Sometimes, the most interesting games you can find are hidden in the depths of random Reddit posts and lucky catches from various social media algorithms.
Games made by single dudes hacking away in their home offices for who knows how long, which might never even get released. It’s always a bit of a gamble trying out these secret passion projects, but it’s a dice I’m usually willing to roll in the never-ending scour for unique rogues to play.
Hexical is my latest find via Reddit that boasts a 12-year hobbyist development cycle and Tron-like aesthetics.
What is Hexical?
Hexical asks the question of what happens if you give an antivirus a boomerang light-disc and told it to go nuts against the virus horde. Almost all of your offensive capability is tied to throwing this “component” around and bouncing it off walls while piercing enemies. This gimmick is the core of the game and what makes it feel very different from the usual twin-stick shooter.
Levels are composed of prebuilt hexagonal rooms with hallways connecting them. Instead of locking the player to a room with closed doors, the dungeons act as open ecosystems where you and whatever else is rummaging about can move freely. Like an ant farm, enemies will travel around and surprise you, repopulating rooms previously travelled and forcing you to pay attention as you move. Rooms can have all sorts of traps in them, like waves of flames or moving walls that hurt to touch.
Enemies are numerous and move extremely fast. They fidget around and shoot rapid bullets. Most die in just one hit of the component but their sheer movement speed makes even the regular bugs threatening. These guys are what makes the game so fun, because fights are super frantic with tons of viruses speeding around unpredictably while you try your hardest to shoot them down and dodge their bullets. You can’t just go into a room and tank the horde either because you’re also fragile.
Upgrading your build
While exploring the infested lattice, you will come across upgrade tokens that give you a selection of core modifications to choose from. These mods are going to be your alternate offensive capabilities, such as spawnable turrets, planted mines, or a trishot machinegun. The kicker here is that all of these options are bound to stamina and currency systems.
Surrounding your health bar is a stamina bar that is used up either through your right-click abilities or your sprint button. There are also yellow coins you can pick up that can be used for whatever mods require them. While the limited resources mean you can’t just spam your non-light-disc abilities, you come across coins, and your stamina regenerates fast enough that they’re still a major part of your build.
Notably, the atmosphere of Hexical is incredible. Every little thing has some sort of physics to it, down to walls lighting up when you bump them and tiny bugs that run away when you throw the disc. The eerie EDM soundtrack creates a dark mood while the rocking guitars make the boss fights feel big. The world feels interesting to explore, and there are tons of detail put into each graphic.
The verdict
Honestly, the biggest piece of feedback I can give for Hexical is to just keep stacking on more toys to play with and more foes to use those toys on. There are several rooms that look like they could include secrets, and I’d like to see the mysterious nature of your environment expanded upon.
What’s here is super fun, even while being surprisingly light on content. I would also like to see a scoring system get involved somehow and *maybe* a looping mechanic a la Nuclear Throne. Archdrone Games does plan to add some new things in the future, so I’m excited to watch the game grow.
Hexical is out on PC and we played via access kindly provided by the publisher and their loyal customers in PR.
