It's been a year since I showed the first prototype of Fireside Explorer to a few friends.

The original vision went something like, 'Bring Minesweeper to a cosy fantasy map'. You buy rumours about a monster, mark possible locations, attack the tile directly with your pointer.

Win gold if you hit the monster, lose gold if you miss, repeat.

I still want to make that light puzzle game one day, but Fireside Hero eventually took a different direction, both visually and mechanically.

I started tinkering with colours and animations, introducing role-playing and resource management features, to the point where the original puzzle mechanic turned into one of the three cornerstones, alongside the rock-paper-scissors combat and the adventuring on the map.

Was something lost in the process? Sure. Is it for better or for worse? You decide!