Welcome. Thanks for your interest in the Hex Map and Hex Map Pro apps. I hope that they are intuitive and stable enough to require almost no “support,” but I’m also a realist. I am in the process of creating some how-to/demo videos that will be much better than any long-winded explanations I can provide as text, but they aren’t ready yet. The most important tip I have is to “just ask” if you have a question. If you post a comment or question here, I am notified and I will follow up.
Getting started
My first suggestion is to just play around. The only complex part is the Hex Map Pro option to import your own background image. If you’re new to the app, skip that for now and come back it it. Start a new map with the default/standard background and poke around. At the bottom of the screen is a little strip that I call the control panel strip. It has 3 tabs that determine what controls are displayed (Board; Drawing; and Action). The Board controls are about the initial set up of the board, including the background pattern/color and whether you want a hex or square grid or neither. The Drawing tab hides the game tokens and let’s you color in any of the hexes/squares. Tap a color to select the current color (or “C” to erase); double-tab to change on of the colors in the palette. The Action tab is all about the tokens and using the board. Once you add a token to the board (with the add button on the Action tab or just by double-tapping on the board), it will bring up the “token control panel.” This is where you change the shape, size, color, orientation of token or the text associated with it. The one button that people find confusing is the “Set Default” button. Tap this to make the next new token exactly like the current one. It’s analogous to the “copy” part of “copy and paste.” To move a token touch it and drag it around. To bring a token to the “top,” tap it. This is only relevant when tokens overlap. To move the board touch anywhere on the board and drag it around. To zoom in or out, pinch in or out with two fingers. You may find that the board refreshes slowly if you zoom too far out. Unfortunately, all I can say is “so don’t do that.” I’m always working to make the app more efficient and work better, but that doesn’t do you any good at the time when you’re using the app. To close either the control panel strip or the token control panel, tap the close “x” or swipe to the side. To re-open the control panel strip, swipe the other direction or tap the “>”. To re-open the token control panel, double-tap on the token you want to adjust. When you are done with a particular board, tap the home icon on the left side of the control panel strip and you’ll be back to the home screen.
The Home page
See the home pages for the two versions of the app? Except for the iPad version having giant pretty buttons and that weird thing at the bottom, they are essentially the same. The first and second buttons take you to an existing board. The third takes you to the background-import page (more on that later). The fourth button is how you create a new board. In either case you have to decide whether you want the standard board or if you want to use a background image you’ve already imported. On the iPad you decide before you tap the button by scrolling the thing at the bottom–let’s call it the background image scrolly selector thing. On the iPhone (or iPod touch) you are prompted after you tap the button. The iPad “pick first” thing might throw you off the first few times, but I hope it’s not too confusing once you understand how it works.
Old School DM 
The support button for the iPhone version does not seem to actually bring up safari. I like the changes so far. Keep up the good work. My only issue is the stability of the app on larger maps. If the map gets too large on te iPhone it can be very unstable.
Hahajust noticed you already addressed te link problem 🙂
Thanks for the comment. The stability thing is a real bugbear for me. It comes down to how much memory a particular view needs and how much your phone/device has available at that moment. If there isn’t enough, the app quits. I had been addressing this by limiting how far you could zoom out. The further you zoom out, the more memory is used. But a number of people asked to be able to zoom out more. Unfortunately, as you’re experiencing, this leads to slowness and “crashiness” at the extremes. Perhaps I’ll rein it in a bit however. Crashing is bed.
Nice little app. But how about allowing us to import graphics to create our own tokens (unit counters structures, trees, whatever) and save them in sets. Also the option to paint on the map with translucent colors that don’t totally obcscure the background would be great.
Thanks!
Gwen
I expect you’ll be able to import your own tokens at some point. It’s on the proverbial list. Translucent painting is probably easier. I’ll look into that.
Thanks.
Once again: excellent app. (I think is THE best tabletop map tracking app for Old school rpg gamers available)
As rpg playera allways do, I’ve got some ideas to share:
1) It would be NICE to have “counters” on the sides Of tokens, which may represent Hit Points or Initiative or Anything else. Where i first opened the app i thought that was what the small numbers were!
