I’m happy to announce that, after weeks of design and development, my new game Hexakai is ready!
Hexakai, inspired by Sudoku, is played on a hexagonal diamond-shaped grid of cells. The top row has one cell, then each row increases in size until we reach the middle row, then it decreases again until the last row has one cell. Usually, Hexakai games are of size 10, which means the middle row has 10 cells and that there are a total of 100 cells.
Rules of the Game
The game is comprised of a series of rows and diagonals. Unlike Sudoku, where each cell belongs to one column, each cell belongs to two diagonals, one from the top left to the bottom right, and one from the top right to the bottom left. Each diagonal must have every value at least once with no duplicates, and each row must also have no duplicates. In a game of size 10, for example, each diagonal would have values 0-9 exactly once, and the middle row must also have values 0-9 at least once. Every other row is smaller, so they cannot contain all values, but they must not contain duplicates.
Features
I created the app, which can be played on hexakai.com, with features to make the game more navigable and enjoyable, including:
- Auto saving your progress to your device.
- Control over zooming and scrolling, allowing you to focus on specific parts of the board or view it as a whole.
- Colors, to let you make notes for yourself (i.e., red could mean ‘this cell is probably wrong.’)
- Numerous board sizes and game difficulties, to allow you to define exactly the kind of game you want to play.
- Tracking your progress with achievements.
The Ultra-Difficulty Challenge
Hexakai comes in four difficulty levels: easy, medium, difficult, and ultra-difficult. Even as the creator of the game, it took me significant amounts of time and energy to overcome even a single ultra-difficult board. My challenge to you is to do the same.
What’s Next?
I’ll be adding more features within the next few weeks, such as undo and redo, to make the game even more enjoyable. I am also currently in the process of creating apps for Android and iOS and will be releasing those in the near future.
I’m also working on a book that will include hand-selected puzzles of different sizes and difficulties, strategies that can be applied to beat the game, and a deep dive into the mathematics that give the game its unique qualities.
Where Can I Play It?
The game is hosted on hexakai.com
