What is Retreat to Unknown Hex?

In 2022 (which is this year, I write this post for the future readers) I started to make some TTRPGs.

At first I had this initial plan for creating a post-apocalyptic adventure, with makeshift weapons, ruins of modern stores like SevenEleven or McDonalds and a bunch of radioactive monsters. Day one, I already wrote several pages of mechanism on character creation, mechanism on stats (which I took a copy from AD&D 2e GM's Guide) and early flow of story. Day three, I got too focus on drawing a map of the first starting village, neglecting the production and progress of the fundamental ones - the game itself. At that point, I still didn't know about the existence of Itch, donjon, Dyson's Logos, etc. All I know was I just want to make my own adventure game.

That's it.

Several months later, I finished my first OnePageRPG, with adopted mechanism from Tunnel Goons and with an office-themed setting. I could say I AM proud of this.

I never played D&D at all. I never played any TTRPG before. I played boardgames like Monopoly and Chutes/Snakes & Ladders (here we called it "Ular Tangga"). I never know anything called an SRD or system reference document before, or something called a random tables or oracles or a 2d12+2 or THAC0 or DC and so on and so on. One part of TTRPG (D&D maybe) that I know since the old days were Bestiary. I love to look at all the monsters illustrations and reading their attacks and defences. Back then, I give zero facks about the stats or anything beside those three. I look up at the internet, searched Bestiary on Google while hopping to find some interesting pdf with a pagefull illustration of griffin, trolls, monsters and other fantasy faunas (or maybe floras). Sometimes the internet gave me something I want, but sometimes they led me to some dodgy website that I don't want to remember at all.

This was a brand new experience for me. From only loving the illustrations and now creating the story, mechanism and the monsters itself, this is an absolute experience gain. I don't know is this project will succeed or not. But I think I just want to make a game for myself that I could played for myself and maybe with several of my friends.

That's enough about me and my backstory. Now for the main question:

What is Retreat to Unknown Hex?

This blog will be the place for me to share things that I had in my mind about the development of my own games, new games announcements, things I learn from another games, things I want to explore from another games (expecially about mechanism), or anything that having some relation with ttrpg - like testing and reviewing a solo rpg I found on Itch, or creating some random tables for players out there could adopt.

The title Retreat to Unknown Hex was taken from one of my published minigame called Walk of the Candy, which also my first attempt on creating a hexcrawl rpg.

I think that's it.

Thanks for reading.