2) Custom imagen for the tokens. You could limit it to small rectangular images, and whoever wants to put a character face there that prepares the image to fit those setting! That would be EXCELLENT!
Once again thanks for the great app!
Thanks. Great suggestions. The numeric addition is a clever touch. Obviously you’d want an easy way to update the number without the double-tap/big control panel method required to change the other attributes. Hmm. Definitely worth working on. Thanks.
Thanks for a great app. The recent changes are really welcome. A few possible improvements come to mind:
1. Pattern painting ie. the possibility to use patterns in stead of solid colors. This would make it possible to add furniture, consoles, doors, etc easily. Especially useful if importing one’s own patterns were made possible.
2. Labeling. Possibility to have written markers or symbols on board that are not tied to tokens.
3. Area of Effect markers.
Keep up the good work.
Thanks for the suggestions. I’m hope to implement a real drawing capability so a second-beat pattern approach won’t be needed.
Great app! Being able to freely draw on top while not restricted to the grid would be great! I also like the idea of drawing generic objects like trees mountains chairs tables etc would e cool!
Hello,
Nifty app. I have an issue, a question, and a comment
Issue: I have created a couple of board using saved images from Photo. When creating the board, I aligned the grid with the image(which had grid features on it) and saved. Then when I went to open the board, the grid was very misaligned. Is this a problem with the app or the user?
Question: is there a way to delete boards? I have been playing around and made a few boards I do not want to keep…
Comment: a nice feature would be to specify the board dimension (in terms of grids) when creating the boards.
This is a very nice little app. Thanks.
I figured out how to detete the custom boards. You first need to delete ALL saved game boards using that custom board, THEN you can delete it.
I should read all my messages before I reply. Glad you figure it out. Yes the delete option for images only shows up for ones you aren’t using (since deleting one you’re using could cause bad things to happen).
I also got the alignment issue figured out…. Guess I should have played around more before soaring. 😉
What was the problem? Is there something I should warn/advise people about to avoid it?
Great questions.
The image is supposed to align correctly and it has worked consistently in my testing. Having said that, I doubt this is in your imagination, so something is wrong. I’ll email you privately, so we can see about reproducing the problem on my side.
One way to delete a board is to click on the “info”/(i) button on the board and using the delete option there. The otehr way is to use the delete button that’s near the info button (the word “Delete” on the iPad and an “X” on the iPhone; I bet you’re using the iPhone).
I hear you about the size option. It’s something I’ve considered and played around with, but didn’t implement (yet) to keep it simple. Just curious: are you looking to make bigger boards or smaller boards, or it depends?
Idea: have a toolbar showing commonly used tokens. You would then be able to drag from this tool bar to the board. That way you wouldnt have to use the set as default button all the time. It may be best if this was just on the iPad though, due to the iPhones and iPod’s little screen space.
Awesome app btw. =D
The hide grid option setting doesn’t get save when I exit the board. Or come to it after visiting another board. BTW I really like the import background feature. Looking forward to a custom token feature when available and a way to export the board setup.
I really loved the free version of the app which made me purchase the full price version and I’m enjoying it so far. For DMing/Prototyping on the road, I would like to have a button somewhere where I could type in something like “3d6+2” and get a random result. It doesn’t have to be pretty, but right now I have to switch apps and hope everything goes okay in order to get any kind of randomizer without bringing my dice with me. The only other thing I could think of is the option to put an image instead of a color on tokens. Great work though! Loving it so far!
Great suggestion. A die-roll thing was part of my original thought for this app, but I got talked out of it to focus on stuff that’s unique to this app. But now that I’m getting better at app development I should be able to get this into a release at some point.
Is there, or will there be a way, to allow us to draw using the border of squas, rather than filling them in? I think it might be nicer and use “less” space when drawing out detailed maps.
Not yet, but it’s “on the list.”
How do I delete new board?
While the board is displayed tap delete. Or the delete button on the info popup.
