Welcome back to the crazy tales of development corner for Hero's Hour.

Since the last update, I've been hard at work creating a custom map editor. Or, well, half of the full custom map editor package. This half is known as the node map editor, and allows you to create custom maps by editing the nodes that the procedural map generator uses.

This is actually a highly sophisticated tool that makes creating custom maps in Hero's Hour a quick endeavour. It has built-in functionality for creating symmetric maps that ensure fairness, and as mentioned, it uses the procedural map generator to fill out any stuff you leave undefined.

If you want to, that is. Almost everything can be configured, including turning symmetry off as well as toggling on or off random map objects. You can have as much control as you want, or as little.

This also means that finally, unfair maps are coming to Hero's Hour. Such as this one shown above, named Surrounded, in which you're surrounded by a single enemy controlling three Decay towns. Luckily, they can't merge their armies without going through your territory, and you have some extra gold mines at your disposal.

Surrounded is one of five custom maps included with the update. They're made in part to show how the node map editor works, since they can be edited as if the map was your own.

Any map you yourself make will be saved locally and will of course remain through updates to the game. The nodemap files can be found at:

C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Hero_s_Hour\custom maps

If you want to share your custom map with someone, simply give them the nodemap file (around 20-50 kb size) and have them place it within the same folder. It will work between free and premium versions, and probably also between different future updates.

You can find the map editor as well as the new maps within this new tab called Custom Maps within the map selection screen. You can enter the editor either by clicking "NEW" at the bottom of the map list or by clicking "EDIT" after selecting one of the maps.

Since I also want the custom map editor to be useful for the campaign, I am implementing some extra features, such as supporting custom maps where you do not have a town. One of these features are Hostages, a new map object which holds some caged units that will join you when you interact with it. You can also turn off the new Seven Day Rule, which would otherwise kill all heroes and regiments that do not have a town on their side for seven days. As well as of course define the map objects such that a player starts with a hero but not with a town.

There's honestly a lot of different objects you can place. You can specify type as well as several settings for each type. It sounds incredibly dry when I'm describing it. I think the best way will be for you to try it out for yourself, play around with it a bit.

I do need to note that despite trying to make the custom map editor as intuitive and powerful as possible, it's not considered a core feature. As such, I have slackened my normal standards for UI quality and information minimalism. This also means the custom map editor is not being translated, at least not for a good while. I kind of need to choose some places to use polish, and some places that I can leave up for rapid development - and the map editors will be focused on rapid development, at least for a good while. Maybe I'll have a change of heart just before finishing up development. Until then, you'll have to learn by doing.

A custom map editor? How is this not a major 1.2 release instead of a dinky minor 1.1.7 update?

For a couple of reasons. First, I want to finish Tide, the 9th faction, as a major feature of v 1.2. I think it'll become unlockable by defeating the Surrounded custom map, just to see what people think of this idea and that map. It's quite close to finished, apart from missing the implementation of the two faction hero skills and the three faction unique town buildings.

Already in this update, you can get a sneak peek at the Tide faction by fiddling around with the custom map editor and starting the player out with a Tide town.

Secondly, I still want to do more work on the custom map editor. Hear what people are still missing after playing around with the improved editor. I'll also try to replace the current Tutorial map with a basically identical map that's made in the custom map editor.

For that level of detail though, I'll probably also have to implement the tile editor tool, which is the "other half" of the custom map editor. The tile editor will probably be even more hacky than the node map editor. But it's a tool needed to make the Hero's Hour campaign, and as much as is possible, I want to share any such tool with the rest of y'all.

Things take time. I've been busy with family stuff for the last week, which is one part of why things have taken so long. But honestly, there's just a lot of things to do and just a single one of me. But I'm spreading myself out flexibly, and have for instance produced these unit demos while I was unable to program.

There's still so much I want to do, but things take time. I think I'll stop promising stuff. I won't set a date to v 1.2 release. It'll happen when it happens. And when it does happen, it'll be awesome.

I have a request for you. Whether you're new or have followed Hero's Hour for a long time, please come join the Hero's Hour discord - I've recently added a Custom Maps channel, where you can find custom maps that others have made, or share your own. Seeing the creativity people have had with the earlier,  very limited node map editor has been a treat. Any feedback as to custom map editor features etc. is also super duper welcome.

Apart from that, I'm wishing all of you a great summer with warm weather for those who feel cold, and a fresh breeze for the rest of us.

- ThingOnItsOwn