Philip Muwanga's Hexy Trench Released news

After 8 months of development Mischievous Monkey studios in proud to announce the launch of Philip Muwanga’s ‘Hexy Trench’, on XNA Community Games for 200 Microsoft points. ‘Hexy Trench’ is a multiplayer focused, tile placing take on trench warfare, combining intense strategy and puzzle elements together to create a unique gameplay experience.
In ‘Hexy Trench’, Players begin with a single 'HQ' tile and vie for control of a hexagonal based grid by placing randomly allocated trench tiles to form a trench system. Players then build offensive and defensive structures on top of their trenches to wage war on their enemies, fighting for possession of resource generating 'Outposts', before launching assaults on their opponent's 'HQ' to claim victory.

So how did ‘hexy’ come about? Well like most games ideas it started as a flash of inspiration that occurred at four in the morning, while drunk, in Italy. In my inebriated state I began drunkenly pondering the nature of field marshal Haig’s detachment from the actual fighting taking place under his command in WW1. Instead of being on the front lines, commanders would sit in the safety of the command post, insulated from the terrors of war, drawing maps and saying which points of the enemies’ trench to attack. In my drunken state I knew that there was a game in there and begin writing down random notes. After sobering up the next morning and looking at my notes, I started write as design document base around the idea of trench warfare, but without players having direct control over their troops, instead simply instructing the placement of trenches and fortifications while but watching the battle from afar, and with that ‘hexy’ was born.

With the initial starting point in place, the design document was worked on while I finished development of the mod ‘Squad Commander'. (Jump to ModDB page) Ideas like the control fluid used as an analogue for manpower and militarily strength were added. Along with the rock, paper scissors mechanic provide by bunkers, machine guns and artillery. While ‘outposts' and collectable ‘special weapon' crates were added to spark conflict between players. The decision to have a simple, minimalistic art style was taken very early in development after the nightmare of modelling, rigging, texturing and animating 13 different characters for ‘squad commander', I wanted something more manageable. With the design document in place I had a clear idea what my next project was going to be after squad commander was finished.

With ‘hexy’ now finished all that left for me to do is say my ‘thank yous’ to everyone who helped make it possible. First off, my house mates, Will Miles, Chris Parry, and Mike Rigby, for giving me feedback, support and suggestions over the last 8 months. Next Richard Boon for helping me hammer out the initial design doc and play testing. And finally everyone involved with XNA Community for providing tutorials and guides on that really helped me understand XNA and for play testing and finding the last few bugs.

Enjoy Hexy Trench,

Phil,

P.S All you PC gamers be sure to check back soon, as after my next XNA project (think ‘Micro Machines 2’, in space!) I’ll be porting Hexy to the PC.