Hello! Thank you for this app… it’s really fantastic. The only gameboard app I can effectively use during game sessions (others are too expensive or not effective). Also the interface design is nifty!
Like KAP, I would like the option to specify the size of the map (maybe not when i create them, as it would take off the simplicity of the process, but it should be editable in the “info” tab), cause at times I’d need them bigger.
Another thing that I’d love would be the possibility to save predefined tokens and maybe sets of predefined tokens (so that you could import directly your PCs’ preset tokens in a new map at once).
Keep up the great work, you make GMs happy!
(There’s a thing I have noticed: the app draws the map and grid much faster on ipad 2 than on ipad 3. Shouldn’t it be the contrary?)
Thanks for the comments and encouragement. I never noticed the iPad 2 versus 3 thing, I’ll have to look into that. Frankly, the reason I’ve limited your options for board size is because at larger sizes stability takes a hit (it runs out of memory unexpectedly and closes). As I get better at this, I’m sure I’ll find a way around that over time.
Is there a way to simulate line of site?
Not at the moment.
Hey! I love your app, but was wondering if there is anything in the works to support video out of the phone via a composite cable, so it’s able to be plugged into a tv or display source??
Thanks!
Saxon
Good question. I don’t what it would take to do exactly what you describe, but I have confirmed that you can “project” to a TV using an Apple TV device. If people are using that I can tweak the app to hide the toolbars and whatnot on the projected version.
I like the app, but my background images keep disappearing on me. Might be happening when the app is updated. What can I do to prevent this?
I honestly don’t know. It hasn’t happened to me and it’s not supposed to happen. I doubt an update caused the problem, because I haven’t posted an update in many months (unfortunately). I assume you’re referring to a custom background that you added and not one of the handful of patterns I include with the app, right? Because I have fiddled with/changed the latter a few times since the app was first released.
I want to help resolve this (and fix a possible bug in the app). You willing to continue this via email? Thanks.
Yes, this was a custom background. Feel free to email me to discuss further. Thanks.
Would it be possible to add an option to have the grid rendered in white, for use with dark backgrounds?
Great idea. You got it.
Is it possible to share a saved board with someone else who owns the application?
Not currently. But I will be looking into that possibility.
Is there anyway you could align the checkerboard background pattern to the square grid? That would be so helpful!
Hmm. I need your help. On all my devices the checkerboard does line up with the grid. Can you tell me exactly what device you’re using and what iOS version? It’ll be easy to fix once I can duplicate the problem. Thank you.
Great app, nicely implemented. Obviously there’s a “but I’d like more”…
My number 1 wish would be to be able to lock individual tokens so that they could not be accidentally moved. Second would be undo last move.
Other “nice to have” thoughts:
— more tile colour boxes available (I would like to use the existing standard colours plus at least some additional shades of green and blue)
— cloud synching between devices (my own that is – apart from that, in principle I would say that real time sharing of maps with someone else’s device would be well worth an in-app purchase of at least the original price of the app, but I doubt that I would persuade any of my friends that this was so, so in practice you’d fail to sell it to me!)
— rotate tokens using twist gesture without having to use dialogue box
Thanks for the feedback.
Lock and/or undo last move are interesting ideas. I’ll look into those.
You know you can change the colors of the 9 color boxes on a board-by-board basis, right? Just double tap and reset the color. That doesn’t let you keep all the originals plus a couple more though.
iCloud support is “on the list.” Looks complicated, but not impossible.
I originally wanted to be able to rotate the tokens right on the board, but it got complicated with little tokens.
Amazing app! Just what i needed! Could you please consider the posibility of importing pictures to the tokens!!!
Glad you liked the idea!
Putting images to the tokens? What about that? Do you like it?
I do. But it’s harder. Especially since I want to make the leap to iCloud integration and haven’t done that yet.
Im not sure if it has been said already or not, but a tab on one of the sides that pops out and is a text only tab would be great for describing areas to players or having some type of back story for an area.
That’s a new suggestion. Interesting idea. Thanks.
