p13development’s H.E.X. is 60 percent off at the moment (which makes it $0.99) and that’s a smart move on the part of the developer.

H.E.X. is a match-up game and the shelves in the App Store are packed with the genre. As I’ve noted before, it’s really hard to break out of the same old thing. Either you come up with an entirely new concept or a better price than everyone else.

p13development attempts to differentiate itself by basing H.E.X. on a game board with color-coded, hexagonal crystals. At the bottom of the screen you’re given a pattern of crystals of different colors and your task is to match the pattern with one on the game board. Do it correctly, and the crystals dissolve and are then replaced by new crystals.

The more you play H.E.X., the more difficult the challenge becomes, requiring you to match three, four crystals and more varied colors and so on. You’re also playing against the clock, which increases the challenge.

To add to the fun, H.E.X. has bonus power ups such as a joker wildcard (it can be any color) and bomb crystals designed to eliminate specific colors or adjacent crystals when they explode.

At it’s core, H.E.X. is still a match-three (or more) objects game and either you like these games or not. Bejeweled is probably the benchmark for this sort of game, and I don’t think this one quite measures up, even though it’s more complex and more sophisticated.

In the plus column, H.E.X. is a well executed game. The graphics are pleasing to look at and it plays well. It has three different sound tracks and I think for $0.99 H.E.X. is a bargain compared to match-up games in the same price neighborhood.

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category: Best Free Apps, Games