Jinuyr has very kindly provided me the video he took of Cory’s speech at the GenCon Dragon Lord dinner. Here it is:
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August 21, 2013
I got a chance to have a conversation HEX Lead Developer Dan Clark at GenCon. We discussed a wide range of topics including:
- Dan’s GenCon experiences throughout the years
- His thoughts on interacting with the KickStarter backers
- How much time he gets to play/test Hex, his favorite deck types and cards
- Some interesting thoughts on a number of game design-related areas:
- Novel Mechanics
- Not letting his personal preferences impact the overall design
You can find the audio in this post. Here’s the full transcript:
HexVault
August 21, 2013
Princess Cory
I got a chance to have a conversation the Man, the Myth, the Legend – Mr. Cory Jones – at GenCon. We discussed a wide range of topics including:
- Cory’s GenCon experiences throughout the years
- His thoughts on interacting with the KickStarter backers
- How much time he gets to play/test Hex, his favorite deck types and cards
- Some interesting thoughts on a number of PVE-related areas:
- Gold Sinks
- Rewarding players for recruiting other players
- Spectral Lotus in PVE Tournaments
You can find the audio in this post. Here’s the full transcript:
HexVault
August 21, 2013
I got a chance to have a conversation HEX Game Designer Ben Stoll at GenCon. We discussed a wide range of topics including:
- Ben’s GenCon experiences throughout the years
- His thoughts on interacting with the KickStarter backers
- How much time he gets to play/test Hex, his favorite deck types and cards
- Some interesting thoughts on a number of game design-related areas:
- Resources, and what sets HEX apart
- Set 2 Sapphire Dragon
- The “ambush” mechanic
- Motivations for working on HEX
You can find the audio in this post. Here’s the full transcript:
HexVault
August 20, 2013
No tags.
Welcome to the inaugural Card Mechanics article! Myself or a guest contributor will be covering Hex mechanics in a series of articles that you can expect to see weekly on Hex Vault.
For this first article, I’ve decided to talk about a proposed mechanic (“Weaponize“) rather than one we already know about. Who knows, this mechanic may already exist but hasn’t been spoiled, or may be in Cryptozoic’s plan for Set 2 or Set 3, but I have no knowledge of it’s existence other than an idea I chatted about at GenCon with a couple of other backers. Maybe I’ll even try to make this idea the basis for my “Design a Card” reward…
Worker Bot
A little bit of background… The Dwarf/Artifact deck that was playable at GenCon can create a prodigious number of Worker Bot tokens. These work well for driving the Inspiration Engine, for use as chump blockers, and for providing fuel for the Volcannon, but they do have a minor drawback – the “Defensive” keyword. What if we could remove that limitation? It would make sense that the Dwarves could modify these defensive troops and make them offensive – that’s where “Weaponize” could come in!
Maybe as a Dwarf champion charge power, e.g.:
- 2 Sapphire Threshold, 2 Charges, Weaponize Worker Bot – selected Worker Bot gets +2/+0 and can attack this turn (i.e. removes the “Defensive” keyword); Worker Bot is destroyed at the end of the turn
- 2 Ruby Threshold, 3 Charges, Weaponize Worker Bot – selected Worker Bot is turned into a bomb; sacrifice Worker Bot 3 damage to selected troop or champion
Or perhaps, “Weaponize” as a Constant, e.g.:
- 3 Sapphire Threshold, 6 Cost – all artifact troops you control with the “Defensive” keyword have the “Defensive” keyword removed
- 3 Ruby Threshold, 8 Cost – all artifact troops you control with the “Defensive” keyword have the “Defensive” keyword replaced by “Incendiary” keyword (sacrifice troop to deal X points of damage to target troop or champion where X = the current attack power of the troop)
How much fun would it be to drop Weaponize on turn 8 and explode all of your troops to clear your opponent’s board or finish off the match? Quite literally a BOMB! 