No problem. I was also thinking maybe if you had Icons or tokens that you can link to other maps that you have already created, so that you can transition from different maps or areas just by double tapping the Token. And also maybe have a shroud option so that you can hide certain areas of the map until they have been discovered or entered.
The latest can be easily achieved by drawing color over the map grid, and then cleaning those cells drawed!
This is true, but what about tokens? Tokens still show up if you change the color or wipe it. It would be nice to be able to shroud tokens and all, having a single top layer that can be removed.
I also thought that it might be nice to have multi-layered maps, so that if you have multiple tiers, say a tower for instance, you could change the layer to go to the next elevation change.
Hello! Here I am again, after using the app for months I have two really easy suggestions:
A button that clears the drawing but leaves the tokens (there’s already one to do the opposite, but this I’d find more useful), and leaving unchanged the name of the token when it’s flipped over (now it changes the name to “back” and it’s confunding if you have multiple tokens flipped over and you still want to recognise them… the color change is enough to indicate that the token’s been flipped).
Thank you for your time
Those are easy. My favorite type of suggestions 🙂
Turns out the suggestion to have the backside show the same text as the frontside wasn’t THAT easy, but it’s done. It’s an option at the board level now. Well, now for me. It’ll be “now” for you when I post it to the App Store and get it approved, etc. I’ll probably bundle a few more changes in with it.
In fact, one change I made and never submitted was a board-level option to change the color of the grid (Derek’s suggestion). So that’ll be in the next version too.
Wow thanks! I hope to see that soon!
How can I make the field less? I want to have 10×12 pieces, is it possible to do so?
You mean is it possible for make the board so small that it’s only a 10×12 grid? No, I’m afraid not. You could “paint” a border around the edge so that there were only the squares you want in the middle.
Nice job with the app. I bought and am planning to use for a campaign kicking off soon. Will throw onto the flat screen using Apple TV. Here is my wishlist, including some items mentioned above. Really like what you’ve done.
-custom token upload
-ability to save and reuse tokens… Especially my PCs
-drawing lines between grids
-multi layers of token hiding… First reveal PCs, then the trap, then monster group 1 and so on
-Maybe a user base generated token library?? Map library?
-icons or tokens such as trees, mountains and such
-direct Apple TV support… Will use mirroring, but doesn’t give me a full screen like apps built for AirPlay
I’d like to see more variety when it comes to token colours. If there is already a function for that and I’m just missing it then nvm.
Tap and hold the Color button. A color selector will pop up allowing you to pick any color.
I’ve been hearing great things and seeing really interesting battle reports using this app, but I have a problem. I do not own an iPhone or iPad. What are the prospects for an android version of the app, specifically one for use on the Kindle Fire?
Pretty low, I’m afraid. This is just a spare-time hobby for me, and I don’t have enough time to support the apps as well as I’d like. So it just doesn’t make sense for me to learn the Android APIs and try to support a whole separate version. (This sorta screams “Kickstarter!” doesn’t it? But I don’t have time for that either.) Sorry, but thanks for the encouragement.
Great app and a great value. One question I don’t see answered: can I change the name on a map, and if so, how
wish list: the ability to throw a link into a token, and if tapped, jump open a link to that URL in safari
The ability to send a map to another user of this app
Link one map to another, so if a special token is clicked, tokens with a certain flag jump to a gets ignited spot on the new map
If those roll into a kick starter, I’d fund it.
If you mean changing the name of a map, yes you can. Tape the “info” button and type in a new name.
The URL option would be pretty easy, but why would you want that?
A way to share maps is “on the list” but I expect it will be hard (the background image is the tricky part).
Linking between maps would be pretty cool. However, the most common requests are about saving sets of tokens and custom tokens, so I need to do that first.
Thanks for the suggestions. I appreciate hearing how people use the apps.
Hi Kirke – If I have a URL option, I can link things to docs or apps and then jump back to the map. Makes it easy for me to have extended notes, images, etc linked to tokens.
