Missing the Friday Foxers? I’ve got just the thing. The first tangible product of my six-month sabbatical is Romanesque, a puzzle game inspired by the hive foxers that have been confounding Cornerites for years.
Unlike their inspirations, the themed hexagonal wordsearches in Romanesque are intended for solo play and don’t require prodigious patience or formidable general knowledge skills to solve. Thanks to customisable difficulty, instant answer feedback, and a resource called Reveal Points* everyone should be able to conquer the game’s sizeable campaign and enjoy its moreish skirmish mode.
* Only available at the lower difficulty settings, RPs can be used to buy random answers and highlight the nearest first letter of an undiscovered word. Spent cannily, they can help demystify even the most baffling hives.
The other big difference between the hives in Romanesque and traditional hive foxers, is the former are set by a silicon Roman rather than a human one. Because the letter grids in the game are randomly generated from curated word lists, you can play a particular theme countless times without encountering the same answer selection or layout. I’ve played the campaign puzzles dozens of times during testing, but thanks to that procedural twist, they still have the ability to stump and entertain.
If the prospect of unfamiliar answers and hive configurations doesn’t persuade you to revisit campaign puzzles, then the lure of medals might. As RP use and fruitless experimentation sap your score, finishing a puzzle with a medal-winning tally (70+) is always satisfying.
In early versions of Romanesque, the game was dominated by subjects close to my heart and Roman’s: military history, railways, aviation, English history etc. Ultimately, however, we decided a broader, less esoteric/anglocentric approach would be more sensible. Expect to encounter an eclectic range of themes during the campaign. Geography, science, the natural world, books, music, film, food and drink… Romanesque is guaranteed to give your general knowledge muscle a thorough workout. To avoid spoilers, all of the screenshots accompanying this piece show puzzles not included in the release version.
While I’m rather proud of Game #1, I’d be the first to admit it’s the work of a relatively green gamewright. Visually, aurally, and technically it’s not exactly AAA or indeed AA. Don’t expect bells and whistles such as music and an options screen. On the oldest machine I’ve tested it on – a decrepit 2012 laptop – it runs fine, but puzzle generation and loading can take up to 20 seconds. On Ada, my everyday rig, the transition from title to puzzle screen usually takes less than five seconds.
My goal is to sell 100 copies through itch.io. Is that absurdly optimistic? I’ll tell you in a month’s time. By then, not only should I know whether there’s a market for my relatively cheap hexy/lexy firstborn, I should also be well on the way to finishing my second apprentice piece. Chances are, Game #2 will be a bijou wargame. If Romanesque isn’t your bag, maybe ******** **** ***** will be!
Some tips for those who do decide to take the plunge:
1. If you’re really struggling with a particular puzzle, bear in mind you can always return to the title screen and reduce difficulty. At difficulty level 1 all answers are listed – all you have to do is find them in the hive.
2. I recommend that experienced defoxers play at difficulty 3 or above from the get-go. Play at 5 (No theme information or Reveal Points) if you want the feel of a Friday Foxer.
3. Be aware that occasionally a puzzle may have an acronym or two among its answers. If you find yourself baffled by a particular letter cluster, an acronym could be the reason.
4. Be sure to exit via the exit button or Escape key. Campaign progress and unfinished puzzles won’t be saved if you quit by closing the window with the corner X.
5. Puzzle colour schemes are randomly generated. Hit the C key or MMB if a default scheme is unbearably garish.
Are you one of the good eggs who keeps THC going via a subscription, or have you subscribed or donated to the Corner in the past? If the answer’s ‘yes’ I reckon you deserve a complimentary copy of Romanesque. When logged in, current subscribers should be able to obtain their gratis game via a link in this private post. Donors and retired airlifters will need to request a download link by email (Send requests to tim at tallyhocorner dot com). As my marketing strategy currently consists of ‘Put an advert in the THC sidebar, and hope early adopters enjoy it enough to recommend it to their friends’ handing out free copies to Cornerites isn’t a completely unselfish act.
Thanks for the offer of a freebie, but I’m happy to help where I can so I’ve bought a copy. Not really my sort of game but maybe I’ll while away an odd hour on it. Feel free to give my freebie copy away in a competition or something if you think it’d drum up interest.
VFRHawk
Quote from the itch page:
“If you enjoy crosswords, wordsearches, and Wordle, and TV quiz shows such as Only Connect, Countdown, and Pointless…”
is a brutal drive-by by omission on the BBC’s Hive Minds and, to a lesser extent, the set design on Channel 5’s Celebrity Puzzling.
(Quote continues “… there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy decrypting its themed word ‘hives’.”
Has slightly odd syntax – I’m assuming ‘its’ is referring to the game Romanesque itself and so should probably spell it out in full.)
I’d anticipate the most requested feature to be the ability to share (rudimentarily encyphered, so as not to be easily readable) word-lists amongst friends. If this were to happen, it’d need support for those funny letters that appear in foreign alphabets with their umlauts, hooks, cedillas, etc.
Also could do with a word on the difficulty levels. If ‘5’ is full Foxer-grade, what on earth is ‘6’?
0 to ‘game on sale’ in 2 months is excellent! Congratulations 🙂
Congratulations on your first release Tim. It’s a corker. Like VFRHawk I’ve looked the gift fox in the mouth and gladly laid down my cash for a copy as soon as Itch notified me it was available.
The scoring feels occasionally cruel, like when there are different potential ways to get the same word. But I do understand why it’s done like that. Also, I’d mention NYT’s Strands on the Itch page too, as a close relative that the Seppos might be more familiar with.
All in all, though, it’s fantastic. Soothingly addictive. I find the colour schemes really pretty too.
(oh and on my four-year-old laptop it also takes only a couple of seconds to load up a puzzle)