HexConnect Review

HexConnect is like junk food. It never stops flowing and it’s meant to be devoured instantly and almost mindlessly. However, its twisting puzzles are just engaging enough to keep the whole thing from feeling like empty calories.

In HexConnect, groups of small hexagons are arranged into one large hexagon and the goal is to connect them, of course, by drawing a continuous line through them. The line must touch each hexagon - it can never cross itself - and it must connect the numbered hexagons in the right order. Dealing with only two numbered hexagons leaves a lot of room for experimentation, but when there are five or more to worry about pathways must be more carefully considered. Even still, most puzzles can be conquered in seconds and the game rewards players for drawing the most efficient lines as quickly as possible. Instead of improvising a solution, it’s best for players to simply slip into the Zen state all good puzzle games foster, see the path in their mind’s eye, and just execute it.

However, while later puzzles feature slight variations, the strategies needed to solve them do not. Because of the sheer volume of puzzles (over 500 including the weekly free updates) their solutions can only be so different. Players might end up unsatisfyingly sleepwalking through most of the game once they get too good at it.

That sense of over-familiarity also creeps into HexConnect's presentation. The giant, hexagonal, level-select menus are cool and consistent with the game’s theme. But the subdued fluorescent art style, while similarly chill, virtually never changes. Even the sleekest blue grids get old after a while. Meanwhile there’s no music at all, and the sparse sound effect are strangely lo-fi.

HexConnect’s rapid gameplay, addictive hook, and quantity of content make it an ideal time-waster. Just know that it doesn’t aspire to be anything much more than that.

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