One problem – I have several files imported as backgrounds that are clearly way too big, and crash the app if I open the saved boards with them. I can’t delete the boards because of this, and thus can’t delete the image.
Perhaps another feature would be allowing users to delete boards without opening them? This way if someone makes my mistake, they can fix the issue.
Right now, I just have some unusable boards. It’s not catastrophic, but it’s annoying. I may delete and re-download the app once I figure out how to do that without paying again. What’s the recommended file size for imported backgrounds?
I hadn’t run across that. I don’t know what the recommended size is, I’m afraid. Apple isn’t very forthcoming on the memory available in various models, so I’m afraid it’s trial and error. I’ll add a way to delete a board from the select screen; that should solve your problem. You can download the app again for free from any of your devices (on the same iTunes account), so at least that part is not an issue.
Nice app! I think you need to add a toogle that will, when turned on, leave a shadow of the token on the space you are dragging from so you can count the squares btwin point a to point b.
Also, a filed of vision of the tile could be asomwe 🙂
Thank you for this app, it’s going to be really useful.
That’s one of the (few) features that’s in the iPad version that I left off the iPhone version (to keep the UI simple). I could squeeze it back in if there’s demand for it.
Field of vision would be rather cool. I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll think about it.
Thanks!
Hello there,
App is cool and almost perfect for me… Just 2 things. 1: Can you change the Map size? i know you can zoom in and out already. 2nd, it would be nice if you could link the tokens like you can in flow charts.
Also i dont understand why the tokens on the home screen move about? Have i missed something?
Because it’s whimsical. And if you shake your iDevice they fly back to their starting positions (and change colors/shapes randomly). My daughter thought that was cool, so that was good enough reason for me.
Yes, some options for map size is doable. Are you looking for bigger or smaller or both?
What would linking tokens look like or act like? Just lines between tokens (why?) or connected so that moving one moves the connected ones?
I think a great addition would be the inclusion of a virtual customizable deck of cards. So far, I’ve used the app to create versions of several of my favorite board games, including Survive!, Grind, and Battle Ball. The ability to include a custom deck (even if you could only write a line or two on each card) would open up even more possibilities. If you could have a variety of decks, shuffling and organizing each separately, then that would be even better.
I figure it’s a pretty tall order, and maybe not what you had in mind originally. Just something I was thinking about. Regardless, it’s a wonderful app, and I’m enjoying the heck out of it.
Thank you for the kind comments. I’d love to see some screen shots of how you’re using the app.
I’ll do that very soon because this has become, hands down, one of my favorite apps ever.
Would like the ability to have tokens that use multiple spaces ie., a battleship would take 4 linear hex spaces, a carrier 5. Is this an easy option to do?
Interesting question. Not super easy, but worth noodling over.
I love the app, nearly perfect for what I was looking for. The ONE major drawback (for me) is the inability to draw on it, limiting it to whole hexes only. Would LOVE to see this ability added.
I do intend to add that feature, but I expect it’s going to be a lot of work and perhaps force me to re-write a good bit of the app. Before I tackle that I’m going to work on the other very popular request: custom token icons and icon sets. No ETA on that yet however. Stay tuned, and thanks for your support.
Is there any way you could add a writing tool? I’d like to be able to quickly write letters and numbers on the sides of a map I make so that players can use them for coordinates.
How about an option for numbered hexes/squares? That would be easier.
If they could be numbered or lettered, then that’s perfect. Thanks.
Give me some examples of how you’d number number/letterize hexes and squares? Keep in mind that there could be more than 26 rows or columns.
Options I can think of:
1. just number all the cells starting at the upper left and counting across and then down ex. 1, 2, 3, … 1345;
2. [row number]-[column number], ex. 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, … 50-32
3. [column letter][row letter], ex. A1, A2, A3, … BB32
4. R[row number]C[column number], ex. R1C1, R1C2, R1C3, … R50C32
Is that what you had in mind?
In general, battle maps I am dealing with are small enough that a column letter, row number designation will work. I think having numbers for both the column and row could lead to errors and confusion, given that my plan is a play by post campaign.
