Not the SteamFest | Hard Void

This is an article series dedicated to the smaller developers, some of whom may not have managed to get onto the SteamFest. While we at eXplorminate do like the bigger games in the genre (Eo, Old World, Age of Wonders etc) I thought this was a great chance to highlight visibility for the smaller developers. I think the best ideas often come from smaller developers, who are more willing to bend the rules, challenge conventions and take risks. 

Game: Hard Void

Developer: jejoxdev (same name on Discord)

Website: https://hardvoid.com/

Genre: 4X, Strategy, Lovecraftian

Engine: custom engine

Platform: PC, Linux, and Windows, Steam

In the words of jejoxdev himself:

HARD VOID is a 4X turn-based space strategy game with PS1/Dreamcast retro-aesthetics and a Lovecraftian-inspired theme. You control a civilization that, after surviving apocalyptic events, discovers faster-than-light travel under mysterious circumstances. Your civilization goal is to restore its past glory and survive while navigating its new reality as a FTL-capable species: deal with the newly discovered paranoid space-faring neighbors that suspiciously discovered FTL-travel at the same time, explore and conquer the multiple universes, witness weird and subversive mindbending events, and avoid drawing the attention of the cosmic horrors that await in the darkness of space and beyond.

HARD VOID is meant to offer a classic gameplay feel, integrating most of the sci-fi tropes in the genre while introducing some experimental ideas. The multiverse of HARD VOID is cruel and unforgiving. Expect the odds to be against you most of the time. HARD VOID is combat-focused, expect multiple and early conflicts against other civilizations, and be crushed by ancient, incomprehensible beings. One of the core game philosophies is avoiding HARD limits. There is no limit to the number of buildings on a planet or the size of ships. Grow to your heart’s content!

HARD VOID is turn-based, both inside and outside battles. Outside-battle turns are simultaneous: all players issue their orders at the same time, and these are resolved once all players finish. This is to avoid long waits in multiplayer games. The combat system is also designed to avoid long battles by grouping ships into fleets that act together.

Some of the game features:

• The economic system in HARD VOID is based on production chains of resources, including raw and processed materials and more abstract ones like research, industrial capacity, and orbital lift capacity. Build semiconductor factories, launch platforms, and orbital telescopes. You have to build multiple of them to increase your output. The number of resources is large, and there will be a variety of ways to produce the same thing. Resources cannot be easily stockpiled, so it’s your job to efficiently manage the resources and avoid waste. Your economic situation will be reflected in the planetary structures you build, the modules in your ship designs, and your trade networks.
  
• HARD VOID will give you huge freedom when making your designs. Your ship design is only constrained by space. You can put multiple different propulsion systems or none! Select your power supply, weapons, sensors, computers, defenses, population modules, construction modules, etc., and put as many as you can of each to increase their effects.
  Further customize your systems by tweaking adjustable parameters like size, ammo capacity, and mount type. You can also design orbital and ground units: land, air, and sea. Expect your designs to cost a variety of resources and to be resupplied. Each one of your launched nuclear missiles has a cost. The ship hulls are generated procedurally, and the external ship systems are actually shown in the ship.

• Research in HARD VOID is divided into branches and works a bit differently. When you research a new technology, the old ones don’t become obsolete. Each technology can be researched multiple times to increase the effectiveness of the related ship modules and structures, keeping old ship modules as valid options. New technology is not meant to replace old, but to increase the variety of strategic choices. Improve fission technology to improve your nuclear missiles damage and the nuclear reactors output. There is a special branch, the Forbidden Knowledge branch, that represents the knowledge beyond science. This unlocks powerful systems and effects but can only be gathered by means that will make your civilization approach the void. Maybe certain knowledge should never have been discovered.
• The game features a procedural narrative metaevent system. In-game events can be triggered by player interactions with the game, such as building a colony, exploring a planet, or destroying a fleet. All interactions can produce narrative events that can affect all game systems in many ways. The events reference actual playthrough locations, fleets, ships, and characters. The game will have a large overarching plot, but the narrative system is freeform. There is a large variety of non-linear paths to take to make each playthrough more memorable.
• HARD VOID happens in a procedurally generated multiverse, and there are multiple space travel methods that include inter-dimensional capable ones to explore it. Each dimension can be explored and conquered, and may have a different structure and/or physical laws than the one you come from. Expect exotic resources and weird gameplay effects in those.
  A unique feature of HARD VOID is its combat system. Combat is turn-based, where ships act together in fleets alongside ground forces and planetary structures in the same battle. Ships contribute to the fleets by sharing some of their system capabilities, such as point defenses and sensor systems. Each ship system of each ship in each fleet is simulated individually, firing each weapon and activating effects individually when it is pertinent. Weapons and systems only work in their assigned range brackets, with the longest range fighters and the shortest range bombs and atmospheric-entry deploy systems. Planetary features, like gravity strength, atmospheric density, and composition, affect combat gameplay. There is collateral damage and hazard damage: Radiological, Biological, Chemical, and cognito-hazards that affect your ships crews and colonies productivity.

Early Access is expected for Oct 2025, based on the demo build, but with a large amount of added content and features. Full release is expected for late 2026.

The team:

jejoxdev, I have been a strategy game enthusiast since childhood, a PhD in physics student, and have been a solo indie game developer for about 1 year. I work full solo: 2d artist, music production, 3d artist, programmer, etc. I decided to make HARD VOID to experiment with all the ideas I gathered from years of playing strategy games, so I can materialize my vision of a 4X game.

eXplorminate Thoughts:

I think Hard Void has 2 key things going for it, the implementation of which will either lift, or sink the game. 1st, is the unit design system. From Steam:

“Design your ships

HARD VOID allows the design of your own spaceships with the selection of multiple ship systems: Weapons, Defense modules, Power sources, Sensors and more. Each ship system can be further customized with several parameters.

Additionally, the spaceship hulls are unique and generated procedurally.”

This will either be great fun, or busywork, all depending on how it feeds into the next key thing, which is combat. Again, from Steam:

“In HARD VOID combat is turn-based, ships are grouped into fleets and commanded as a whole in large space battles. 

The combat system allows simultaneous participation of both space and ground forces: Fleets, orbital structures, planetary surface structure, land, air and sea units.”

All in all, this is one to watch. Best of luck Jejoxdev.

Trailer

Demonstration

Steam 

eXplorminate Discord channel

HARD VOID has a Demo available on Steam and itch.io 

eXplorminate Outro: 

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