Tukkek’s blog

Hello, friends and foes!

I am Alex Henry, a game-author and this is my site! I plan to release several games with most of them being old-school RPGs.

This site hosts all the news for my projects. Use the navigation bar to read more about any particular project!

You can also add the news feed link to your news reader!

If you want to learn more about me; my work and my goals then continue reading this page!

My dream is to make all my games open-source, if you would like to help make this a reality consider contributing a dollar on https://www.patreon.com ! 🤍

Series

I plan to develop 3 series of games simultaneously:

Most games will offer easy; fair and hard difficulties and a high-difficulty achievement as an ultimate challenge.

I design most games to have around 2 hours of play-time but also very-high replay-value for either a second or infinite replays!

Genre definitions

For me the RPG genre in the digital realm is defined by strategic combat based on turns with a team of allied units.

I have never known other definition that respects the table-top roots of the genre while also providing good classification. Other popular definitions are either hard to use in practice or are so ill-defined they see even platformers and shooters as RPGs.

A lot of the games labeled RPGs for me have just adopted some elements of the genre like kits and character progression.

Some of my games take an active-pause approach to implementing turns, as seen in titles such as Final Fantasy 12 and Tyranny.

Rogue influences

I subscribe to the definition of what makes a game like Rogue (or rogue-like) proposed by the Berlin Interpretation. The Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup philosophy section by DPEG is also an excellent addendum not only for RPGs but all game-design!

I make a distinction between a Rogue-clone that hits nearly all the checks in the Berlin Interpretation and a Rogue-light which takes features from Rogue and uses them loosely or fuses them with other genres. Javelin is a clone; Diablo is light.

Most of my games are not strict clones but lean heavily on Rogue elements like procedural generation and high replay-value.

Release schedule

I aim to schedule 2 launches per year, with most games going through a beta phase one year then a full-release the next year.

Ideally my yearly schedule would be aligned with the 4 Steam sales:

Betas

Betas (or early access) are versions of a product containing only the essentials rather than a complete package.

They are meant to:

Here are some of the features for my games that may be missing from a beta that will usually be delivered on a full release:

Translations

My games are usually developed with English as a primary language. I speak relatively decent French; Portuguese; and Spanish.

This would mean 1 in every 4 to 8 people in the world could play my games in one of those, which is not too bad for 1 guy.

I have also been learning Ido which is a dialect of Esperanto, if I am ever fluent in it I would love to add it as a fifth language!

Other languages could be supported by community translations but this comes with technical; moderation and quality issues. Hiring professional translators would also be possible if there is enough demand for certain other languages to be included.

Pricing

During sales my full games will be at a 50% discount and beta games will also be sold at that price-point until their full release.

Buying the games on day 1 will also carry the same discount as they are released during a Steam sale event!

There will also be 3 bundles, one for each of the series, with all games in them. They will be permanently discounted at 50% off.

I believe all entertainment should be free and supported by people who want to see more from their favorite creators.

The free demonstrations for my works will be the full game minus some minor features such as achievements and cloud-saves.

I am also committed to open-sourcing all my games if I am ever able to make a reasonable living through monthly donations.

Platforms

Personal computers are my primary platform for development and gaming and will also be my main release target.

I have been nearly-exclusively using Linux since I was an adolescent but will also support Windows and likely Macs as well!

I think my Explorer and Adventurer series would be good fits for mobile and portable devices but I am not a mobile gamer.

My wish-list of secondary platforms to support would be:

  1. Steam Deck
  2. Mobile
  3. Play Station and PS Portal
  4. Nintendo Switch

If I reach my crowd-funding goals I may work on porting my games or rely on others to port their open-source code.

Music

I am an autodidact multiinstrumentalist and have absolute pitch! I play all major types of instruments (except wind) and sing.

I am more of an improviser than a composer but I hope my music skills are at least good enough to make my own sound-tracks.

I have also dabbled in electronic music but am very-much an amateur on that front!

My favorite music is Heavy Metal, from Technical Death Metal to Power Metal (but my sound-tracks are unlikely to reflect that).

Artificial intelligence

I am ambivalent about AI.

I think it is a major existential threat to Humanity on a global level but also a Pandora-box that cannot be closed once opened.

I use bots strictly in a supporting role, including: brain-storming; editing text; altering images; research; transcription…

AI-generation is never the first seed nor the last product of any content in my games.

In regards to coding:

Collaborations

Please send me samples of your work and expected pay via mail if you are a writer or digital artist interested in collaborating.

Any surplus crowd-funded support will go towards hiring talented people to continue making bigger and better games.

Politics

I am a centrist and unfortunately that means that people on both the left and the right often dislike me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I like politics in the sense of political philosophy, the ideals behind governing people. For me what most people call and discuss as politics leans more to governance, the daily details of who is in power and what is being done and achieved.

As utopian ideals I sympathize with anarchy; minimal government; basic universal income and resource-based economies. I do not advocate; have particularly strong feelings; am an expert; nor regularly study or think about any of these topics.

I am unlikely to talk politics with any person on the Internet and do not have much else to say than what is written here.

Due to its divisive nature all the shared spaces for my projects have a ban on political topics. Discuss them on any other space.

I believe gaming should be an escape from real-world problems and bring us all closer rather than drive us apart.

Links

Credits

See the credits page.