The Hex: A love letter to (and some critique of) video games, a story that simply cannot be told in any other medium. There are hits and misses here, but there's no denying Daniel Mullins is quite the creative... and he needs help ending his games.
The Hex is a lot of things in one, I guess I'd describe it as a meta-narrative puzzler at its core. The “meta” and “puzzle” parts are pretty solid (though “puzzle” gets too absurd), but the “narrative” could use some work.
For meta, expect references galore. There's direct references to older games like Mario, Sonic, and even Tapper, and then some to newer games like Hotline Miami and PUBG. A pompous developer makes light of crunch culture, you'll see a Twitch chat and Steam reviews while you play, and GameShark-like cheat codes will help you even the odds. You, the player, will be referenced and spoken to directly. This is clearly a favorite concept for Daniel, I think he's 3 for 3 with this.
For puzzles, there's a few layers here. There are plenty of puzzles in the game to solve, including ones that'll have you using your cursor on screen to block lights as though it was a physical hand. Plenty of this sorts of stuff. But linking back to “meta”, if you want to know how far the rabbit hole goes with The Hex, you need to download and play an entirely different game (on Steam) just to find codes that work here. It's ambitious, but I think it's also absurd. I downloaded that other game but then decided I'm not going through the rigamarole, thank god for YouTube. This should be reined in a bit.
I found the narrative to be the least interesting part. Since I don't want to spoil anything, I'll say obviously this game is far more than its Steam page says. Starting with the easy surface stuff, I wasn't super interested in any story to keep me going, more so just wondering what the next gameplay change or meta reference would be. You can go way, way down in the story behind the scenes, and after reading up on it a bit I still don't care very much. It barely gripped me while I played the game, so it's not likely to grip me afterwards.
The ending bit with the walking simulator was a total drag. The voiceover sucks and obviously that's the intent, but knowing I'm not supposed to like what I'm experiencing doesn't help me all too much in these moments. So for the game to just slow way down before an ending I don't care about? I don't know, just not a very strong exit, here. As previously mentioned, I felt this with other games by Daniel Mullins: I don't remember much of Pony Island's ending except for not liking it, and Inscryption goes into this fourth wall-break shit even deeper for a longer time. Really, this may be my favorite final act of any of his games, but I don't like it. So.
The Hex is very interesting in many ways. This kind of game is more of a mystery than most are willing to delve into; layers upon layers and even a companion-piece game is needed to get a semblance of a final picture. You can read on its Steam discussions how far down this whole thing really goes. For me, I simply wasn't hooked enough to get that absorbed.
Check out The Hex if you love games, especially light horror ones that play with your head a bit. I guarantee it's not like anything else you've played, but it's up to you to decide if that's good or bad. I'm still not totally sure, but Daniel? Keep making games, please.
The Hex is a lot of things in one, I guess I'd describe it as a meta-narrative puzzler at its core. The “meta” and “puzzle” parts are pretty solid (though “puzzle” gets too absurd), but the “narrative” could use some work.
For meta, expect references galore. There's direct references to older games like Mario, Sonic, and even Tapper, and then some to newer games like Hotline Miami and PUBG. A pompous developer makes light of crunch culture, you'll see a Twitch chat and Steam reviews while you play, and GameShark-like cheat codes will help you even the odds. You, the player, will be referenced and spoken to directly. This is clearly a favorite concept for Daniel, I think he's 3 for 3 with this.
For puzzles, there's a few layers here. There are plenty of puzzles in the game to solve, including ones that'll have you using your cursor on screen to block lights as though it was a physical hand. Plenty of this sorts of stuff. But linking back to “meta”, if you want to know how far the rabbit hole goes with The Hex, you need to download and play an entirely different game (on Steam) just to find codes that work here. It's ambitious, but I think it's also absurd. I downloaded that other game but then decided I'm not going through the rigamarole, thank god for YouTube. This should be reined in a bit.
I found the narrative to be the least interesting part. Since I don't want to spoil anything, I'll say obviously this game is far more than its Steam page says. Starting with the easy surface stuff, I wasn't super interested in any story to keep me going, more so just wondering what the next gameplay change or meta reference would be. You can go way, way down in the story behind the scenes, and after reading up on it a bit I still don't care very much. It barely gripped me while I played the game, so it's not likely to grip me afterwards.
The ending bit with the walking simulator was a total drag. The voiceover sucks and obviously that's the intent, but knowing I'm not supposed to like what I'm experiencing doesn't help me all too much in these moments. So for the game to just slow way down before an ending I don't care about? I don't know, just not a very strong exit, here. As previously mentioned, I felt this with other games by Daniel Mullins: I don't remember much of Pony Island's ending except for not liking it, and Inscryption goes into this fourth wall-break shit even deeper for a longer time. Really, this may be my favorite final act of any of his games, but I don't like it. So.
The Hex is very interesting in many ways. This kind of game is more of a mystery than most are willing to delve into; layers upon layers and even a companion-piece game is needed to get a semblance of a final picture. You can read on its Steam discussions how far down this whole thing really goes. For me, I simply wasn't hooked enough to get that absorbed.
Check out The Hex if you love games, especially light horror ones that play with your head a bit. I guarantee it's not like anything else you've played, but it's up to you to decide if that's good or bad. I'm still not totally sure, but Daniel? Keep making games, please.