Two things, first it would be nice if the dice roll feature included multiplication support, second every time I leave the app the text on the back of my tokens (which I had been using to track HP) changes to the same text as the front of the token.
I’ll look into that bug. Thanks for pointing it out.
How do you propose formatting the multiplication option? Can you give some examples? Like 4d6x100?
Specifically I was thinking of a game my friends are running where backstabbing does (1d8+lvl)x2, also storing data in iCloud to transfer it between devices would be great.
I’m not seeing the problem you’re reporting. I don’t doubt that it’s happening, but I don’t know what combination of things is triggering it. Can you reproduce it with a new board and then tell me exactly the steps to follow?
I created a new board, went straight to the action tab, pressed add token, added my name to the front of the token, flipped it over and added my HP, then switched the color of both sides to green and the shape to hexagonal. I then closed the token edit dialogue window and pressed the home button in the app then the ipad’s home button and closed the app out of multitasking. When I returned to the app this time the front was replaced with what I had put on the back.
One interesting thing that I have figured out is that if I turn on “Flipped side text same as front” before I leave and turn it off when I return it preserves the back side data. Also it would be nice if it were possible to tell which side is the back of the piece in the token edit dialogue.
Thanks for that. I found the bug and fixed it. Now I have to figure out what other (easy) things to add before submitting this to the review process.
Omg! This works awesome with AirPlay on ipad2 with air server on a win7 lap top connected to a tv… Just felt I should let you know. AirPlay support built in to let me hide what I’m typing and such would be nice. Some things my players don’t need to see.
When setting colours for tokens it would be nice if you could select without cycling through them and could save a custom colour to reuse on tokens.
The saveable tokens and such sound good too. Being able to paint patterns as well as colour would also be nice.
It would be cool if I could save a map as a template to use again for other boards and make that template lockable so I can paint over it without changing it.
Networking between other devices would be cool, so other iPad users can see the map and maybe move tokens that are theirs. For those who can’t get a TV set up like i did.
I love this app! Please keep it coming!
Glad you like it and thanks for the suggestions.
You can select token colors by tapping and holding the color button (the buttons with the darker outline). And set default partially answers your “save the color” request.
Kirke
Excellent app! I wish I had found this earlier because it satisfies a lot of gaming needs. It’s currently great for dungeons but also excellent for tracking tokens and dice for the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game.
Wish list and suggestions:
– Some way to duplicate the current board with all tokens – then I wouldn’t have to start from scratch for a different game, and can set different save states.
– Swapping out a background picture, and creating hidden map layers that can be turned on and off (for alternate versions of the map with notes on it).
– On the iPad, the token control panel can currently be flicked to the top left or right. That’s a great feature, but adding a way to flick it to the bottom left or right would be great too.
– Clear All for Drawing.
– For the token control panel, also the ability to flick it to the lower right or left corners of the iPad.
Thanks Tony. I’ll get the clone board option in the next release; I think it will be easy. The clear all drawing option is already there (with the last update): double-tap on the clear “color” on the left side of the color strip.
Hi
Love this app!
I just wish there was a way to:
1) truly freeze everything – so complex maps can be studied without fear of accidentally changing the board and pieces
2) make it downloadable: PDF emails or ‘save to photos’ would be great – including map title where possible (ie as the PDF)
Apologies if these have been discussed already 🙂
But I do really love this app
Cheers
Thanks. Great suggestions. I’m hoping to get another release out soon. I’ll see what I can do about those ideas.
First I would like to say this is a GREAT app (can’t begin to do it justice with words). I have read the above comments, requests and replies and agree that while it would be awesome to have a lot of those features added I am keenly aware of the difficulty some of those request would provide while trying to incorporate them into the existing app. That being said I consider myself an avid gamer and have just recently gotten back into role playing games. As I can tell this app has truly awesome potential and I would like to be able to assist your future developments by maintaining some form of continued correspondence with you on how I am using the app and ways that might make it more efficient and user friendly for new or experienced gamers. As well as other useful additions that could be added with future updates to the app.