- Devlog #2 Released! - 5 September 2026
I've released the latest devlog video for the Lucky Hive on YouTube! This video is mainly about the overhauled character decision algorithms and animation systems.
- First Devlog Video Released! - 17 August 2026
I put out a devlog a few days ago showcasing The Lucky Hive and development progress thus far. It's about 8 minutes long and I give some narration as to my thoughts and ideas when creating the game.If you want to give it a watch, be my guest! I put a lot of effort into trying to cover almost everything but not waffle, especially since this is an establishing video (and my first ever video that's had effort put into it).Thanks again and I'll be posting more updates soon. Got some cool stuff I've been working on (namely in the realm of player AI and visual upgrades before launch).
- Motoracing Minigame! - 31 July 2026
I've finished the 4th and by far the largest minigame in The Lucky Hive: Motoracing!This minigame is all about speed, cornering and beating out the competition. It's a table-wide game, so if someone uses it, anyone who has a hand (i.e not folded and not spectating) will partake in the race. It's a winner takes all scenario, so the challenger must come first or no reward will be dished out!This minigame has taken a lot longer because of the fact that it's an arcade racer game built into The Lucky Hive and my maths skills aren't the greatest, so a lot of time has been spent learning about trigonometry, radians, dot products, vectors and scalars, but it works and I'm super happy with it.This minigame is an absolute blast and I'm definitely using the code written for this in a future game.Here's some screenshots from footage I've recorded and what the finished minigame looks like (first few…
- Next Minigame - Icebreaker! - 5 July 2026
Hey guys, just thought I'd post an update saying that I'm back working on The Lucky Hive full time. The next minigame is underway, being the Icebreaker minigame! Obviously this is a work in progress (hence the white capsule in the centre) but I think it's going to be a ton of fun.This minigame will be all about rhythm. Do you have a better groove than your opponent in cracking the ice? Swing your pickaxe in an increasingly tighter and tighter window to crack open the ancient Slug creature first and take chips off them!Another big thing is taking feedback from the demo and making some quality of life changes with the other two minigames, also generally providing little explainers and whatnot about what the challenge is and what skills are being tested.More updates to come soon!
- Thanks For NextFest! - 27 June 2026
Thank you to everyone who has played the demo and joined the wishlist for The Lucky Hive! It means an awful lot to see so many people playing the game last week.I have made a list of things that need to be improved based on feedback that I've received, including tweaking and optimising timings of things, bugs with the general gameplay and minigames and more. After those are done, I'm going to finish the remainder of the maps, minigames and introduce some new items like custom cosmetics and then work on the polish before release.Again, it means so much to me to see so many people playing (and the few of you I see who are playing the game every day). I hope you're enjoying Slug Poker just as much as I am and I'm looking forward to finishing the game and having it released in a short time (probably a month or two, depending on my day job work schedule).
- v0.7.91 - Demo Released, New Minigame, NextFest - 15 June 2026
We are finally here. NextFest begins in a few hours and I am pretty happy with the state of the game going in. There's lots in the game and lots not in the game, but I hope that as you play, you appreciate what I am trying to do with The Lucky Hive and the direction it's going as a party poker game!I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts and feedback on the demo (even if it's harsh), it really means a lot to me to hear what you think, what can be improved, what you don't like and/or suggestions for things to go into the game for the full release. I have a pretty good idea what I want but I will never ignore the opinion of someone who plays my games.A new trailer has been released showcasing some of the things that are included in the demo (mainly highlighting the two minigames and the 4 maps), but included is a new track that was made for the Western Showdown minigame. It absolute…
- Multiple Maps & Arm Wrestling Minigame - 4 June 2026
Super happy to be releasing the newest update for The Lucky Hive: 3 new maps and the first minigame, Arm Wrestling!As the game gears up to Steam NextFest, I'm trying to get as much put into the game that I want on the full release as part of the demo. If I can get the next minigame in (Western Showdown/Dueling), then that would be even better, considering that The Lucky Hive Demo will be available on June 16th when NextFest starts.This update also comes with a ton of bugfixing, including better netcode, lobby creation support, limited the surface area for potential crashes or problematic gameplay (things not behaving as you would expect them to). Performance is still really good, although you may notice the minigame sometimes lags a little. I am looking into why this is happening and will most likely release a hotfix to sort that out once I've had more time to play the minigame against…
- v0.7 & Beta Release & Demo Ready - 19 May 2026
Super happy to have the game in a beta state now. Trying to pack in as much content for the game before NextFest, just so I can have something released that I'm happy with.For the most part, the game is feature complete. Everything I set out to do initially is now done. There are some stretch goals I would like to get into the game, including multiple maps, character cosmetics like hats, little card protectors, emotes and new card packs based on different happenings in the game.Anyway, this is a little victory for this game and I would hope a great start to our game development story.
