Hex Heroes Kickstarter update - Hammerin’ Away at the Wii U

It's no surprise that the Wii U is less powerful than a PC. We build Hex Heroes on a computer using the Unity engine which lets the game play on both PC and Wii U. However, the size of the game and all of its components determines how much memory is required on a device to allow it to play. The sheer number of hexagon tiles, trees, and other objects in the game continually made Hex Heroes unplayable on the Wii U, at least in the way that we originally built the game. In order to get it running, we had to revisit the very foundation of how the game is built.

Without getting too technical, our first job was building the map tiles automatically with efficiency. Originally, each hex tile was its own model. Now, the game creates only the visible portions of hexes, so that any sides of the tiles that would have been underground or obstructed by another hex aren’t created in the game at all. This is known as culling, and by not rendering what isn’t seen, we can really free up space.

We're slowly adding more of the full game to the Wii U version and seeing great results. There are still some effects that we've been unable to implement for the Wii U but we're trying our best to find the solutions. We’ve even reached out to a very special developer for some help (we won’t name names right now, but we know you’d be happy to know they’re in our corner). With some determination and luck, we’ll soon have the Wii U version of the game at the same point as the PC version we showed at GDC! And from there, it’ll be much smoother sailing!