HEXROLL 2e - alpha build #4 with settlement links, performance improvements, docs draft and a roadmap (Patreon)

Hello Brave Adventurers

This week's rollout is now live with some cool additions, together with a draft version of the Hexroll Guidebook (at docs.hexroll.app).

The guidebook is incomplete, but provides a good starting point to understand Hexroll's interface and behavior better. I will continue adding to it and rewriting things as I make more progress.

Here is the change log for this week's rollout:

New Features & improvement

• Settlement locations now have labels and links so you can city/town/village-crawl using the map.
• Rulers can now be provided with a castle or a citadel if one exists in a city or a town.
• Hexroll Backpack file packaging is now ~5x times faster.
• Dungeon crawling has improved performance when surrounding hexes contain more dungeons or settlements.

Bug fixes

• Fixed a few grammar issues in the scroll files.
• Readme window (very small link at the bottom right corner of the screen) is now showing properly when in crawl-mode. I should probably make it more visible.

Updated Hexroll Backpack installers for Windows, Linux and MacOS were also released.

The Roadmap to BETA and beyond

Now, let's take a look at the plan.

My backlog contains a mix of bugs, internal features, epics (big features) and, my most important category, your feature requests.

The following is a list of big, medium and small features I already implemented or plan to work on soon. This is not set in stone and things can and will shift around - but I do plan get to everything, and if I won't, it will have to be for a good reason.

If you suggested a feature, you should find it below, so please let me know if I missed anything. I used a (+) (++) (+++) to indicate the complexity and effort needed to implement each feature.

Sandbox Engine

• [DONE] Reimplement SCROLL and PIXIEDUST (+++)
• [DONE] Allow rerolling entities (+++)
• [DONE] Scroll-based realm generator (+++)
• [DONE] Interactive maps & basic mapping tools (+++)
• [DONE] Color Saturation Control / Labels visibility (+)
• ----- ALPHA stage -----
• [DONE] Offline mode (+++)
• [DONE] Links and labels to settlement locations (+)
• [TODO ] Cave Maps (++)
• [ TODO] Page content editing (as static text) (++)
• [ TODO] Checkmarkable hit points for encounters (+)
• [TODO ] Annotated map markers (+)
• [TODO ] Multi-user VTT maps projection with referee controlled FoW (++)
• ----- BETA stage -----
• [TODO ] Solo mode (++)
• [TODO ] More dungeon maps control (++)
• [TODO] Generator modules - ability to generate fractions of the larger model (++)
• [TODO] West Marches mode / mutiple parties in the same sandbox (+)
• [TODO ] LLM (ChatGPT, Bard) and Dall-E support - generate prompts to create extended content (+)

Content

• [DONE] Migrate HEXROLL 1e model to SCROLL (+++)
• [DONE] Treasure factor value (+)
• ----- ALPHA stage -----
• [DONE] Place rulers in a city or hex (+)
• [TODO] Improve associated NPCs references (add first names, use the same last name, etc) (+)
• [TODO] Flesh out inns & taverns, add bed costs, drinks (+)
• [TODO] Weather and environmental situations (blizzards, fires, etc) (+)
• [TODO] Improve shop inventories, add an index, modify prices/availability based on biome (+)
• ----- BETA stage -----
• [TODO] Basic calendar with moon phases, festivities, faction or monster related events (+)
• [TODO] Enrich encounters with more monster activities (+)
• [TODO] More city content to allow for deeper city campaigns (+)
• [TODO] Ability to plug-in more content (for example, monsters) to the mix (++)
• [TODO] Gazetteer - an all-in-one summary of realms (++)
• [TODO] Player handouts (+)
• [TODO] Add lairs and small caves to featured hex encounters (+)
• [TODO] Secondary hex features (+)

Systems

• ----- ALPHA stage -----
• ----- BETA stage -----
• [TODO] 5E (++)
• [TODO] Savage Worlds (?)
• [TODO] Tunnels & Trolls (?)

This should keep me quite busy until Christmas and beyond :)

Enjoy the crawl folks,

- Ithai