Whenever something goes badly wrong, people tend to react by going back to basics - to strip whatever it is down to the bare essentials and re-establish what was good about it in the first place.
Football teams do it when they’re on an extended losing streak, bands do it when they realise they’ve disappeared up their own drug-fueled orifices, and people do it when relationships start to waver.
There’s something very wrong with Android tower defence games, too: a chronic lack of the things. What’s there isn’t necessarily bad, but compared to iPhone - which can boast the likes of Fieldrunners and the Sentinel series - the platform’s TD offering looks a little tired.
HexDefense goes back to basics and simultaneously adds another solid entry to the genre.
Convinced of the hexHexDefense adopts a minimalistic retro approach to tower defence. There’s no attempt to hide the boardgame-like playing field, as wireframe enemies scoot from one hexagon-shaped tile to the next.
Your goal is to stop these waves of squares, triangles and nebulous blobs from reaching your base. Sustain ten direct hits and it’s Game Over.
To defend yourself you need to drag defensive turrets into position with your finger. Provided you have the funds (gained from defeated enemies), this part’s simple enough. The real skill is in setting up a well balanced lattice of defensive units.
No one turret is perfect, with each one being effective against particular enemy types. You can boost the effectiveness of each turret, but that too takes vital money.
MultifacetedThe real beauty of HexDefence - and it’s something you feel couldn’t have happened without the wonderfully economical visual style - is the sheer variety of the levels.
Starting out as strictly funneled affairs, they soon branch out into wide open areas, twisting labyrinths, and areas packed with special level furniture that can be used to your advantage (or taken out of the equation).
You’ll want to create bottlenecks around the Sludge Tile, for example, while the Healing Tile can undo much of your good work if you’re not careful.
It’s this surprising variety, in spite of the game’s sparse (though attractive and well-executed) aesthetic, that makes HexDefense a winner. In going back to basics, it’s managed to reach areas other Android tower defence games just don’t touch.
HexDefense
Don’t be fooled by its back to basics visual approach - HexDefense is a stylish, varied and fiendishly tough tower defence game. It’s also one of the best of its kind on Android
Jon Mundy
Jon is a consummate expert in adventure, action, and sports games. Which is just as well, as in real life he's timid, lazy, and unfit. It's amazing how these things even themselves out.