I’m excited to read the new chapter, and happy to hear your progress @PParrish !
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How did you increase your resolve stat? I took the advice of licking any magic stone I found for occult but no obvious way to increase resolve
Putting yourself in danger, standing up to people in authority/speaking out of turn and getting away with it, facing down a badger (chapter 3) and so on are the sorts of things that I reward with an increase to resolve.
Don’t worry if it’s not going through the roof, I think my highest resolve check at the moment is 55 for success. There are other checks where just having a bit (35-40) will help.
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I have a question about traitors. Are they chosen randomly or does it depend on player’s demeanor?
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Code spoilers Yep it’s randomly pick at the start of a new game
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I also have a further plan for this! (No specific spoilers for who the traitor(s) are here, just musing about how random things should be): I’m not sure yet if this is possible to code, but I want to try to ‘weight’ it after a completed run so that it’s less likely that you get the same person as the traitor straight away. If all else fails, I can probably brute force it by adding a ‘roll again’ flag based off an achievement or something like that. Then ideally go back to it being fully random once all three have been experienced by the player.
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Speaking of this I have a question. Does the identity of the traitor affect the story a lot? If the traitor is different, will there be different plot in the game?
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Regarding the effects of the traitor’s identity on the plot: Every potential traitor has a different motive, and will go about their goal in a slightly different way - so the player will see a unique version of events in that sense. But I don’t want to oversell, there aren’t major plot changes for each of the three. It’s more along the lines of flavour and adding a little incentive for replaying.
To give a bit more of a specific example (definite spoiler here!): If Henri Marriete is the traitor, then their renovation of a chapel within Christ Church Cathedral will be a factor in the story. Not a huge thing, but a difference between the three.
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If we choose to go by hexfinder can we make it a thing where we finally reveal our name, to our friends or RO?
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Yes, once you go far enough down a romance path then that person will want to know your name. I hadn’t considered it for a close friendship, but that would make sense too.
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Yes I just love how everybody reacts when it’s just Hexfinder. But personally like friends/Ro to be able to call us by name when it’s just us.
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Merry post-Solstice everybody! Time for a ~minor update~ on Hexfinder.
I had hoped to have Chapter Ten done for this date, but that has turned out not to be the case. Usual reasons, it got lengthier than anticipated. It is, at present, the longest chapter in the game at 120k words, with (I’d estimate) another 15-20k to go before it’s done. I very much expect to have that section finished early in the new year.
Top tip for prospective authors: If you engineer a situation where any one of four people can be the PCs confidante, and any one of three of those people might also be a traitor, AND you can tell this person some/all/none of the many and variable things the PC has discovered over the course of the game to date … well, you get to do a lot of writing. Some of it can be reused, of course. Much of it cannot.
Yes, this chapter features a lot of catching up with companions and courtiers!
While I’ve been writing this, CoG developed an in-code chapter checkpoint save system. That is extremely cool and I will be taking the time to add it to Hexfinder once this current chapter is complete.
I want to add it to Mask of the Plague Doctor too, but no promises on when that might happen.
That’s it. Sorry there aren’t more words for you to read yet. Have a heretical holiday, one and all! 
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Since the game is very long now and going to be even longer in the next update can you put in some more saves to make it easier to test things unless you are going to get rid of the dashingdon saves when you put in the checkpoints
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This is indeed the plan 
My intention for the next update is to switch to an HTML export with per-chapter checkpoints, as described in this post about the new features.
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Out of interest, who did the lovely cover art for Hexfinder?
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All discussions about the cover art were via CoG editorial (I’d receive concepts/sketches to comment on, but not direct from the creator) so I’m afraid I don’t actually know!
@Mary_Duffy can you reveal our mystery artist?
I may as well use this post to update on progress too! Clearly, the “finish Chapter Ten quite soon after New Year” hope went in the bin - but that section now complete (hurrah, huzzah). It was an absolute slog, a true nadir, where forcing out a few hundred words in a day felt like significant progress. Which is why it took A YEAR. Oh well, we’ve all been there.
As planned, I’ve now added per-chapter checkpoints to the game. I’ll share that version (with Chapter Ten!) pretty soon.
Chapter Eleven was started in mid-April and is going much smoother. Already 15k to the good with that one and, more importantly, actually enjoying it again
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Who wants to play Chapter Ten?
There are now TWO ways to play this WiP. Double the fun.
A compiled html version with chapter checkpoints (ooh) can be found here, or in the first post of this thread:
Hexfinder-June2024build.html (5.0 MB)
It should save your progress at the start of each chapter, allowing you to return to this point whenever you wish through the stats menu (it’s an option at the bottom called ‘Chapter Checkpoints’.) Let me know how this is working, it’s my first go at it…
For those who just want a Dashingdon version, you can still play the Ten Chapter build here. I’ve upped the number of save slots to five: https://dashingdon.com/play/pparrish/hexfinder/mygame/
I think this will be the last Dashingdon branch for Hexfinder. I’ve got two more chapters to write, and the twelve chapter version will be the big beta test before release. I will probably upload an eleven chapter version in html compiled/chapter checkpoint form as the last open WiP build. At least that’s my plan at the moment
Feedback and comments welcome! The game’s getting very branchy with lots of callbacks at this point, so I’m especially looking to fix any places where that has gone wrong (it references something you didn’t do, someone who is dead, you think you’ve been sent to the wrong branch of story by accident and so on).
Alternatively, just play and enjoy. And don’t forget to like and subscri wishlist on Steam 
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Hmm I’m getting a sneaking suspicion that when Henri is the “traitor” the queen knows about it or at least suspect it. Should make Parliamentarian players very happy in that case. Anyways I will post more in depth feedback later today when I get a full run done along with reading the code a few more times for any errors. Still trying to decide who to romance with my main mc. I really like the relationship between a zealot mc and Nico where they still get along, on the otherhand Anna whom cynicism I greatly enjoy
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Loose multireplace with Anna after retrieving Cromwell’s head.
More loose brackets after saying we work well together.
This was really good! Utterly oozed with atmosphere, weirdly the inclusivity of the setting really helped with that. It really feels like a history that should not be, an England where something has gone far off the rails. Like a funhouse mirror of the English Civil War. I had a great time with it, very much looking forwards to the full release.
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