What is Post Apocalyptic Hexcrawl Deck (PAHD)? Plus Links

     PAHD (to be renamed once I think of something cool or catchy) is an in development post apocalyptic, hexcrawl sandbox, card based rpg. In it, you choose your character's and the world's background, then set off on an adventure. Draw cards, chart your map, fight, and survive.

 

    The goal? You choose that too; it is a sandbox, after all.  

    I do, however, have plans in the future to work with a writer to put together a storyline as an option for those that don't like sandbox games. 

    It can be played multiplayer (up to 6 players, in theory) or solo, and is available as a print and play or as a Tabletop Simulator mod on the Steam Workshop (Links to both below).

 Print and Play Version 

Tabletop Simulator Version 

Print and Play @ itch.io (itch will give you a warning about suspicious files; they are just pdfs. I don't know why I've been quarantined on itch, but I suspect it has to do with my VPN)

Play Tester Discord Server 

    

     

PAHD Log 008 - Instruction Updates From First Play Tester

     I've had my first play tester, writer D.C. Corvino, and she gave me lots of good feedback and things to think about! 

     Firstly, she didn't read all the instructions before starting to play, and ended up confused because of the order I had laid out said instructions. That is 100% on me; I can't just assume players will read the instructions in full before playing. So she helped me reorder the instructions to make more sense for those players that tend not to read through the instructions before starting. And that leads into the content of the instructions. Apparently they weren't all that clear, so Corvino worked with me to clean them up.

    She also pointed out little things in the game that I had overlooked, such as being able to fish at bodies of water or drink from the river. So I'll be adding those things to the cards. Also, D.C. didn't really like the way I handled combat, she said the way the damage table is set up takes the player out of the scene, and suggested a different way to calculate damage. I tried her suggestion, didn't really like, so I'll wait to see what other play testers say about it.

                                                             ^ D.C. Corvino's map ^

 

    It was really fun seeing how someone else played the game; she thought of things I never would have thought about. For example, on Corvino's travels, she chose to go to the forest simply because she wanted to see the forest animals. Or, when she ended up at a city zoo, she saw starving animals, and made a plan to buy them some food (She wasn't able to because she didn't have enough resources to pay for the food, but I loved that that was her first thought upon meeting them). 

    D.C. Corvino's most important comment, though, was that the game felt like it's still in a middle ground. I totally agree with that, but wasn't sure how to fix it on my own, so her comments were a big help.

    I've updated the instructions on itch.io and the google drive folder; I'll be updating the TTS version later today. 

    That's it for now; thanks for reading and have a great rest of your day. 

PAHD Log 007 - Tabletop Simulator Version 1 of PAHD is Done!

Alright, I've published PAHD on the steam workshop Link so that anyone that doesn't want to print out the deck themselves can play (provided they have TTS).  

It was about 30 hours to convert everything I had into something that would function in TTS, but I enjoyed the work and I think it will be well worth it. 

PAHD Log 006

 Progress photo on the Tabletop Simulator version 

 It took a bit of work to adapt the game to the confinements of digital, but I'm happy with how it's turning out.

PAHD Log 005 - TTS & Map Icons

   I’ve discovered that Tabletop Simulator allows a lot of customization, so I’ve decided to make a TTS version of PAHD. 

Also, photo dump of map icons below. 

PAHD Log 004 - Quarantined on Itch.io & Added Multiplayer

    So, Post Apocalyptic Hexcrawl Deck has been quarantined by itch.io.

    I assume it was because I uploaded the game updates the same day as publishing the game (I was too excited to wait). I've contacted support, and hope it gets resolved quickly, but until then I've uploaded the files to google drive for people to download. Here's the link. I'll also add the link to the sidebar on the right.

    Also, I've updated the rules to accommodate multiplayer.

    That's it for now; thanks for reading and have a great rest of your day.  

PAHD Log 003 - The Pivot

    The more I played with these cards myself, the more I felt they wanted to be a full game. So I started working on combat and survival mechanics. It seemed easy enough; just make a table of x-number equals x-damage. Well, if you want it to be fun, you can't kill off the characters in their first fight, which is the problem I was having. Take a look at this picture of my trials at making a balanced combat system. 

 

    Each color on that page represents a different trial with different combinations of damage tables. The first six tries, my character would die after the second enemy. Which was a problem because the player can encounter up to three enemies at once (randomized by a die roll, of course). 

