Being new to it, Hexcells is still about learning and discovery. There are a handful of strategies that you learn in that game, which for me were hard-earned through play without ever looking anything up, and which I can now comfortably apply to any board and swiftly clear it. Graham: It's probably the case that I've simply forgotten a time when picross wasn't similarly soothing to me. It's not something you get the first time around, though. I'm not sure if that's a thing many people do – maybe it sounds weird – but there are these pleasant logic pathways that I like to revisit in Hexcells and that, to me, is very soothing. I think I could fill some in from memory at this point, but the challenge for me then becomes filling them in logically, not skipping any difficult steps by just relying on the fact I know which hexes are filled and which are blank. I've solved the puzzles that form the main game so often that they're soothing to me. That's in large part because I now speedrun the game. I just checked my Steam account and I have 33 hours on the game. Pip: I think I passed beyond that stage at some point. I find it more satisfying because you're uncovering more as you play, but also possibly consequently less relaxing because it's more difficult? It approximates the satisfaction of picross, then. In fact, uncovering a number on the board which indicates how many adjacent spaces need filled is much more satisfying than filling the hexes in, because filling in often nets you no new information. This means that the optional right-click "not-filled" of picross is now essential. By comparison, in Hexcells you're initially told which hexes need to be filled with numbers in a fashion similar to Minesweeper, with numbers on the board itself to indicate adjacencies. So a column might have "1 3" at the top, which means there's a single square and a block of three squares which need to go somewhere in that column. In a way it feels like a sequel to picross, in that it's using many of the same elements but with a lot of satisfying twists and layers of complexity.įor those not familiar, in picross you've got numbers at the ends of rows and columns which tell you how many squares within that row or column need to be filled in. If it's any consolation, the infinite bit where you generate puzzles is nowhere near as satisfying as the curated puzzle sections.Ĭan I ask how closely you think it mirrors the picross pleasures given that's why I thought you might like it?
#Hexcells review ign Pc#
My dirty puzzle habit mostly confines itself to mobile titles like Dots and the Nonograms Katana version of picross so I hadn't really thought PC would offer the same risk. Pip: I will admit that I hadn't taken that side of the equation into consideration. Either it was going to be an incoherent game about lighthouses or I was going to experience a brief moment of clarity months later, groggy and unshaven and homeless after an extended logic puzzle bender, and then disappear forever.Īnyway, I've played it for a few hours now and it turns out I do like it. And Pip specifically recommended the third game in the Hexcells series, which has the word "Infinite" in the title. I love Picross (and Slitherlink and Sudoku and many similar games), but I don't always feel good after the hazy lost weekends spent playing them. Graham: When I got Pip's recommendation, my first thought was, "Oh no." Not because I didn't think I'd like the game, but because I was certain that I would. You don't get pictures at the end like you do in picross, usually, but you do get that same logic puzzle satisfaction. You then work your way through the possibilities until the grid is complete.
You only have a few pieces of information at your disposal – you might know how many filled-in hexes are in a column, for example, or how many adjoin a particular hex. Hexcells is a game about using logic to figure out which hexes on a grid should be blank and which should be filled in. Graham has been playing a fair bit of the picross puzzler Pictopix recently and Hexcells shares a lot of gaming DNA with picross puzzles. This was a reasonable recommendation for reasonable reasons. Pip: When I recommended that Graham play Hexcells I wasn't just doing my normal thing of assuming EVERYONE should play and enjoy Hexcells. This week, Pip suggests Graham play logic puzzle game Hexcells Infinite.
#Hexcells review ign series#
Game Swap is a series in which one person recommends another a games they might like.
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