Hexara--work in progress

This version has no sound, and should take no more than 10 seconds to initially load. (Version with sound, may take 3 minutes to load. Once loaded, click on the "File" button in the top left corner and select "Load" to load a puzzle. There are currently eight puzzles of increasing difficulty. Scenario and instructions are below.

All content on this web site Copyright 2011 Philip Freihofner. All rights reserved.

Welcome to Hexara!

Object: Each of the green vertical “scrolls” has a sequence of symbols. The object of Hexara is to place all the symbols in the honeycomb grid in the center in such a way that all the sequences in all the scrolls are present / can be traced. A few symbols (in purple) have been placed in the grid to give you a start. Because there are more symbols than there are spaces in the honeycomb, the sequences will overlap.

How to Play: Click and drag the symbols one at a time from the scrolls to the grid, making sequences in the grid. You can trace a sequence in any direction. When you have completed the sequence on a particular scroll, the scroll will light up and make a sound.

Following is a WalkThrough of the first puzzle:

  1. The first scroll on the left has only two symbols, a heart and a “target.” Notice that there is already a heart in the grid. So you need to place the target to complete that sequence. Click and drag the target off the scroll onto one of the spaces next to the heart. Bong! The scroll on the left lights up to indicate you finished that sequence correctly.
  2. Doing one sequence is easy, but the object is to do all of them! Now choose another scroll and look for a place where one of its symbols can go. (You can do the scrolls in any order, and may have to move symbols around in the grid before you’re done.)
  3. Use the purple symbols in the grid as clues to the finished puzzle. What’s another sequence using a symbol that’s already there? Notice the five-pointed star in the grid. Which sequences use it? Like with all good puzzles, you have a choice. Scroll #5 has a sequence of diamond shape - eye - star. What luck! The diamond shape is also in the grid already. Drag the eye symbol off the scroll and into the space between the star and the diamond. Bong! You just did another one.
  4. Now that you have one of the “star” sequences in place, why not do the other one? Scroll #4 has a star and a mountain. Where does the mountain go?
  5. Right! If you put the mountain in the only place next to a star, you got another one right.
  6. So, what other sequence has a mountain in it? Notice the mountain – wave – moon scroll. Where does the moon go? There should be only one choice, next to the wave. Bong!
  7. Almost there! Only one space left. Notice if there are any scrolls that are not lit up yet. What symbol on the last scroll is not in the grid yet? Drag the spokey sun onto the grid.
  8. You’re done!

** If you drop your symbol in the wrong spot or change your mind, just click and drag the unwanted symbol off the grid. It will disappear and you can choose it again from the scroll.

Any scroll that was complete and is made incomplete be moving or removing a symbol will go dark. The puzzle can’t be completed unless all the scrolls are lit up.

Because the sequences overlap, many symbols are used more than once. In this example, the mountain was part of two sets, but you only had to drag it onto the grid once to complete the puzzle.

Following are suggestions for the programmer, for "next steps" to improve play:

--I originally followed the link to the faster load and missed the instrux to use the File button to start the game, so I sat there staring at it and wondering how to start. No no, “File” is not a good start for a game.

File menu: Load, Design, Help, Exit. Haha. How about Play? Start Game? Of course the user isn’t going to design their own unless they become an advanced user, and I guess the help text is up to me

After winning. Nice to see the whole thing glow and disappear, but a “Good job! You won!” is needed. A “Play again?” button with yes/ no/ quit is needed.

You said there was a way to reset the whole grid and start over if they get balled up?

I don’t know about the walkthrough as a “script”, but I can do this sequence and point the camera at it. I kind of think video trailers for games are more appropriate for action games than quiet puzzles. The instrux for this might do better as screenshots or screenshot-with-animation.

Original Draft of Instructions

On what is now a desolate, high mesa, well off the beaten path, there once existed a lush ecosystem and an advanced culture that mysteriously collapsed and disappeared, millenia ago, leaving few traces. Local legend has it that on that deserted plain, a ghostly pavilion will sometimes appear in the last hours before dawn, the Pavilion of Hexara. If you chance upon this structure, you will see six hanging scrolls with curious symbols on them, on either side of a central hexagonal framework, in air thick with incense. If the symbols of a scroll are placed in the frame so that their sequence from top to bottom can be traced by moving from hex to neighboring hex (any direction) in the framework, that scroll will energize. The legend continues that if you can arrange the symbols so that all six scrolls are energized at the same time, the manna will combine to a climax such that a wish can be granted!