The hands behind HexBench

I'm Wren. I make HexBench. Not a team, not a studio with a logo and a standup. Just me.

I've run games for years, and I love the tools that got us here. Foundry especially. I was inspired by the people who built this stuff before me. This isn't me saying they did it wrong.

Here's how it actually started. I was pushing a VTT further than it was built to go, wiring up my own code and the features I always wanted to play with. It worked. It was also too slow to really use. All these ideas I loved, and the tech underneath couldn't keep up.

That's when it clicked. I knew Rust well enough to know I could build this from the ground up and make it fast. Fast enough that the features I wanted weren't a someday wish, they were possible now. So I started.

The Client is free, and a Host License is a one-time purchase with perpetual hosting rights. You run the server on hardware you control, and your campaign data stays yours. HexBench itself remains proprietary and closed-source. That's the floor, not the pitch. The pitch is speed, and what speed lets you build.

I care about the small stuff more than I probably should. Details nobody would call necessary, and every one of them is the difference between a tool and a table you want to sit at. I'd rather get it right than get it shipped.

And I'm not taking funding. No investors, no publisher, no VC in my ear telling me to bolt on a battle pass or chase some engagement metric. HexBench gets to be exactly what I think it should be, built with my own taste and the people at the table in mind, and nothing else. The only people I answer to are the ones who play it. That's the whole deal, and it isn't changing.

About the AI question

I'll be straight with you, because this crowd deserves straight. I use AI as a tool while I build, for feedback, for the boring parts, for talking through a hard problem at 2am when there's no one else awake. The engine, the design, the decisions, the taste: those are mine. I'm not generating a game and slapping my name on it. I'm building one, by hand, and using every good tool I can to build it better. If that matters to you, I respect that, and now you know exactly where I stand.

About where it is now

I'll be straight about the timeline. I meant to keep building this in private a lot longer before anyone saw it. Life moved my dates up, so it's reaching you earlier than I wanted.

I won't pretend otherwise. I hate putting out things that aren't done, and this isn't done. It isn't close to everything it's going to be.

So I'm not calling it finished. I'm going to keep building it until it's right. Right in my eyes, and right in the eyes of the people who actually play it. However long that takes. You're not getting a finished game. You're getting in early on one I will not stop working on.

HexBench isn't out yet, and I work heads-down, not in public. When the Founder's Alpha opens, getting in early means the founder's price and a real say in what gets built next, not just a tier name. For now, the best thing you can do is leave your email and tell me what you want at your table.