For those of you who enjoy iPhone versions of word board games like Scrabble® and Words with Friends, then you might want to take a look at HexaLex. It ‘s as if a Chinese Checkers board ran into a Scrabble® board and from their encounter, HexaLex was born.
I can guess that the name HexaLex is derived from ‘HEXAgonal ‘ and ‘LEXicon, ‘ and despite its different name, the fun of playing a tiled word game in 3 directions, yes 3, creates some unusual, but extremely enjoyable, challenges. Unlike the traditional square tiles where words can be played either horizontally and vertically, HexaLex tiles spell words diagonally up, diagonally down, and vertically.
Rules:
The rules are simple “ especially if you ‘re familiar with playing on a traditional square board: your task is to earn points by building words off of other players’ letters on the board (four players max), especially where the familiar ‘double/triple word ‘ and ‘double/triple letter ‘ are littered about. There is an important exception, however, and that is when a ‘Junk Word ‘ is formed.
When two words cross on a hexagonal grid, they can actually make four words. If all of these words had to be valid it would be very hard to find legal plays, So in HexaLex, each time you play you can make up to two (2) invalid two-letter words, or ‘junk words. ‘ [Also] you can ‘t use a junk word as your only connection to a word on the board.
This little twist saves the game because it is easy to create a jumbled mess when you ‘re only focusing on playing your single word “ and the game also helps by placing a red-line overlay on both ‘junk words ‘ and invalid words during your play (see below).
The only other specific rule difference worth mentioning is the one involving the exchange of tiles. Since there is the added challenge of trying to connect to other words that can be bunched tightly together, if you have a rack you want to exchange (say they ‘re all consonants), you can begin your turn with a ‘Full Exchange ‘ up to three times in a game without penalty (which means you don ‘t forfeit your turn to do the exchange).
Scoring:
Scoring is tallied as you might have suspected: adding the point values of the letters with the bonus locations on the board results in a score. There are also additional bonuses for playing long words (+5 for five-letter word; +15 for six-letter; and +40 for playing all seven) from the rack.
Conclusion:
What sets HexaLex apart from Words with Friends is not only the unique concept and play, but specifically the graphics and interface. You can play against the computer, or you can play either locally or online with up to four opponents. HexaLex is brilliantly clear, crisp, clean and demonstrates a developer ‘s efforts to deliver a polished game to enhance the experience of play. The sounds augment the play instead of distracting from it. The integration of Facebook allows an optional boasting to your wall (at least it ‘s not Farmville), and an ongoing profile statistics contribute to the tight feel and experience that HexaLex provides.
My one and only complaint about HexaLex is the clutter of the board as the game nears the end: the colors don ‘t have enough contrast to stay distinguishable from the white tiles played on the board, so it can be irksome trying to find places to play.
Given my recent addiction to playing both Scrabble® through Facebook and Words with Friends (username ‘bghuna ‘), I ‘m keeping HexaLex (username ‘bghuna ‘) as a recommended alternative and suggest you give it a try!
Recent Update:
Although I ‘ve not encountered it, some have reported that during the ‘sending play ‘ stage during online play, the game gets ‘stuck. ‘ According to the developer, a future update should be coming, and until then, a workaround is to ‘go into chat and send ‘/reload ‘ without quotes. The game will be forced to reload and the problem should be fixed. ‘ The developer is even enlisting help to isolate the problem by sending an email to support@hexalex.com if you have a jailbroken device with a stuck game.
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HexaLex is currently available (on sale discounted 33%) in the App store for $1.99
HexaLex was provided for review on Just Another iPhone Blog. For further information regarding our site ‘s review policies, please see the ‘About ‘ page.
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TAGS: iPhone word games, word game