- v0.6.23 - Changing Seats, Winning Screen, Bugfixing - 16 May 2026
Update to The Hive!You can now change seats within the new lobby area, alongside improvements to how the new lobby works (more visual transparency for changing game settings such as the amount of money each player starts with, the decision timer and having loading spinners for players who have joined the lobby but have not yet loaded in).The winning screen now has more logic for handling player decisions during a game, such as largest amount won in a pot, best hand strength taken to the showdown and total amount won (you can abuse this by just shoving all in every round and forcing everyone to fold though!).There's also been a ton of little bugs that have been fixed, ranging from the main menu, to the new lobby UI, to the game menu, showdown menu, handling of player decisions, sound effects, spectating, a new UI input guide for new players and more.Future UpdatesThere's going to be more…
- V0.6.12 - New 3D Main Menus! - 5 May 2026
The Hive just got a whole new makeover in the form of a new 3D main menu medley that covers the different characters, their natural habitat, their daily behaviours and an insight into their characters. What it also entices is the future of multiple maps for playing Slug Poker! That's right, multiple maps are coming to The Hive, most likely after NextFest happens and we have our demo launched.Anyway, here's some screenshots of some of the new thumbnails! Can't wait to release the demo and you guys get to experience The Hive.
- v0.5.9.98 - New Netcode, Heaps of Bugs Fixed - 26 April 2026
New update to The Lucky Hive, with lots of bugs fixed, improving stability, performance and the quality of poker in The Hive!The whole game's netcode has been rewritten to be more Host-dominant. What this means is that less reliance is placed on the player to tell everyone about their decision, instruct animations or player behaviour and UI updates. Almost all of this is relayed to the Host first, who then instructs everyone else to perform actions in the game. Not only does this place more reliance on the Host, it also means that players who are lagging are not subjected to weird behaviours or unpredictable logic since non-host players no longer control ownership of data, timers and animations.Also gearing up for NextFest and a demo release in the near future. More will be posted about this shortly alongside a cool new video trailer of the game!
- v0.3.8 - Multiplayer WIP - 1 March 2026
More Multiplayer updates have been released in this patch. Players can now join lobbies via Steam, invite their friends, look around the world and play poker now. It is still a WIP build as many systems such as the "folded turn" (whether to reveal or muck the cards) has not been implemented for MP, nor has the Showdown system been implemented for MP.
- v0.3.0 Released - Showdown! - 15 January 2026
The new showdown logic has been implemented in The Lucky Hive. This marks a major milestone for the game, seeing as we now have a fully E2E developed process for the game. From here, it's onto pre-river showdowns (when everyone goes all in before the last community card is shown) and then onto MULTIPLAYER! Multiplayer will be a massive leap in the game's fun and playtesting for new mechanics, such as player items and dealer events.
- V0.2.1 Released! - 6 December 2025
Added in the foundations for the new player UI, including deleting all trace of the old UI, introducing new art assets, containerised into its own scene, one UI per executable (on game.gd), scripts setup for better UX for users and more.Escape menu has been added in, including duplicating the settings control from the main menu over.Improved general code across game.gd and player.gd, deleting massive swathes of code that are now redundant because of the new Player UI V2.
- The Lucky Hive is available for Wishlisting! - 24 November 2025
Welcome to The Lucky Hive!We would like to announce, as our first post and our first game ever, The Lucky Hive, is available for wishlisting on Steam now!We have a lot planned in the works and will make more posts as we release things like our announcement trailer, gameplay trailer, demo release and more!Thanks for reading this, we hope you're looking forward to what we've got in store!