Finally, it could be a troop ability, e.g.:
- Automation Engineer 1/3, 3 Sapphire Threshold, 6 Cost – 1, exhaust this troop to remove the “Defensive” keyword from target artifact troop for the duration of this turn
- Explosives Specialist 1/3, 3 Ruby Threshold, 6 Cost – 1, exhaust this troop to replace the “Defensive” keyword with the “Incendiary” keyword (sacrifice troop to deal X points of damage to target troop or champion where X = the current attack power of the troop) on an artifact troop you control
Thoughts? Questions? Comments? I’d love to hear them…
HexVault
August 20, 2013
Hex: Shards of Fate
The game was amazing! The Hex UI is little buggy in places, but mostly beautiful, very responsive, and a dream to play. I was still learning (i.e. making stupid mistakes) minor things about how certain cards had been implemented and needed to be used at the Con, but I’d imagine a solid day playing in the comfort of my own home would get through most of that process.
What about the decks? I really liked the Ruby Burn deck (fast and simple), the Bunnies (so many bunnies, so much carnage!), and the Sapphire Tempo deck (I ran, ran so far away…), but I ended up being beaten enough by the Inspire-based Diamond/Ruby deck that I’d bet that it was probably the best deck of those available to us (having originally been convinced Burn Baby Burn was the way to go).
Overall, I’d be happy if Alpha was the version of the software we got to play at GenCon. But, since we’re probably 4-5 weeks away from the Alpha build, I’m betting the UI and Game will be much improved again by the time we play again.
Hex: Shards of Fate
Read more »
Jadiim Sleeves (GenCon Exclusive)
HexVault
August 19, 2013
Dan Clark, Lead Developer
I got a chance to interview HEX Lead Developer Dan Clark at GenCon. You can catch the RAW UNEDITED (I’ll take a pass at editing it, transcribing it, and reducing the background exhibit hall noise once GenCon is over) audio on SoundCloud. We discussed a wide range of topics including:
- Dan’s GenCon experiences throughout the years
- His thoughts on interacting with the KickStarter backers
- How much time he gets to play/test Hex, his favorite deck types and cards
- Some interesting thoughts on a number of game design-related areas:
- Novel Mechanics
- Not letting his personal preferences impact the overall design
I hope you’ve enjoyed the GenCon interviews as much as I did chatting with the CZE folks. I wanted to provide Hex-related information, but I was also interested in finding out about the guys behind the game. Hopefully I accomplished that.
I’m planning to post a summary of GenCon today or tomorrow – check back to read that. And, as always, enter our giveaway! It takes less than a minute and you could win an iPad, flights to/from HexCon, or Set 1 Boosters.
HexVault
August 18, 2013
Ben Stoll, Game Designer
I got a chance to have a conversation HEX Game Designer Ben Stoll at GenCon. You can catch the RAW UNEDITED (I’ll take a pass at editing it, transcribing it, and reducing the background exhibit hall noise once GenCon is over) audio on SoundCloud. I’m pretty quiet on a few of the questions because of how we had to set up the interview – it’ll be pretty obvious what the questions were though. We discussed a wide range of topics including:
- Ben’s GenCon experiences throughout the years
- His thoughts on interacting with the KickStarter backers
- How much time he gets to play/test Hex, his favorite deck types and cards
- Some interesting thoughts on a number of game design-related areas:
- Resources, and what sets HEX apart
- Set 2 Sapphire Dragon
- The “ambush” mechanic
- Motivations for working on HEX
We’ll have another interview from GenCon posted tomorrow! If you have specific questions for any of the CZE folks leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do to get you an answer.
Remember to enter our giveaway!
It’s probably safe to say that everyone at the Dragon Lord dinner had a great time – I think most of us spent more than an hour chatting after we got kicked out of the restaurant! 5.5 hours flew by in what seemed like minutes for me. I’m not going to post any pictures – others have much better quality pics, and CZE will be posting a pictures and a video in the pretty near future.
The CZE folks continue to be the most accommodating people I’ve ever had the pleasure of dealing with. As far as I can tell every CZE employee made sure they talked to every backer there. We probably learned a few new things (look for a post tomorrow), but, IMHO, the best conversations were about game strategy and philosophy.
Cory presented us all with autographed (by the entire development team) Hex posters (see the Hex TCG Facebook page). The “other treats” were definitely something really unexpected – a USB drive with the new Sapphire Dragon (Set 2!) art printed on it, and all of the hi-res art for the dragon and it’s card and equipment on the drive. You can see Zeedu here.
Zeedu USB Drive
Zeedu USB Drive
Pretty tired now, but I’ll add more details to this post tomorrow.