Hand of Hexes Demo Is the Ultimate Frustration Machine You’ll Love to Hate
Hello everyone. Today we’re going to talk about Hand of Hexes – a game demo that thinks it’s being clever by throwing you into the spell-slinging, tower-defending deep end without so much as a “Hello, please don’t walk into that buzzsaw turret.” Oh no, it’s a proud citizen of the “figure it out yourself” school of design. That’s right – zero text, no explanations, no hints. It’s like the developer looked at basic UX principles, laughed, set them on fire, and scattered the ashes over procedural terrain.
The Premise – Cards, Towers, Mazes, and Bees… Yes, Bees
The basic pitch is simple enough: build a deck of cards to cast spells, drop bizarre towers with attack patterns more erratic than a caffeine-addled squirrel, and force enemies to run your custom maze of pain. Each run is different, because procedural generation is still the darling of indie developers who believe throwing dice into a blender counts as replay value.
- No text tutorials – you learn by making mistakes.
- Deck-builder mechanics combined with tower defense strategy.
- Unique attack patterns – including the aforementioned homicidal bees.
- Procedural maps, varied biomes, and enemies you’ll eventually hate.
Now on paper – or should I say, on the back of a hastily scrawled napkin from a game jam – this sounds fantastic. The reality? It’s going to absolutely kick your teeth in until you decipher how the towers actually work. You’ll go through more failed runs than a level 1 Dark Souls player discovering the roll button exists… after dying to the tutorial boss twelve times.
The No-Text “Feature” – Genius or Sadistic Joke?
Let’s talk about the “no text” gimmick. I can already hear the artsy defense: “We wanted to create a universal language through gameplay mechanics that transcends words.” Sure. And I wanted to cure headaches with trepanning. In reality, you’re just going to stare at icons wondering if the little spiral means ‘launch fireballs’ or ‘summon bees that ignore enemies entirely and instead pollinate a tree somewhere off-screen.’ This might be cute in a 5-minute jam game, but in a full release? It’s user-hostile masquerading as design elegance.
“Trial and error” – emphasis on the error.
Gameplay Pacing – More RNG Than Skill
The towers have distinct firing patterns which is neat for about five minutes before you realize half of them are next to useless unless RNG delivers the perfect board state. Designing your mazes is fun if the map seed gives you enough space. Otherwise it’s like doing surgery with a rubber mallet – sure, it’s technically possible, but it’s going to be ugly and someone’s going to lose a limb.
The “Unique Run” Hook – Déjà vu with Extra Steps
Procedural maps, random encounters, varied levels – all the buzzwords are here. Unfortunately, procedural ≠ actually unique. Sometimes it just means “slightly different arrangement of pain and frustration.” It’s like a roguelike deck-builder got drunk with a tower defense game and nine months later gave birth to a chaos-spawn you have to babysit.
System Specs – Basically, Anything With a Pulse
| OS | Windows 10 / Fedora Linux 40 |
| Processor | Intel i5-8365U |
| Memory | 8 GB RAM |
| Graphics | Intel UHD Graphics 620 (integrated potato chip variety) |
| Storage | 4 GB |
It’s nice that the barrier to entry is low – basically, if you own anything built in the last 7 years and it hasn’t been used exclusively as a cutting board, you can run this game.
Final Diagnosis
As your friendly sarcastic MD of gaming, here’s the prognosis: Hand of Hexes could be a fun little strategy-puzzle hybrid for those who like deciphering mechanics through raw attrition. For everyone else, it’s an exercise in graphical charades with RNG dictating whether you laugh maniacally at your victory or flip your desk in rage. There’s a kernel of brilliance in here – unfortunately, it’s buried under the dev’s refusal to explain literally anything. This will alienate casual players faster than a conspiracy theorist at a NASA open day.
Verdict: Bad… for now. But with some UX adjustments and perhaps a smidge of accessibility, it could rise above gimmick territory and justify its quirks. Two days until launch – let’s see if they’re brave enough to give players more than a pile of cryptic doodles.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is entirely my opinion.
Article source: Hand of Hexes Demo, https://store.steampowered.com/app/3667900/Hand_of_Hexes_Demo/
