Hexcells
I hit a milestone last week in a project I'm working on (well, I'm calling it a milestone), and I have a self-imposed ten day "don't work on this" period.Okay, I can work on it a little, but not much. So I guess it's actually a self-imposed ten day "don't work on this much" period.
I decided to play Hexcells.
For your convenience: Hexcells Complete Pack. This includes Hexcells, Hexcells Plus, and Hexcells Infinite.
Here's the game description from the Steam page: Hexcells is an ambient logic puzzle game for PC, Mac and Linux.
You know a game is badass when that's all you get in the description.
To me, Hexcells is basically Minesweeper with much, much more complex rules on top of the foundation. For instance, here's the most difficult puzzle in Hexcells Plus (click to expand):
Those numbers all over the freaking place? They're rules. Many rules, all governing what cells must be filled in.
I think this level took me 20-30 minutes (and I didn't solve it the first time, not by a long shot), and this game gets you into a flow state like you wouldn't believe. Somebody could drop an anvil behind me and I wouldn't hear a thing.
This is not a typical level. Most of them are quite a bit simpler, and as far as I can tell, they require no guessing (although figuring out why you don't need to guess can be very, very difficult at times).
I worked my way through the first two games in about a week, then started in on Hexcells Infinite a few days ago.
Yeah, this is supposed to be my break, and I'm grinding levels on a math game. I used to be able to relax, but at some point after Eli 17.7 was born, I lost that ability. So this is both relaxing and taxing, which is what relaxation is for me now.
If you've never played this series of games, they are just amazingly good. Oh, and they also have ambient soundtracks that make you sink even deeper into concentration.
Now back to that level I can't solve.
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