Hexplorando is a 3D puzzle game that has you placing tiles around a map to creae beautiful worlds. In the campaign mode these worlds all are inspired by real places within Europe, giving you the ability to build a cozy, beautiful world and then learn more about the place that it’s based off.
When I played the demo at Indie Dev Day, I didn’t have any prior knowledge of it. I do love these sort of puzzle games where you just need to join up the right biome, to create a world. Here, there isn’t a timer or anything bad that happens when you put something in the wrong space, which makes for a relaxing time. It wasn’t until I built up a city and got the information on the building did I realize there was more than just puzzles.
It’s presented as though you have discovered an area, creating something out of nothing and plopping an important structure into the middle of it. Suddenly, I realized I was building places I have been to and visited, and that this is also a tool to learning. There’s also a sandbox mode within the game, that allows you to build whatever world you want, taking important European buildings and placing them next to each other if you’d like.
Hexplorando is a simple concept, but the graphics themselves and learning that can be made within the game makes it quite fun. I enjoyed my time building cities, though it can get a little challenging without some sort of help, and look forward to seeing the full game once it is out. Even in the hustle and bustle of an in-person event, I could really feel joy putting together these little worlds.
You can currently wishlist Hexplorando on Steam.
