Hexguardian looks cute and cuddly, I’ll give it that. This tower defense strategy hybrid brings a roguelite twist to the TD party, and it’s part of a new wave of games that are blending roguish design with pausable real-time strategy and turrets. It’s a wave that I didn’t think I was too bothered about, but after playing a few of them, it turns out that I am.
Developed by Split Second Games, Hexguardian isn’t just a tower defense, it’s also a tile placement game that takes inspiration from one of the greatest board games ever made: Carcassonne. Your objective is simple; blast all the enemy units that are attacking your castle, all the while expanding the map to open up new possibilities.
How does Hexguardian work?
At the centre of each hex-based map is a castle. All roads and rivers lead to this base of operations, and naturally you must protect it at all costs. Hexguardian has a circadian gameplay cycle where the day is broken down into a build phase and then a defensive phase. At the end of each day, once you’ve had a chance to place your next turret, an attack comes at you from one or more directions.
You can see what units are coming and from where thanks to clear signposting, so you’ve got time to plan accordingly. You also won’t be shocked to hear that things get progressively harder, with shielded enemies descending on you during later rounds. Expect to encounter armoured soldiers, powerful naval units, and even airships, all of which arrive in ever-greater numbers.
When you level up and also between rounds you get to choose a new ability or upgrade. This can mean a new type of turret, a damage buff, or even a building to enhance the production of gold. You’re constantly making little decisions that make your defensive turrets more effective, but placement is still king and you’ll live and die based on how clever your turret positioning is.
Where Hexguardian gets really interesting is the map building. When you’ve killed enough enemies, you’re given new tiles that you can place next your existing hexes. Doing so can elongate or link the rivers and roads that flow towards your castle, reveal precious chests filled with gold, or even close off a route and halt the advance of foes from a certain spawn point. Each new tile is randomly generated and has a specific feature, thus it won’t connect to just any of the existing tiles that are in play. You’ve got to think smart as you build out your map.
The environments and the abilities you unlock through gameplay also offer unique tactical opportunities. Later levels give you elevated positions where your turrets can fire further, or rainstorms that react with any elemental towers or spells that you’re selected. There are also several different buildings and wonders that you can place on your map, offering additional benefits as your map extends out.
A roguish defense
In true roguelite style, when it’s time to make a decision, you’re presented with a trio of options. These options include spell upgrades, new building types for that run, and incremental power boosts for different turret types. Initially, your options are somewhat limited, but the longer you play, the more things open up.
Your overall strategy will be refined and enhanced when you spend your hard-earned points in-between attempts via the progression system. As you’ll note in the image below, there’s a web of interlinking options that allow you to improve your stats and unlock new units to appear in future attempts. There’s an impressive array of options to choose from, and once I’d gone a few rounds I had a better idea of what I wanted to do and how I could unlock new strategies. You can also reset all of your points and start from scratch, although I haven’t felt compelled to do this – not yet, at least.
On top of the different biomes and their specific challenges, there are multiple difficulty settings. There’s also a roguelike mode that only becomes available once you’ve completed the rocky map on hard.
Don’t be fooled by appearances
Time is on your side in Hexguardian, as you can fast-forward through the boring bits and pause the action when you need to carefully plan your next move. Once you’re ready you can hit play, and watch as streams of increasingly hardy enemies descend on your castle, with only your turrets, cannons, and soldiers to halt them.
There’s a solid range of units, so you’re not just building turrets, you can also have soldiers, archers and spellcasters engage the enemy en route to your castle. There’s a lot going on and each new attempt is engaging from start to finish thanks to the escalating threat of the AI, which starts attacking you simultaneously from different routes, and will eventually test you with powerful boss units.
The audio-visual side of things is simple but polished and it does the trick. While the unit designs are rather basic, the chunky art style implemented here looks cute and belies the game’s considerable depth. There were one or two moments where the isometric perspective made things harder for me to parse, but overall I thought it was straight forward enough for me to work out what was going on and respond as required.
Summing up: Hexguardian’s fusion of roguish tower defense and tile placement strategy was a hit with me. It might look a bit like “baby’s first TD” but that’s actually far from the case. It doesn’t take long before your best laid plans have all gone wrong, your turrets have been overrun, and those cutesy little enemy soldiers are storming your castle and stamping on your dreams.
Hexguardian is out now on PC Steam, and I played the game via a code provided by publisher Yogscast Games and their PR friends!
