Designer Journal

[Swift]

(Written by Ianfe)

Christmas, 2005

Yet another Christmas has come and gone, and as I put away my gifts and throw away the wrapping papers - No, I never save & reuse them. Shame on me. I tear them to shreds in the opening process – I make my pre-New Year’s reflection list, in which I kinda plan ahead for the next year and recap the highlights of this year.

Among this year’s highlights, there’s a special little section for Hero6… ah, that juggernaut of a project… Let’s take a peek through those together, shall we?

Hero6 saw healthy dose of activity throughout the year. Hehe, I’m sure most of you remember our April’s Fools joke, "Hero of Infamous Kingdoms," made in conjunction with a bunch of other fangame teams. That, my friends, sure rocked.

Find me that tomato!

…or was it Tomahto? Tomahtoe?

Anyway! Yes, we had that bit of fun together; plus all the other competitions and activities in the Hero6 Visitor’s forums. For example, we hosted the Epitaph writing contest as a Halloween event, where the winning entries will be used in the game itself. Results can be found clicking here.

Hero6 has also welcomed new members into its family! Some of them you might already know through their participation in the Visitor’s community. Others, well… not so much.

(But we still love you anyways)

Art: Captivus, Deeda, JadedEmpire and Maus Merryjest

Music: Calimaw and Kailkay

Plot: Perseus, ReishVedaur and Silverbolt

Programming: Twiggy

I’mma give you a sneak peek of the work we’ve done over the year. Just, please, PLEASE, whatever you do don’t tell the other admins. They can be quite jealous of their Hero6 secrets.

Take a look at this beauty, for example. I’ve seen this, and many other backgrounds, evolve through the years. I tell you, folks, this pictures are ART! I’m continuously amazed at how the talent and skills of the Art Department people keeps growing and evolving… They subtly improve all their work continuously and yet manage to keep their work non-pretentious and faithful to the original style that was intended for the game.


 
I probably should not be telling you this, either, but there’s been some AMAZING video sequences developed for the game. If you ARE reading it that means my editor was either asleep at the keyboard or drunk on Eggnog.
… I won’t be showing you those here, though. That would definitely bring about my demise at the hand of the Hero6 assassin squad.

(Which also does NOT exist, no. We have no need of assassins in Hero6)

(These assassins who do NOT exist do NOT look like this fella here. NO! they DON’T!)
 


The people in Music have worked hard to bring all the many pieces (and trust me, we have TONS of music in there) to finalized quality. No crappy midis for you people on Hero6! No sir!

Of course, all this would not be possible without the support of Programming. These guys work their magic on the code to make sure we can bring you all the nifty features and video scenes complete with bullet-time animation.

… and we Plot people tell everyone what has to be done, of course. ‘Cause we rock, yeah. We write the big and fancy words to makes the kiddies laugh.

What lies in store for 2006? I am bursting to tell you! 2006 will be a YEAR, I tell you. A WHOLE year!

Aside from that – and who could want more? – there’ll be quite some surprises along the way. We’ve worked hard this year, mostly in preparation for the events that take place this year.

Me, I’m looking forward eagerly to this year. I hope I get the chance to bring you another update soon, when I am allowed to tell you a bit more.

For now, though, I can’t. It’s time to go scavenge for any presents I might have missed. You never really know when you will find one under the sofa!

I hope you’re with us throughout this year to come, tag along for the ride! I’m sure you won’t regret it.

Speaking (writing?) for the Hero6 team, I wish you

Happiest and Hero6est of Holidays

Ianfe

[Swift]

It’s been about two months since our last update. Most of the team members had real life issues to attend to (whether it’s work, school, or health problems), but a few members made sure that the progress did not grind to a halt.

Daemious released alpha version 14 in early January, complete with updated content from Art, Plot and Music as well as bug fixes. The demo looks fantastic. Don’t believe me? Ask Yuri or The Guy then. Both of them have been play-testing the demo, looking for bugs to compile in the demo report.

Paladin Valiant and Captivus have been working on improving the backgrounds. Just take a look at the before and after screenshots below.



Plot had some problems of late, unfortunately. Both Ianfe and Erasmus have been experiencing health problems. The team wishes them both well, and hope they’ll be able to return in full health soon. Because of that, I’m taking charge of the Plot temporarily, and assigning work to the active members. So far Perseus, ReishVedaur, Yuri and Silverbolt have been working hard in getting the dialogues done.

It’s comforting to know that no matter what setbacks we face, there will still be people who will see this project to the end. We’re not going to rest until Hero6 is complete. And that’s a promise.

Swift

[Perseus]

Hello, one and all.

Perseus here- this is my first attempt at writing a designer journal, so please excuse me if it isn't up to the usual standard. I'm a relatively new member of Hero6, having joined late last year, and I must say that I'm really impressed with the dedication and passion that I've seen from everyone on the team. It's a real pleasure working on this game and I eagerly await the day when we can show you the fruits of our labour.

Well then, it's been 3 months since the last update. This is a very exciting time for Hero6- there's a lot of stuff happening right now, not all of which I'm at liberty to divulge. Here's what I can tell you:

First off, Ianfe and Erasmus are both back in action, and work on plot is now moving ahead smoothly. Much work has been done on dialogues recently, thanks to the efforst of Swift, Yuri, Silverbolt, ReishVedaur and Duarh.

Our crack team of Bug-Slayers- Delta, Duarh, Servant, Demious and Swift- have been busy seeking out and vanquishing a large number of bugs.

Finally, Servant created this fine 3D render here, for very important Mystery Location:


That's all I can reveal for now. Oh yes, there’s just one more thing. Go to the ‘Look and Layout Preferences’ page in your profile and change the theme to ‘Ye Olde Tavern’ for an extra-special Hero6 anniversary treat, courtesy of Swift (who slaved away for hours designing it- just for you!). We hope you enjoy it!

Adieu,

Perseus.

[deltamatrix]

Hello to all our Hero6 fans who still visit this site. As you've probably guessed, we had some downtime due to yet another major shift in management. It cannot be denied that the Hero6 team has suffered greatly from management problems and creative direction has not been easy.
This can particularly be said for our one time creative director, Servant, who sadly found that managing such a complex team was more than he expected and eventually chose to resign. For a long while, Hero6 has since continued to develop after reorganizng to a simpler management model allowing swifter production.

Since reorganization, the main plot has been partially re-written to make it more interesting for the player and some work is being focus to improve the immersion factor for the player. This is a important step in the design of the game for allowing the player to easily pick up the plot and give a sense of direction (something some previous test builds lacked).

But this also involves some sacrifice as we have also decided to reduce the complexity of the backstory and focus more on the present. Too much background can be confusing for some players and takes a lot of work to write and implement in the game design.

So, in a nutshell, Hero6 is not dead, (in fact its probably been more alive than ever recently) and we continue to aim for the best possible quality in the final piece.