Hexcells Plus

Mainly more of the same, borrowing a lot from the original Hexcells, but a few more rules and constraints sprinkled in, and significantly harder, although there's still a nice difficulty gradiant at play throughout. The added rules do elevate this above being a plain 'ol level pack.

The punishment system is still an issue.

Basically take the original Hexcells, add more levels, make them a ton harder, and add a couple more mechanics to provide further complexity to the puzzles, and you've got Hexcells Plus. Overall I enjoyed this game a lot more, with the puzzles almost always requiring a couple bits of higher order logic to actually complete the puzzles, making it overall way trickier and take more focus. While one could argue that this detracted from the more casual experience that Hexcells states that it wants to offer, I still feel like it serves this purpose rather well, with some of the earlier levels still being really chill while taking a bit longer, and only the later stages ramping things up to the incredible degree that it does. As such, people who are in this for the calmer experience get more or less the same time investment for this sort of content here, but then have the option of tackling these more difficult puzzles if they so choose.

As before, I also love how at no point does the game actually require guesswork, and while certain approaches ultimately make the player think many steps ahead in some creative ways, it makes it all the more satisfying once you figure out what needs to be done, perform the plan, and then realise that the puzzle now completely falls into place. My only issue is that I feel that the mistake counter is still a pain, even moreso now that the game requires you to think in these more complex ways while also performing them on bigger boards, making it a bit stressful since you know that it could make you have to go back and tediously input everything again. I feel like especially for this, the counter should have been increased before it stopped you getting maximum score, as this would still have stopped people from simply randomly clicking their way through without feeling so unnecessarily punishing. Even so, this is a fantastic little puzzle game that really tests you at points yet remains fun to pick apart even when things get really tricky.

Hexcells Plus is the second game in the series of Minesweeper-esque logic puzzles, and its close release proximity to the original tells you most of what you need to know: the people wanted more, and they wanted it harder. Plus is best framed as the second "act" of the Hexcells saga, and where the series really found its footing mechanically. While it retains 100% of the visual and audio elements of the previous installment, making it more akin to a mere level pack, the new mechanics introduced in Plus as well as much more thoughtful overall puzzle design make this a pretty substantial improvement over the original.

The first new wrinkle you'll notice is not every crossed out cell gives you the information about the surrounding cells. In the original Hexcells this was an excess of usable information and made some puzzles trivial in execution. This ambiguity is perfect because it makes you rely more on other areas of the puzzle, and it also allows for more secondary restraints without making the solution too obvious. This is compounded by the sole major mechanical addition to Plus: occasionally, a blue marked cell will have a number on it indicating how many other blue cells are in a two-cell radius. This is great because there are now even more ways for the rules to interact and create those zones of mutuality and mutual exclusion I touched on in my Hexcells review. They are almost never giving excess information in Plus and they way that they reveal the grid is decidedly different than the column rules. The blue cell numbers are in essence your line of defense against grids with an abundance of crossed cells without information.

It's unfortunately still not all glitter and gold, though. The increased level complexity and lengths, especially toward the game's end, make the lack of a save-and-exit option much more confusing. the runtime on some puzzles can run from 30 to even 45 minutes, which is a pretty substantial amount of time to lose should you have to close the game before finishing for some reason. Additionally, there are some inconsistencies regarding empty space that crop up more often in this entry, making some spatial logic more difficult than it needs to be. For example, if a column of 4 cells has a gap splitting it and a hint of {2}, indicating a consecutive pair of blue cells, that pair can extend across the gap. Functionally, empty space just doesn't exist in this context. However, the same example does NOT apply to the six cells surrounding a cell hint. Using the same example, imagine a {2} cell with only four cells surrounding it, in clumps of two with a gap separating each side. In this scenario, the 2 cells both MUST be in one of the two clusters, because the empty spaces *do* count as meaningful null space. This is a minor nitpick in a vacuum but these inconsistencies make it more likely you will make a mistake not knowing why it was one in the first place.

Still, though, it's hard to say that Plus is anything but a massive improvement over the original. The puzzles are better built, have much more stringent constraints that build a linear "path" through the puzzle, usually in very interesting ways, and it really gets the most out of the pre-existing mechanics, outside of the empty space weirdness I mentioned before. Unsurprisingly, this entry is also $3 even outside of sales, and it is even more worthwhile than its predecessor.

Pretty cool puzzle game, i view it as an evolution of minesweeper, with some elements that seem straight out of soduko. The first levels are easy enough, but its truely challenging to do the later levels without making any mistakes. Unfortunatly, some times you just have to risk mistakes as the games leaves no other solution open (at least for my puny brain), but there is a few allowed number of mistakes and you can still get the total score. Another complain is that its quite a short game. That said, i did enjoy it. Not sure if i would call it one of the best puzzle games of all time

Hexcells Plus, although a stand-alone title, could be considered an expansion to the basic Hexcells: the 36 new levels are much bigger and much more difficult than the ones in the basic game and they will keep you busy for several hours; a couple of more mechanics add a little bit of variety, but it is basically the same game.

I suggest going through Hexcells to get a grip of the mechanics before playing Hexcells plus.