Hexterity

I'm no game developer, but I imagine that even with the smallest projects things rarely end up looking exactly as intended. Along the path of development, various molehills no doubt arise, changing the direction of the project and making the whole thing a lot more difficult than it might have initially looked.

How fitting, then, that this kind of troublesome path is so accurately reflected in Hexterity. Here's a game where you're repeatedly asked to evaluate where you've come from and where you're going to so that both ends meet, literally.

The simple goal is to create a loop starting and ending with a gem by manipulating hexagons across a board. Each hexagon has part of a path on it - either a straight or curved stretch - and turning these allows you to create the objective loop.

It's not as easy as it sounds. Finding the right path, not to mention having to twist and turn all the hexagons so that they meet up, is actually quite difficult. Further complicating matters is the gem itself, which comes with its own piece of path, meaning it can only be linked up from certain angles. It's not uncommon to almost complete an entire loop only to get back to the gem to find it doesn't fit. That's because, at the start, there's no real way of telling whether the loop you're setting out on will work. Hexterity is very much a game of trial-and-error.

It's not without its punishment either. Your progress is timed, the gem pulsing away at an ever quickening rate until it finally explodes, taking away a good dose of the hexagons and a life with it. Play becomes a question of wanting to complete the loop before the gem blows off, but also being aware that the bigger loops are rewarded with a bigger stash of points. It's the kind of balance that will allow for those chasing the top of the leaderboard to branch out and make the biggest loops imaginable, yet for those unsure and unwilling to experiment to create a small circuit, just to get through.

And getting through is your only motivation. Once a loop is cleared, more hexagons tumble down from the top of the screen to take their place, with a new random gem is assigned. Clear it eight times, and you move up a level. Hexagons with bonus gems begin to appear, adding extra points to your total if you manage to incorporate them into a loop. There are also extra time hexagons that give you a bit of breathing space in subsequent games. The appropriately named 'VolaTiles' explode at the slightest touch, clearing whole areas of the board and taking any tiles around them with them.

All of these elements, though subtle when confined, pieced together perfectly illustrate what Hexterity is about: simple, accessible play doesn't have to be painfully easy. There are a few control issues (namely in default mode, where turning hexagons is a matter of holding your finger down and twisting), but these are easily rectified by switching to tap mode and, on the whole, Hexterity is the perfect example of a straightforward idea well executed, resulting in the kind of addictive play that's become the iPhone's foodstuff of late.