Puz: Hexagon Wild [by Glinkie Games]

Game Review:  Hexagon Wild
Release: October 18, 2004
Genre: Puzzle
Developer: Glinkie Games
System Requirements: 500MHz, Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP, 32Mb RAM, DirectX 7.0a+
Players: 1
Price: 1 hour free trial, US $19.95 to register and keep playing.
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Hexagon Wild is a simple one-player puzzle game where you are presented with a rectangular hex-grid filled with 5 colors of hexagonal blocks. You must eliminate combos of 3 or more contiguous hexagons, and gravity will pull the remaining hexagons down to fill any gaps. Clear the board below the limbo-stick and you survive to the next level. And that's all.

This game just didn't have much in it – no story, not much of a visual theme, no time pressure, no changes in game play, no rewards except points for creating big combos or surviving to high levels, and almost no documentation. It's a great example... of how not to design a puzzle game.

Graphics: 6
Well, the colors aren't bad, and I'm a fan of gemstone motifs, but these graphics were neither humorous nor beautiful, or even atmospheric... they were just boring. Also they were not thematically unified because some elements (chisel, sound toggle) were detailed and somewhat realistic, while other elements (hexagons, arrows) were vague and cartoony.

Sound: 6
The sounds were the best part of this game. There was no music and not that many sound effects, but what sounds this game had fit well with the actions that caused them and were not irritating to listen to.

Game Play: 5
This is one of the many games where you can take away combos of 3 or more blocks of the same color, and the remaining blocks fall down to fill the gap. Bigger combos are apparently worth more points... but there is no documentation explaining exactly how the scoring works. Round scores vary wildly from less than one thousand to more than 15 million, making it difficult to judge one's self-improvement. This game has no timer, no additional blocks are added to the screen during a round, and all rounds begin with the same number and shape of random hexagons. There is a 'limbo stick' – you must eliminate enough blocks that the stack fits under this bar to clear the round, and it gets lower each round until it stops two rows above the ground, resulting in a difficult but not impossible gauntlet that you can survive... until you have one unlucky round.

You get one 'hexagon chisel' every 3 rounds, no matter how you do in those rounds. You can't earn any game play advantages by making large combos or surviving to higher levels, and, on the higher-difficulty levels, any mistake or ill luck results in losing the game. There are no random events, no special blocks, no additional block colors as the game progresses... the only bonus you can earn is by having a higher score on a round than the computer opponent, but who wants to watch a mouse click on hexagons for two minutes while the computer plays? Fortunately you can skip this, but if you don't see how the computer scores it seems random when you do manage to outscore it and earn a bonus. And the computer doesn't lose if it fails to clear a round.

Essentially, this game lacks interactivity; it does not reward the player's strategy, persistence, or luck. And isn't interactivity supposed to be the whole reason why we are playing games rather than reading a book or something? The game doesn't respond to anything the player does except with meaningless huge numbers, so the player doesn't feel rewarded for playing well. There is a high score chart, which displays a variety of statistics like game high score, round high score, highest level reached... but who cares?

Oh, and the game does not have a quit button, only experience with other games with bad GUI-design allowed me to guess correctly and hit the escape key to quit the game.

Value: 4
I can't imagine that anyone would ever pay to register this game, it's just not interesting enough to keep playing for the whole free hour. Maybe half an hour.

Concept: 4
This game doesn't seem to have a concept beyond 'take away more blocks in bigger combos than the computer'. Why do the blocks look vaguely like hexagonal gemstones? Why should we take the blocks away? Why are bigger combos better? Why do we care about defeating the computer? I don't know, and apparently neither did the designer.

Fun: 4
The strategy of this game is slightly interesting because it's difficult to predict how the hexagons are going to fall, the game looked pleasant enough, and there were a few sound and visual effects that were slightly amusing.

Overall: 5
In conclusion, this game was sparse and monotonous, not giving the player any feeling of accomplishment. I am a big fan of puzzle games, but I just couldn't find any aspect of this game to be enthusiastic about - it was simply pointless. I really hope the designer studies player psychology before they try again, especially if they want to live up to their slogan, “Glinkie Games aims to be the name synonymous with quality and engaging entertainment products.”
Added: November 20th 2004
Reviewer: Sunandshadow
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