     Ultimately, I think I got the balance under control between my last table and adjusting the healing mechanics. In my latest test play, my character was able to go up against four enemies in a row (two one round and two another) and survive. They only had two health left, but they did survive. Luckily, the both fights happened near a doctor and my character was able to trade some food for health. A few tiles later, though, they ran into another enemy. Won that fight too and found a stash of food, but they were left at three health, and had to make their way back to the doctor. 

    I ended the session with three guns, one first aid kit, three water, and nine food. Some photos below of my map and character sheet (the little green eraser is to mark where I am on the map).

    
    Overall, that last test play went really well. I realized some cards are missing instructions, though, so I'll be fixing that tomorrow.  

     That's it for now; thanks for reading and have a great rest of your day. 

Post Apocalyptic Hexcrawl Deck Log 002

    Last night, I finished the printable deck, laminated it, and cut the cards out.

    The first flaw was the outline colors I chose for the non location and terrain cards; yellow. Pure yellow is really hard to see against the white paper when cutting out the cards. So I recolored those cards, this time with each a different color so that not only were they easier to cut out but also easier to differentiate between the different card types. 

    Then I started a map, noticed a few typos, and hit another flaw. When you turn around on the map, you may encounter the problem of drawing multi-tile cards when there's no space left for them because you've already allocated the tiles adjacent. So I added to the rules that, in that case, you can redraw. I also added in that location and terrain cards can overlap; this was to deal with space issues, but it also just makes sense. In real life, locations are built on terrain. 

    I feel it's ready for outside testing now, so I've added it to itch.io. Here's the link

    That's it for now; thanks for reading and have a great rest of your day.

Edit: I also now have the game pdfs in google drive. Here's the link 

Post Apocalyptic Hexcrawl Deck Log 001

    What is the post apocalyptic hexcrawl deck? Well, it's something that's probably going to be renamed, if I can ever think of a catchy name. Besides that, though, it's my current project. 

The Concept

    A map building card deck set in a post apocalyptic world. Simply put, the player pulls cards from the deck and the card tells them what's in the current hex tile they're standing in. It's a bit more in-depth than that, though, so we'll go a little deeper, but first I'll explain a problem I've noticed with just blindly pull cards from a deck or rolling dice on a table. 

     When you roll dice on a table or pull cards from a face down deck, you have no idea where your character will be going next. But, in real life, people make informed decisions about where they're going; they (on average) can see or hear where they are going before they go there, not to mention they can follow a smell if they so wish. 

    My cards, however, will describe what your character notices with their senses (mostly sight) before going into the next tile on one side of the card, and once you choose based on those observations, the card gets flipped over to reveal what the character's senses were hinting at.

    An important thing to note is that this will not be a game in and of itself, it will be a map generator to be played with separate post apocalyptic games that don't have their own map system.  

How It's Going

    So far, I have the basics down. I've made a spreadsheet with vague senses of a direction and the more detailed descriptions attached to those vague directions. It's not polished yet, I'm going to have a family member, who happens to be a writer, look it over and possibly add flavor text in the future.

    I've play tested already, and I'm happy with the results so far. (Photos of the test maps below)

    However, I was playing with the spreadsheet and a random number generator, and that had a major flaw. The random number generator would repeat numbers, essentially reshuffling the deck every draw. I'm getting "around" this problem by making more work for myself. I've started creating a printable deck so that I can play test it authentically. (Screenshot of that work in progress below) 

    Once done, this printable deck will be uploaded to itch.io for free (for now; once it's polished, I may add a cost). I expect to be done with it by tomorrow, so stay tuned for an update on that.  

    That's it for now; thanks for reading and have a great rest of your day. 
 

 

The Beginning.

    Welcome to Blue Bear Games Dev Blog; I feel the name of this blog is pretty explanatory, but I'll add some details anyway.

Why This Blog Exists

    I want to document my journey making games, and updates of how each game project is progressing. What type of games, you ask? RPG card/tabletop games and game assets, probably mostly post apocalyptic and/or science fiction themed. As of writing this, I'm working on a hexcrawl card deck; I'll go into more detail about that in a different post, though.

Who I Am? 

    I'm a just a regular queer, neurodivergent creator that gets fixated on projects.

Who Is This Blog For? 

    Anyone that likes RPGs and wants to get inside the head of a creator, or anyone that wants to keep up with the development of my game projects.