Monday, January 3, 2011

Sandbox: Here we go.

So, as part of my new year plans for actually finishing a sandbox project, I picked up Inkwell Ideas' Hexographer program and started working on my sandbox.  I made a pretty big map, but turned to a particular island to focus on.  What evolved was the island of Greatholm.

Greatholm, after a day of work.
Clearly, I still have a lot of work to do, but it's giving me some ideas for the game.  Having three cities is nice, because it gives me some versatility in character.

I used S. John Ross's Medieval Demographics Made Easy to figure out what the island has going on with it.  The capital, Whitehaven, is home to a little over 12,000 of the island kingdom's 750,000+ citizens.  The second and third cities, Ballykin and Beckby, respectively, clock in at 9900 and 8400.  With thirteen other towns floating around, as well as a few castles, it gives me a lot of opportunities for local flair and roleplaying while keeping a lot of room open for exploring and adventure!

I've got some ideas on what to do with the different parts of the island and some of it might end up on here.  What I need to do is get a group settled into a game and pick a system, though.  I can do flavor text all day long, but where the rubber meets the road is the actual game itself.

6 comments:

  1. I've toyed with the idea of picking of Hexographer on occasion. Do you think it's a worthwhile purchase?

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  2. I see Sicily.

    Albiet bent around a bit.

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  3. @19charisma: It's not too shabby. I think it really depends on how much you are going to use it, since the license expires each year. I've been enjoying playing around with it and we'll see how much I use it between now and then.

    @Greg: It was a random design, with some changes by me. I can kind of see Sicily a bit now that you mention it, but I have no idea what it's terrain is like to see how true the similarities are.

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  5. (Just had to edit my post.)
    @Higgipedia: There is no longer a 1-year license or an auto-renewing lifetime license to Hexographer. In the first few months of the project I planned to have full license which was to be accomplished by automatically sending out new 1 year licenses every year. But those plans changed and now there is only a traditional "full" license that never expires. Also, until about 6 months ago I was offering 1-time 1-year licenses at a 70% ish discount, but those became difficult for me to administrate. So the short version is that if you bought your license recently it shouldn't expire. (You'll see a note to that effect at the top of the Hexographer map setup window. If not, or if you're not sure, drop me an email--see the help-about menu in the software if you don't have my address handy.)

    In any case, thanks for picking it up and posting about it!
    --Joe (Hexographer Developer)

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  6. @Joe: That is awesome to know. I am usually doing about five things at once when I am at home, so I didn't really pay too much attention to the install!

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