[b]5/10[/b]
Tetris, but on a hexagonal grid.
[b]What is it:[/b] A Tetris variant, you play on a hexagonal grid with 3 or 4 blocks pieces falling from the top. You have to place the pieces near the bottom, and when a whole line is filled, it is removed. Due to the hexagonal nature of the playing field, pieces don’t fall straight down, but either down-left or down-right, and you choose which way they go. Also, lines don’t count only on the bottom, but whenever a whole line from one wall to another is filled, you can form lines on at least 5 of the sides of the hexagon (I didn’t yet try the topmost line), or anywhere in between. You also get bonus points for combos, removing more than one line at a time.
I find that the hexagonal grid can help, it’s easier to maneuver pieces through tight corridors if you messed up. The controls take some getting used to, and learning the shortcuts may help a lot. The hold space and the next 4 preview are super helpful. So, some things make it easier than regular tetris, some make it harder.
As a basic Tetris, this works, it’s a bit better than the handheld Russian made portable Tetris I used to have back in the 90s. The arrow keys work well for moving pieces, you have a high score table, 4 next pieces preview, a hold space where you can save one piece for later, three different game sizes, decent music, and even a practice mode where the pieces don’t fall by themselves, you’re free to move them as much as you want. So, as a basic Tetris this works. But I expect more from a game that’s not made in the 90s.
First, it’s too buggy. When moving too fast the grid loses its coherence, the piece forgets some of its cells behind, or the target preview is wrong, or the falling preview streak fails to get updated. Playing with the settings sometimes crashes the game, or causes it to not fit in the screen. There are a few buttons for choosing different aspect ratios, but that just stretches the game, making it display flat or tall hexagons. If you play the training mode long enough and pay attention to the tips you may learn about the many keys it supports, which aren’t explained or listed in any other screen. The settings screen doesn’t indicate in any way which option is selected. No steam integration, no cloud save, no shared leaderboards, no achievements. This is a very basic game.
Still, if you’re a fan of Tetris, this is a decent variant with no frills, I for one appreciate that it doesn’t have spurious animations, special mechanics, things to sell or ads to display. If all you want is a quick game to pass a few minutes (or hours if you get hooked, like me), then this is a cheap option.
[b]Quality:[/b] Buggy, bare implementation, lack of QoL. Keyboard only controls, but it can be manually configured to work on the Steam Deck or with a controller. A few settings. No accessibility settings, dark mode only and the colors lack contrast. No cloud saving, achievements, no leaderboards.
[b]Worth the price:[/b] Yes.
[b]Most positive aspect for me:[/b] Good Tetris variant.
[b]Most negative aspect for me:[/b] Too buggy.
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