Coloured blocks fall toward a hexagon. Turn it so 3 or more blocks of one colour touch and clear, before any side stacks too high.
What is Hex Blocks?
Hex Blocks is a hexagon puzzle game in which coloured blocks fly in from six directions toward a hexagon in the middle of the screen, and you turn the hexagon so that each block lands where you want it. Three or more touching blocks of one colour clear and score points. If any side stacks up past the outer hexagon, the game is over.
It mixes the stacking pressure of falling-block puzzles with colour matching. There is one board, one mode and one action, turning, but the pace rises steadily and the blocks keep coming, so each game turns into a race between your clears and the incoming stream.
How to play Hex Blocks
The centre hexagon has six sides. Blocks approach from fixed directions on the screen and stick to whichever side of the hexagon is facing them when they arrive. Each tap on the left or right half of the screen, or each press of the left or right arrow (or A and D), turns the hexagon one side's worth, and all the blocks already stacked on it turn with it.
There are four colours. A block that lands joins the blocks it touches: the one below it on the same side, and the blocks at the same height on the two neighbouring sides. When a connected group of one colour reaches three or more blocks, the whole group clears, and the blocks above it settle down, which can trigger further clears.
Points are counted as the square of the group size, times the combo multiplier: a group of 3 scores 9, a group of 4 scores 16, a group of 6 scores 36. If you clear another group before the coloured line around the hexagon runs out, the multiplier goes up by one; if you wait too long, it drops back to 1.
A side that grows beyond the grey outer hexagon ends the game. Holding the down arrow or S makes the incoming blocks fly faster, which is useful when you are waiting for a block you have already placed in your head.
Hex Blocks strategy: combos and keeping sides level
Build big groups when it is safe. Because points grow with the square of the group size, one clear of 6 blocks scores 36, while two clears of 3 score 18. When your stacks are low, it pays to let a group of one colour grow along a side and around a corner before you complete it.
Use corners. Blocks at the same height on neighbouring sides count as touching, so a group can wrap around a corner of the hexagon. This gives you more places to drop a matching colour than a single side would.
Keep the sides level. The danger is always the tallest side. When a block has no good match, put it on a short side where it will not get in the way. Avoid burying a colour under a different colour on a tall side, since the lower block can then only clear through its neighbours.
Read the patterns. Blocks often come in sets: a full ring with one block on every side, a half ring of three neighbouring sides, two blocks of the same colour on opposite sides, or a spiral that goes round the hexagon. Once you recognise a set, you can turn the hexagon to catch the whole set in good places with one or two moves.
Chain clears for the multiplier. Every clear inside the combo window raises the multiplier, and the multiplier applies to everything you clear next. Setting up two or three groups that are each one block short, then finishing them one after another, is the fastest way to a high score.
Speed and difficulty
Hex Blocks has a single endless mode. The game starts slowly and speeds up over time: blocks fly in faster, and new blocks arrive more often as you clear more of them. Late in a game the stream is fast enough that every turn has to be planned before the block arrives.
The playing field is a little different on touch screens and with a mouse. On touch devices the hexagon is larger and each side holds up to 7 blocks; with a mouse the view is smaller and each side holds up to 8. Your top 3 scores are kept in your browser.
Where Hex Blocks comes from
Hex Blocks is a modified version of Hextris, an open-source game by Logan Engstrom, Garrett Finucane, Noah Moroze and Michael Yang, released under the GNU General Public License. We kept its rules, scoring and block patterns, gave the game a new name and interface, translated it into 30 languages and removed the ads, analytics and outside scripts. The full, unminified source code is published together with the game, as the license requires.
Its roots go back to the falling-block puzzles of the 1980s; here the blocks fall onto a rotating hexagon.
Play Hex Blocks free on Hevagames
Hex Blocks runs in the browser on phones, tablets and computers, with no download. On a phone you tap the left or right side of the screen to turn the hexagon. On a computer you use the arrow keys or A and D, hold the down arrow or S to speed up incoming blocks, and press P, Space or Esc to pause. Enter starts or restarts a game.
The game pauses by itself when you leave the tab. A game in progress is not saved, so finish your run before you close the page. The background and the outer hexagon follow the light or dark theme of the site.
How to play
- 1Blocks fly in from all six directions and stack on the sides of the centre hexagon.
- 2Turn the hexagon so each block lands where you want it.
- 3When 3 or more blocks of the same colour touch, they clear and you score.
- 4Clearing again quickly builds a combo multiplier, shown by the coloured line around the hexagon.
- 5The game ends when a side holds more blocks than fit inside the outer hexagon.
Controls
Tips
- Bigger groups score more: a clear of n blocks is worth n × n points times the combo.
- Keep the sides level so no single side reaches the edge.
- The pace slowly increases, so build combos early.
