I've created 6 new characters for The Lucky Hive. I'm super happy with how they look and I think they really brighten the game up in terms of visuals but also the personality that they display. I think it's super important that players can select a character they want to look like in the game.

Their names are a WIP but hopefully they're illustrative of what they might look like:

1. Workerman

2. Scoutman

3. Soldierman

4. Remembriar

5. Engineerman

6. Psychicman

This is on top of the Slugman that already exists in the game. Got some new things to learn when getting these guys into the game, especially when it comes to sharing animations and ensuring that things like bone attachments (for left and right hand) sync up properly. I also need to learn a ton about how to program up the script to set the character based on the exported var type (so that you can just set the variable and the code will swap out the meshes, rigs but preserve the animations).

On a quick note, you may notice that the bodies are the exact same and only the head changes. I thought I would learn how to do multi-body bones, rigging or whatever is involved in a future game; my skillset is currently not there to have the positions on the table (like resting on the table) using IK solvers or whatever. Godot is planning on updating this in the near future as well, so there's no point in using a knowingly deprecated system that could be replaced on me tomorrow. I also stupidly deleted the high resolution base mesh for the Slugman, so I can't really go back and re-draw things like the veins or general skeleton.

Once the game is out on Steam, I'll make a post with all the concept art I made for the game and "WIP" stuff that was part of my first game. Anyway, here's a photo of all them, just blankly staring at the camera (in the order that I provided in the list above). Anyway, I'm writing this at 2am on a Monday morning, so I should probably get some sleep.

More coming soon!

Made some great progress this weekend. Added in some more visual effects, cleaned up the end of game showdown logic and also massively improved the way that players actually just interact with the room, their cards and giving their decisions some weight. There are still a lot of improvements that need to be made, such as making a "versus"-style system so you can compare hands to see who won (like a real showdown), since it's quite boring for players to slap their cards down and the winner is just announced.

Before starting that however, I'm moving onto working on some rudimentary player AI so that there can be some decisions made autonomously, rather than me just making the selection myself. Once this is done, it ties in nicely with the beginning of working on multiplayer so a demo can then be released on Steam and feedback can start to be gathered. Hoping all things go well from here, since I'm aiming for an early January 2026 release (at the earliest).

I wasn't super happy with how the players just casually dumped their cards on the table, then the camera panned around, showing them and eventually just announced who won. I wanted to have a system that cut to that player, let them have the decision to fold or reveal their hand and if they were the last person to go, then announce who had the winning hand. This way you sort of didn't "forget" who's hand was what and it was really clear who had the winning hand (or in chopped pots, who won the pot(s) <- (sidepots included)).

Making a bunch more updates, especially when it comes to visuals. Once the site can support images and other media, I'll probably upload a bunch of "pre-demo" screenshots before we release the actual demo on Steam.

I've been scratching my head trying to figure out why, on my laptop and even my PC, the framerate has been so bad for the game. I wanted the game to have little cameras attached to the player's viewport, so that you sorta had a head mount camera you could always see in your viewport. I thought it would look cool and give vibes of a Japanese game show (if you know what I'm talking about). This has given me nothing but problems in terms of performance.

I disabled all layers, disabled shadows, simply had just the player and the room in the background, which did improve performance but, in the process, totally ruined the visuals. Either it looks like an attached game show camera or nothing at all.

Ultimately I've decided to can the cameras and instead replace them with the player's Steam profile picture, since it was causing framerates to drop from 240-250 on my laptop down to 30fps consistently. It's either this: have a substandard looking camera that looks extremely low quality (even being rendered at a true 64x96 resolution, it still has to draw shadows and the background) or have high framerates. I think I know which one I'd prefer...

Maybe I'll revisit putting this back in the game at a later date when I've gotten better at Godot and just game development in general, but this feature is being sacrificed so anything with less than a 5070 can get 60fps+

Hello

This is the first blog post announcing our existence. We want to make games that are fun, combine multiple experiences together and make awesome worlds to explore and interact with.

We are working on our first game, The Lucky Hive (which you can wishlist right now on Steam). It's a game about playing poker with your friends inside The Hive, experiencing strange mechanics that increase the variety of gameplay, increases the fun and party-like experience of playing cards with your friends.

Our Goal

We want to make games that are highly enjoyable, with deep learning curves, mechanics and aesthetics that are unique. I think a lot of our games are going to be quite unique and not defined within one genre. Our first game is going to be a multiplayer card game, but we want to make bigger and bigger games as we get better, more refined in our visual design and more experienced in what makes a great video game.

We are making games for ourselves really, so if you get a lot of enjoyment out of our games then this has all been worth it.

Inspirations

Who knows where things will go, but I'd like to thank these games and people in advance as a huge source of inspiration to want to make games:

Games

1. Kenshi

2. RimWorld

3. Stardew Valley

4. Factorio

5. Deus Ex

6. Runescape

7. Starbase

8. SOMA

9. Signalis

10. Minecraft

11. Jump King

12. Dark Souls

13. Limbo of the Lost

There's so many games that we've played collectively, but I think these 13 games have been the most important in terms of shaping our appreciation for game design, creativity, sound design, music and the fact that small teams can make incredible games.

People / Creators

1. Notch (Minecraft, Levers & Chests)

2. Chris Hunt (Kenshi)

3. Eric Barone (Stardew Valley, Haunted Chocolatier)

4. Tynan Sylvester (RimWorld)

5. Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails)

6. Joel Zimmerman (deadmau5)

7. Klaus Schulze

8. Mick Gordon

9. Terry A. Davis

Personally I would attribute these 9 people to be the most important in terms of proving that you can create things amazingly as a single man and have the power to create lasting changes with simply believing in what you're doing and seeing it through to the end.

Alright, that's enough waffle. We'll make more posts about the game as its nearing ready for a demo release on Steam. The site will also be updated over time to support things like files, comments/suggestions/feedback and also just other stuff (like visual display pages, concept art pages and whatnot).