I've had the idea for this game kicking around for a while:



It's still in very early development, since I just started in a couple of days ago, but it's set to be a turn-based strategy game with a lot of mechanics borrowed from UniWar, but not locked into a mobile platform or with microtransactions to unlock units.

I've implemented a very similar level-importing scheme to HATPC, so it should be easy for users to create maps of their own for it. Especially if someone makes a level editor for it like Jebby is doing for HATPC Reborn.

The level importing scheme works like this:

Every hex in the game is given a pair of coordinates based on an axial coordinate system. The coordinates of the hexes in my test map are shown here:



The top left corner (0, 0) is at the top left corner of a hexagon, so increasing the height of the map makes it grow to the left as well. If you want, you can make a rectangular map in this coordinate system, but it's designed with hexagonal maps in mind, and can be adapted to any shape of map.

The code for my test map is here:


Spaces represent areas outside the map or "void". These hexes will be impassable to all units. At the moment, the only two other tile types I have are flat (white) and mountain (grey), represented by "o" and "m" respectively in the level file. Unlike HATPC, lines don't have to be the same length.

That's about it in terms of what I have made so far, but I have big plans for what I'm going to do with the rest of the game. If you guys want, I can post continued updates here as I make progress. I know this is more of a platformer community than a TBS one, but I figure you guys might be interested. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

By the way, my working title for this game is "hexgame" but that's definitely not going to be the final title. It's already taken by some mobile game. And I plan to have actual art assets rather than just colored hexagons and DroidFreak faces, although I don't know how I'll get them. And I might leave in the DroidFreak face unit as an easter egg.

Development of this game is going to be a lot different from HATPC Reborn development because it won't really be playable until a large portion of it it done. I need to implement a lot of groundwork before it's even possible to play the game. But here are a few mechanics I'm planning to add, mostly based off of mechanics in UniWar:

* 3 types of units - Light, Heavy, and Aerial. UniWar also has sea units, but there's only one per race (at least, there was when I played) and sea combat really isn't a large part of the game, so I'm axing them. Every unit has different attack stats against units of each type. So some won't be able to attack air at all, some will be better verses heavy, some verses light, etc. Also, the unit type determines how easy it is to move across certain terrain types and how much of a combat bonus units get from terrain.
* Every unit also has a defense value, which is stacked against the attack value of the opponent to determine how much damage they take.
* Every unit that is attacked will also counterattack against the unit which attacked it if it's able to.
* Attacking an enemy unit with multiple units in one turn will grant a "gangup" bonus to damage, dependent on the relative position of the current attacker to the last unit that attacked that enemy.
* Units will have different ranges, determining the number of hexes away from themselves that they can attack. Most units will have a range of 1, meaning they can only fight enemies right next to them, but some will have longer ranges.
* New from UniWar, I plan to also have units which can attack multiple tiles at once, such as an artillery which damages all units in a 1 hex radius around its target. Every race will have some way to deal with hordes of small units with some form of splash damage.
* There will probably be 3 races. They won't be identical to the 3 UniWar races (which are based closely on Starcraft races), but I think that keeping the number of races down to 3 gives a good balance between variety and balanced gameplay. When you go up to more than 3 races (like the 6 in Battle for Wesnoth) then you end up with some matchups being unbalanced or boring.
* I'm not even sure whether this will be sci-fi like UniWar, fantasy like Wesnoth, or something else entirely. I might make it some blend of both, or maybe have one or more fantasy factions and one or more sci-fi factions.

This is a neat idea. I think you might like the board game Ogre, which has a lot of cool mechanics like the ones you described. In the game there are a bunch of different unit types, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Some can deal devastating damage but are immobile and lightly armored, some are extremely fast but only in certain terrain, some have more than one gun and heavy armor but are slow and expensive, etc. Terrain has a big effect on movement and can give advantages to defending infantry units.



I think the DroidFreak faces look pretty good. Maybe you could have different colors of DroidFreak faces representing different unit types.

Yeah, I took a look at some Ogre information and it seems like a lot of UniWar mechanics might be descended from Ogre mechanics.


My droid army shall crush all opposition!

I don't have much to say, it looks neat, but I think I'll understand it better once there's some playable version (even if rudimentary). Feel free to work on whatever you want-- you don't owe anyone anything, if you enjoy working on something, go ahead. I imagine there's motivation found in receiving feedback though.

excellent droidfreak you deserve to be known for your own work as a game designer and not as the remaker of HATPC