Kraig Adams

A game in progress · early playtest

Solhex

Build a space station factory from one hex. Fight with real space physics. I'm designing it and playtesting every version; Claude, Anthropic's AI, writes the code.

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  • Version 173
  • Updated Oct 24, 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 173
Updated
Oct 24, 2026, 3:00 am
Playable now
Part One: chapters 1 to 10, about four hours, with an ending. Watch the intro, wake as the seed pod in near-darkness with a few shards of ore in sight that lead to more, 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 while the machines' attacks come from one side, switch to solar power and find the nest they come from and a second copper field, ride out a small dust storm and then the great one with a raid and a carrier, take the nest apart, 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. Read the core and it shows where the gate-builders went next: the end of Part One, and the station is yours to keep building. The first few minutes point at what to click next until you've got the hang of it. Runs in the browser with a mouse and keyboard.
Next
  • Part Two, someday: chapters 11 to 25 are drafted and wait

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 165 entries
  1. The end card over the dimmed station: SOLHEX, End of Part One, To be continued, the gate core is home and read, then Played 3 h 45 min, 34 modules, 5,315 ore brought home, 149 machines destroyed, 28 research done, a thank-you line and two buttons, Keep building and TitleOct 24, 3:00 am · v173Part One: an ending, and a better first few minutes
  2. The chapter 6 station round the dock, three drone bays among the modules, the circuit constructor asking for wire, and at the lower left the drone queue: Drones 4, Bring wire to the circuit constructor, Charging 22% at the dock, Mend moduleOct 23, 3:00 am · v171Drones that keep up, and one upgrade a tier
  3. The chapter 6 station, and the goal card reading Make 4 motors with three unticked steps (a constructor set to Motor, plates and wire coming in, 4 motors made) and an amber line, Nothing makes motors yet: pick Motor on a constructor touching plates and wire, the same words in the status line at the bottomOct 22, 4:20 pm · v170What the first stranger ran into
  4. A dark rock with a glowing heart, three red needle spires and a womb on straight spars, two small scavengers by the womb, and the ship to the upper right inside its 220 m PDC ring, a line of tracers snaking toward a spireOct 22, 12:00 pm · v169The nest the machines came from

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 173Send feedback

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