HEXAK by Phillip Scott
Use the LIMITED SPACE of the map to make a pretty little colony and maximise points by placing tiles and ensure you have enough power and workers
Play the updated Version
Only the itch.io web version has been updated, both the download below and the embed above will remain untouched
Change notes below
Controls
- Move - WASD, Arrows or drag with Right Mouse
- Rotate Camera - Q and E
- Zoom Camera - Mouse Wheel
- Build - Left mouse
Tiles
- HQ - Central Hub, all buildings need to connect to it to get bonus power
- Road - used to connect buildings to the hub
- Aqua Road - same as roads, but wetter
- Residential - Adds workers, needs power - bonus workers if placed adjacent to each other
- Commercial - needs workers and power but provides bonus points for each adjacent residential tile
- Park - bonus points for each adjacent residential tile
- Miner - needs to be placed on minerals, needs power and workers, provides a great deal of points
- Wind Turbine - Provides power, can only be placed on mountains, not next to each other
- Solar panels - Provides power, bonus power if placed adjacent to each other, can not be placed next to large mountains
- Clear - Remove small mountains, small chance of finding more minerals

Itch.IO version improvements
Buildings can now be incrementally powered on
- Previously you needed to pay all of your power/worker deficit before any building would turn on, now if you have enough for that building it will turn on, this should hopefully make the game much more clear - I blame lack of sleep for this choice :D
QoL Enhancements
- Hover effect for building a new tile first pass - display bonuses before building
- Highlight bonus adjacent tiles first pass- now you it should be clear where your bonuses are coming from
- New Tooltip system first pass - helps present more focused information
- Score target first pass - you can see it in the top right of the UI, now you have a goal each map
Updated building balance:
- Solar panels now cost less workers - it was too restrictive before
- Commercial now costs less power and workers - means that they are easier to building
- Mines now cost less power when adjacent to each other
- Parks now give more points - Nature is nice lets make more
New Daily challenge mode
- Try a new puzzle each day
Minor enhancements
Moved the chance to spawn minerals to map creation, this was previously procedurally generated when clearing tiles which lead to positions of hidden minerals changing based on the order you cleared
Updated some building descriptions to make their use clearer
- Fixed mouse movement control text
- Increased keyboard movement speed
- Removed seams from water
- Highlight colours tweak
- Increased the map max size
- Moved play to play random
- General Code Refactor
| Itch.io | https://dysfuncgames.itch.io/hexak |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/hexak |
Ratings
| Overall | 343th | 3.806⭐ | 95🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 533th | 3.495⭐ | 95🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 659th | 3.239⭐ | 94🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 290th | 4.038⭐ | 94🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 103th | 4.376⭐ | 95🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 163th | 3.867⭐ | 92🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 806th | 2.377⭐ | 75🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 322th | 3.808⭐ | 93🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 73🗳️ | 126🗨️ |
Overall I enjoyed the game a lot, well done!
Yea I agree, I should have iterated on the connection UI. It could be much clearer
Loved the puzzle aspect of it all.
Great entry!
@gorglomux yeh, its actually coded to give the buildings out as a reward (they are just all set to 1 so they unlock after placing the HQ)
I could not find a decent balance of order and thresholds same with limited quantity, they are all just set to 1000 and a check in the UI to not show the counter if over 50 or something haha. So I decided to make it more of a sandbox than to spend a lot of time finding the correct order to unlock etc
Great feedback on player actions, I missed what I needed to do, so I was just aimlessly clicking on the map placing thing after thing
But once I understood that I have to cover the full map - it clicked and I found such puzzle gameplay very fun
But it's really a small thing, overall the game is really great !
@cheesepencil @sergei11156 @tyrannas @jcmonkey Thanks for playing and IU hope you enjoyed yourself
@tyrannas interestingly all of the games are based on a random seed (you can see it in the text box when you complete a map) so I have no idea what map it was :smile: but the hex grid is between 6 and 9 tall and wide so may have been a 9x9
@lenan oh what res?
If I could change anything it would be to add a better first time experience
I ended up with 99 points. I must confess I didn't really understand what I was doing for the most part, for example why some of the tiles didn't light up. I tried to connect them with roads, but I don't think I was doing it right. The graphics and mood are very nice.
(Also, minor typo: The help text says that the right mouse button moves the view, but it seems like it's actually the middle mouse button.)
They need to also have enough workers and power, currently the check is quite dumb in that it looks at the needs of all your buildings as one.
So if you need 12 power collectively nothing will turn in until you are fully positive and have 12 power even if you have 11 power. This is confusing and a point that I would change.
Thanks for pointing out the incorrect control
I would have really liked to mouse over/click a building that I had placed to see what bonuses it was currently giving me, and found the tooltips for adjacencies to be a little bit confusing (I don't think it specifically says anywhere that solar panels give you +1 power per each adjacent solar panel, just that placing them together is good? And I could be wrong about that, it just seemed to be the case when I was paying attention to it). Similarly, some of the building restrictions were a bit confusing. Mines I understand, but windmills were kind of weird (on a mountain, not adjacent *except* if it's a different height level?), and I had an issue I couldn't figure where I thought I should have been able to place a solar panel but couldn't.
There were a couple buildings I didn't really understand from a balance perspective: roads??? I'm not really sure why I would place a road instead of just placing another building tbh. I guess they don't cost power or people, but I don't really see how that would be an issue considering if you just build solar panels + residencies you'll be positive on both power and population? Similarly, parks seemed kind of not that good either, but they made a little more sense I guess? I also didn't really understand the difference between points granted "when placed" vs "on completion".
Overall aesthetics, graphics, and vibe were very nice, reminded me a bit of As Far as the Eye vibe!
Edit: looking at other ppl's screenshots maybe it's the following is a bug? You can just connect buildings through each other to the HQ without using roads at all, and I'm starting to think maybe that wasn't intended? It makes for a fun game either way (very civ 6 district organization kinda stuff), but worth looking at I guess.
[Screenshot 2023-10-04 022402.png](///raw/eab/13/z/5f844.png)
@minjutin Thanks for the kind words :smile:
@ferellia Thanks for the great feedback, hovering over buildings would have been nice and it was planned.
Yes solar panels give more power when placed adjacent and residences give more workers in the same way.
The windmill thing was me liking the look of different heights and trying to make a mechanic from it :laughing: unsure if it was needed
Roads are needed as buildings only connect through the same type so to connect miners you need roads - but will look at if there is a bug with the connectivity.
Parks fill a niche where you have a couple of spaces left but your power and workers are out of balance, they also vary the look a little :wink:
When a tile is placed it adds its workers and power (if any) and its placed points, When it is connected, powered and supplied with workers it is completed and scores its completed points and any adjacency points bonus (commercial and parks)
Edit:
Looks like its working as I had hoped:

Miners on the left are all connected either with roads or through each other
Miner at the top is not connected as it cannot connect through the residential
Though if you were experiencing a different behaviour that is concerning :laughing:
I think it lacks on the feedback side of things a bit. At first, it was really difficult to understand what was happening because aside from the "+X score" display, it seems nothing is happening when you place tiles. In my mind, I constantly had questions like "Was that a good score for that tile?", "Was that a good or bad placement". But when you start understanding the basic idea of the game, it definitely gets better.
Overall, a very solid jam game. Definitely has potential for more if you keep developing it after the jam.
I found the top right UI just a bit confusing - I'd love to see a detailed explanation on hover (e.g 10 workers available / 20 workers needed).
@nash That is a good idea - and most of it was cut due to the usual time restrictions
@vlad-r Yea that tooltip was very rushed and could be redone properly to give much better understanding
Absolutely love the low-poly buildings! I made some for our game but I think yours look much better than mine, well done!
One minor caveat: The UI doesn't fit on ultrawide screens (3440x1440). Was stuck on the "How to play" screen trying to press all the buttons for at least a minute until I figured out to leave full-screen and press the close button.

Will investigate the ultra wide UI issue thanks for reporting @heremeus

One issue I had is with the solar panels - hovering over the solar panel button doesn't say it can't be placed near a mountain. I found that out by re-reading the "How to play" screen.
Would just edit the background music's end so that the loop is not perceived but it's just a detail.
I had a small glitch once where one of the tiles would not allow a solar panel but after trying again it accepted. Congratulations and thanks for checking my team's game!

And it turned out to be a chill, polished game.
There are definitely some strategies that could do a lot more points. I would love to see a screenshot of something clever.
I also need to say that I love how it looks, especially the lighted parts and the water tiles are super cool!

I'm posting this because I skimmed through the thread and I think it's actually a high score :sunglasses:
Hexak is surprisingly fun!
@enad96 @hellhound @enver-arco @andruid Thanks for playing
@lcstark Thanks for playing, nice score!
@okshirl Thanks for playing and I am glad you enjoyed it, again it needs a teach by playing tutorial rather than wall of text
@thelastslowpoke Very well build looks quite optimal, challenge accepted :laughing:

@kasmilus Thanks for playing, yes it 100% needs an interactive tutorial. I have seen other reports of the UI breaking on ultra wide.
Thanks for the kind words and feedback
On the other hand, the massive rules list was a bit of a flop for me, and the game came off as a little too complicated and unintuitive.
Anyway, nice work and good luck!
