Kraig Adams

A game in progress · early playtest

Solhex

A factory game in deep space: wake a dead station, build it into a factory, and fly the ship that feeds it. I'm designing it and playtesting every version; Claude, Anthropic's AI, writes the code.

Play the current buildRead the devlog

On a phone? Email yourself the linkGet Solhex updates

I'll email you the link to play on a computer, and Solhex updates now and then. Unsubscribe any time.

  • Version 164
  • Updated Oct 21, 2026
  • Plays in a desktop browser, with mouse and keyboard
The frigate lining up side-on below the dock, leaving a trail of light-grey thruster puffs

What it is

Wake the station, feed the factory

Far out in the dark, a derelict station drifts. It doesn't fly and it never will: it's home, and the place your factory grows. You are the AI aboard a small frigate with a hold and a battery. You fly it like a unit in a real-time strategy game: select it, right-click a rock, and it flies there, mines it, hauls the ore home and docks over the station's heart to unload and recharge.

At the station you build on a hex grid around the dock. Every module starts empty, and you give it a job for good: a burner for power, a smelter for iron or copper, a constructor for plates, wire or data cards. Drag a belt from one to the next and the factory runs while you're out. A sensor finds the copper far out; data centers read your data cards into research, and research is how the frigate gets bigger holds, longer reach and, in the end, a mind of its own for mining.

The look is geometric: thin outlines on black, with colour only for cargo, jobs and status. It began as the second version of Jumpgate and borrows its outline art and music.

Where it stands

Stage
Playtesting, version 164
Updated
Oct 21, 2026, 12:00 pm
Playable now
Chapters 1 to 10, about three and a half hours: wake as the seed pod in near-darkness and scout for ore, place the dock, gather and smelt ore, crack big rocks with the chaingun, find copper past a machine guarding it, research with data cards, decode a signal, switch to solar power, ride out dust storms and a raid with a carrier, strip the field, catch a comet for fuel, move the station across the dark, salvage alloy from a ruined field of wreckage while the machines inside wake, then go into the biggest wreck for a dead pod's seed vault and the gate core at its heart, with attack drones drawing fire through the escape and a three-wave siege at the station. The dock is the one place ore comes in and holds it by the thousand; what the machines make stays in them, and belts double with each upgrade. Runs in the browser with a mouse and keyboard.
Next
  • Chapter 11: waking the human

How it's being made

The full devlog

I direct and playtest

I decide what the game is and how it should feel, play every version, and send notes as I go: what's confusing, what's too fast, what I want next.

Claude writes the code

Claude, Anthropic's AI, turns each note into a new version, tests it and publishes it, often within minutes. It also asks questions and suggests a default when a decision is open.

Every version is logged

The devlog keeps my notes in my own words, what changed and screenshots, so you can follow the whole thing from the first message.

Latest from the devlog

All 157 entries
  1. Deep in the biggest wreck: a round chamber walled in pale alloy glints, the gate core glowing gold in a cradle at its centre, the ship and two attack drones beside it, a passage curving away through the wreckage and an empty human pod in a niche off itOct 21, 12:00 pm · v164Chapter 10: the heart of the wreck
  2. The same chapter 7 station drawn twice: on the left the old look, with name labels crowding every module and grey struts; on the right the new look, solid coloured hexagons, bold belts with small square items, a faint yellow power wire and amber dots on the two data centers waiting for a research to be pickedOct 21, 1:30 am · v163A new look for the station
  3. The dock's panel open beside a hexagon station, its ore row showing about 1,600 iron, 800 copper and 460 silicon with room for 2,000 of eachOct 21, 12:30 am · v162The dock takes the ore, the machines keep what they make
  4. The dock with four modules around it: belts into two smelters carry rows of rust-red ore items bunched up end to end, while the belts beyond them sit emptyOct 20, 11:30 pm · v161Belts that back up, and a new voice for Hope

Play the build

It plays in a desktop browser with a mouse and keyboard. It's an early build: it changes every day and saves can reset between versions. Tell me what felt good and what didn't.

Play version 164Send feedback

Written with Claude, from the conversation where the game is being made.