possessed, becoming a witch.

Now Gemma will stop at nothing to hunt down the witch her former friend has become and slay her, no matter the c...

The Hex Alpha will probably come out in June :(

I never explicitly promised May, I think I always said "spring or early summer," but I always hoped/planned to get the alpha into your hands before the end of May. That probably won't happen, though. I have most of the technical stuff sorted out, but there's just a lot of content I need to make, and while I think it's okay for that content to be somewhat rough given this is an alpha, I also don...

Checking In

Hey guys! It's been a while since I've posted anything so I just wanted to make sure I keep you guys up to date, even though I don't have a ton of stuff to share. I had some issues with engine level stuff in Hex, basically a certain core feature I was using is not supported by Safari, which I didn't know. Safari is quickly becoming the new Internet Explorer, and I did briefly consider ...

Meila - Hex Devlog #5

The relationship between the player character, Iris, and her “roommate,” Meila, isn’t just core to the story of Hex, but also to its erotic content and its gameplay systems. As the game goes on, Iris and Meila will form a stronger relationship, influence each other, and maybe even grow fond of each other. The relationship between these two will be complex and multifaceted. While ...

What a spell definition looks like in Hex.

I just thought maybe this would be interesting to see. This is the spell "cleave" which is a black magic spell that consumes the wound stacks on the target for a damage boost. This is actually one of the simpler spells in the game; most have several dozen lines of code in their onCast or onHit handlers.

Hex: Goals

This is essentially Hex's version of "reflecting on your adventure." When you complete certain goals in the game, like finding events, progressing your character, or completing quests, you'll be able to turn those goals in from the menu for SP. You'll be able to review the goals you've previously completed as well. Like in Succubus Stories with traits, you'll gain SP for most ...

Hex's web page is up on my personal website.

Check it out if you feel like it. It'll probably go through some changes over the next few months, but the bones are there. It includes a gallery too, though most, if not all, of what's there has already been shared before.

Iris and Meila getting along ♥

Winners of the outfit poll for v0.15

$10 patrons voted on a poll to select the next set of outfits being added to the game in v0.15. This update is still a ways off, but here are the results!

• First place: Slutty Kimono/Yukata (Worn Improperly)
• Second place: Cute Cowgirl Costume (Cow Print Bikini With Horns/Ears)

Both of these will definitely be made for v0.15! The next two were very close to each o...

New game settings in Hex

I didn't weave these into the narrative like I did in Succubus Stories. Maybe in the full game I'll find a way to do that. There are no social skills (as such) in Hex, so all you really pick for your character is her name and (starting) sexual preferences.

Note that while the preferences will be mentioned when relevant in conversations or story content, the actual effect...

How do you feel about dates?

Now that v0.14 has been out for a while, how do you feel about the dates? Both as a concept, and the dates available in the game. So far, six dates were added to Priscilla's romance. I recognize not everyone probably played Priscilla's romance, but for those of you who did, what did you think?

Feel free to leave more detailed feedback in the comment section (or send me a private message i...

Hex's Menus

Not the most exciting thing in the world, but here's a few screenshots from Hex's menus. Unlike Succubus Stories, Hex features a whole "drawer" that slides out from the right side of the screen. You can click on items within the menu to open dialog boxes (the little pop-ups) to interact further. Having these two layers instead of everything being in the dialogs helps ...

Combat System Deep Dive - Hex Devlog #4

I went back and forth trying to decide how best to write this post. I thought about approaching it as more of a code review, showing off the various components that together make up the combat system in Hex, but I think that would be less interesting for most people than a simple overview and description of the game systems at work here. So we're gonna look at the combat system from a ...

Iris being kind of a b****

I'm currently hard at work on the Hex alpha demo! I'm still dedicating some time to Succubus Stories, but that game will be on the back burner for a little bit. I hope to have a playable alpha demo for Hex out sometime in May for patrons, so that's where my main focus will be for the next couple of weeks.

Here's a screenshot from one early scene between Iris and...

Asset Management and Repaints - Hex Devlog #3

One of the major roadblocks for Hex is, believe it or not, performance. You probably don’t think about VNs having performance issues, but I was getting like 5 FPS on Chrome as recently as two months ago. In addition to more traditional performance problems, there’s also the issue of loading assets from over the Internet on the web version of the game. So there are two core problems...

Succubus Stories v0.14.2 Release Notes

Play for free! - Patron Edition - Changelog

v0.14.2 – 2023...