April Dev Diary
Apr 2026
Last month I posted about the game I have been working on, Hyperspace Frontiers, and how excited I have been about the direction it’s going in. This post is something of a Developer Diary I guess, as much as for me to take stock of what’s been done and how much is still to do. I haven’t exactly been posting these blogs anywhere so maybe it’s worth going back to read that for context.
The vast majority of the last month has been focused on writing, play-testing, and world-building. In some ways that has been really great, but at times it has felt like never moving forward. Constantly tweaking and revising the rules until the game feels right is, I think, incredibly important.
As of right now, I have locked down the core rules. This feels huge for me. The game feels great to play and everything else that I think it can be is meant to come later. In some ways nothing is ever truly finished and I’m sure changes will be made along the way, but I am very pleased with the rules as they are now.
There was a moment in a recent game right at the end where I was close to a narrow victory. If I could just take out this one last character it would put me up by 1 instead of settling for a draw. I had the right guy for the job. He packs a punch sufficient to knock an enemy back, this proved important. I charge him into combat, prepare to crush my enemy, but they dodge. That’s fine, they can’t escape combat just manoeuvre around me, the hit lands!
It doesn’t kill them.
It DOES knock them back.
Right into an uncontested objective. The game ends. They score an additional point for that objective. My opponent had seen this and I had completely missed it, lined themselves up and hoped for the best - and it paid off! This was one of several moments in this game with really interesting emergent effects, the interplay between different skills creating really unique and interesting outcomes. I have never been happier to lose a game.
I have also progressed on the actual rule book design, I have something I feel really pleased with and have completed a lot of the layouts - pending some art I’m working on. I hit upon something of an idea that just feels perfect for the artwork, hear me out on this one.
It is a colouring book (if you want it to be).
I love drawing with fine liners (or the digital equivalent). A nice 0.3 tip and I’ll happily draw all day. I’m pretty sure if I was studying art the teacher would tell me that I need to expand into other mediums but I have loved this style for a long time. Also, just to be clear, I am not a highly skilled artist, but I’d still rather do this myself.
So the artwork is “complete” in the books. It’s just that it also leaves room for you to colour it, customise it, alter it as you please.
This makes so much sense to me. I have said before that the thing I love most about designing miniatures is seeing what others make of them. Seeing how other people build off what’s there to create something entirely new is probably the most gratifying and unexpected result of this thing I started. So why can’t the book be the same? I think the artwork looks great as it is, but I want people to make it their own.
Lastly I’ll touch on where I’m at with the world building. At some point I decided that it would be a good idea to start drafting some of these Episodes I’ve talked about in advance, not to get a head start, but because it will help inform the designs I’m doing just now. I had kept the rules very light on the world building because there is no single look to this galaxy, I didn’t want to establish a “default” environment to play in.
I really enjoyed doing this. I am so excited to get to a point where I can start just creating Episodes. Having an idea and then just diving straight in, whether that’s making new rules, creating stories, scenarios, miniatures, or art (or something else entirely).
This process also altered the plan slightly. Originally I was aiming to create Seasons where there would be more than one book released exploring a specific region or theme. I think it is actually far better to make each Episode it’s own thing, exploring a single idea in a focused way. It creates more opportunity for adding more interesting things into the game. Future Episodes can always return to a familiar area to expand on it if there is something worth exploring.
I don’t want to say too much until it’s set in stone but the first 3 Episodes are currently planned to take us from gladiatorial combat for fun and profit, to unravelling the mysteries of a gloomy backwater world, and on to the ruthless world of prospecting on the frontier. After that, well there’s a lot of directions this thing could go.
So that’s where I’m at for mid-April. The next step is some miniatures and art, along with a few other small things, before I start looking at launching this thing. I won’t be doing any big launches, it’s all going to be available to print and play when it’s done, and I will try to make sure there are print on demand things available for the books and miniatures as well. Stay tuned and keep being excellent to each other.
-Callie