The following are two essays written by the two people who worked on HEXES and their thoughts on the game post-release.

HEXES Development: a Post-Mortem - Dania Rifki (Kaleidosium)

After a tiresome development period, and being in my head since late 2021, HEXES is now realised as a “finished” product. I cannot be more glad that I have finished this game! In a way HEXES’ name is, also somewhat ironic, It was the first game that I truly “finished” and did not get shelved and forgotten. It broke my curse of never finishing a game project, and I’m glad that it takes the shape of what it is now.

HEXES was my first and perhaps only GBA Game. The Natu library and the Nim programming language are both very good tools. Compared to how I tried working using Tonc with C, it is bliss. I think doing this made me realise that RetroDev is probably not my thing, I intially wanted to make two of my next games for the GBA, but that does not seem likely anymore. I however, still am glad to have tried doing and finishing HEXES.

I am very proud of the art direction I did for HEXES. It was not the most pretty thing I’ve done, but it’s good, I like how clear the sprites are and the brutalist, minimal look of the game. It fits with the overall theme of being based on Tempest and the Polybius Legend. I had originally wanted to recruit a proper artist to the project, but I never did. Also, I think I made a pretty great logo for the game, all things considered! …Even though some people misread it as “HOOS”.

Still, I am somewhat disappointed with the outcome, I didn’t have enough time or motivation to fully flesh it out as I wanted it to be. I also encountered a lot of Game Structure issues that I had recognised since well before I finished the demo for GBAJam 2022. Furthermore, I do not think it’s worth it to fix these issues as it would require a large undertaking and I have better projects to invest my time in the future. I have written a “How to Play” guide as a sort-of band-aid solution to this problem, though I will fully admit it doesn’t solve the core issues of the game design.

Admittedly, After the jam, I had lost a lot of passion I initially had for the game. I almost wanted to give up, but I pressed on regardless, trying to at least make the game visually presentable and make it not look too much like a tech demo. I cursed that I was wasting my time on this game rather than working on other projects that I felt would be a better time investment.

Yet, HEXES taught me a lot of things about Game Development, Game Design, working in a team, asking for help, et cetera. I may regret making this game idea my first “true game” instead of what I think I will be working on next. But that does not make the fun and laughs I had while working on this game any less meaningful. It’s still a very good experience regardless, and I’d like to thank everyone along the way.

I would like to specially thank:

• exelotl, along with PyroPyro for the Natu library and the source code of the games XNIQ and ARHJ which were partially used as reference or documentation
• Jeti for the Squarewave font, We used the regular version of the font for the UI and a modified bold version for the Game Mechanics
• Jonathan So for The Game Creator’s Pack, used temporarily during development
• Mark Brown for the Developing series, which pushed me to work on this project
• Justburner for some minor math help

But I especially would like to thank Kathryn Hathaway (Kathound) for being the game’s composer, I suggest checking her Bandcamp out! She does really good music besides the HEXES Soundtrack. She also wrote a post-mortem, which I will include in this write-up.

Before I go, I want to talk briefly about my future plans. I’ll be going to university, and that both excites me and makes me anxious. But, I guess that’s part of becoming an adult. I also think that the next game that I’ll be working on will be a much better video game, I’ve been prototyping it for a bit on the Godot Engine, and I think people will like it better. It’s a Sokoban-style game, with a twist that revolves around light.

I think that is all I wanted to say, thank you for reading!

Electronically yours,

Dania Rifki (Kaleidosium).

HEXES Soundtrack: a Post-Mortem - Kathryn Hathaway (Kathound)

My overall goal for this project was to create a cohesive, atmospheric soundtrack while working within the limitations of the GBA hardware.

This was the first game I’ve worked on, and so I had never needed to work on this many songs that needed to feel as though they belonged together. I faced some challenges early on with developing the sound pallet for HEXES, and while writing and trying to figure out my footing, I realized that what I needed was 1) instruments and percussion that maintained both a fun arcade aesthetic, but also portrayed the vast wonders of space/space travel and 2) music that was energetic enough to engage the player in a shooter-style game. Most of the tracks follow the formula of a rock-solid and unwavering bassline working together with driving drum beats. From here, I was able to stack melodies and supporting instruments on top for variation, texture and atmospheric flair.

Because of the limited memory on the GBA and how much space media files occupy, I wanted to make sure the tracks were fairly short so we wouldn’t run into storage issues. I was also working with instrument samples and file types that would later be compressed to 8-bit, so I needed to stick with simple instruments that didn’t distort or leave behind artifacts. By adding reverb to more simple waveform instruments, I was able to get some fun sounds. I also liked the “low-rez” aesthetic created by some of these compressed instruments, which I think contributes to the retro style and feel of the game.

Although the HEXES soundtrack isn’t perfect by any means, I consider it an accomplishment in achieving my goals of creating a soundtrack that feels fitting for the game, and maintains consistency across the tracks. I think it’s energetic and fun and hope that it adds to the game feel and experience. I had a lot of fun writing music and experimenting with sound design.