[b]aurora hex[/b] is similar to the developer's previous game, [url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/dohi64/recommended/724640]aurorabound deluxe[/url]. you're trying to recreate colorful patterns in both, but in this game you're bothering hexagons instead of squares. it is also somewhat similar to [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/370150/]loop[/url].
there are 20 worlds (level sets) with 30 levels each (except the first, which only has 20), so about 600 puzzles to begin with. the mouse moves pieces around and placed hexes can be rotated with left/right clicks. there is no timer and you can use as many hints as you want, as long as you have them. completing each level gives you one, it unlocks the next level, hands out some crowns that are just points for a scrapped leaderboard feature that may or may not return later, and a star.
stars are used to unlock worlds, and while you can only have one unsolved puzzle in a world, if you stack up stars, you can unlock multiple worlds and hop around between them. not sure why they're called worlds, my theory is because levels look like top-down views of some random landscape. well, not so much the pink areas, but I can picture mountains, hills, forests, villages and such.
the game claims to have a gradual difficulty curve, and I guess it's pretty good, as I didn't encounter many difficulty spikes, but levels get more colorful and bigger, and take longer and longer to complete. the entire game is really relaxing, but some levels without any pre-placed or fixed pieces, so with many possible combinations can be frustrating, or when everything's rotatable and the pattern's not that obvious.
if you do decide to hop around level packs, progress is saved if you quit a level, which is always nice. so is an undo function in puzzlers, but there is none here. the way the game works it's not necessary though, you can move and rotate pieces around to your heart's content, even put pieces back to the foundation and reorganize them there, so having a level reset is enough.
after completing 100 puzzles, dailies open up, 4 per day, varying difficulty, and they also give stars, hints and of course crowns. after 500 puzzles (which means completing most of the worlds depending on how many dailies you do) infinity mode unlocks, which is what the name suggests. I'm not a fan of endless procedurally generated content, but not against games having them for longevity either.
as for the technical aspects, separate volume sliders, resolution options, windowed mode are all here and work flawlessly, very clean and elegant presentation, though the music is more for ambience than actual listening, but it doesn't get in the way at least. sound effects aren't excellent, but you won't be playing this with the game's audio for too long anyway.
can't really find a fault with the game, except using a hint sometimes replaces a piece with an identical piece in the same slot, which was technically correct already. the price is reasonable, there's a lot of content, it can definitely keep you busy for a long time, so consider picking it up.
