Earlier this year HexaNeph Games released Hint, an intriguing puzzler in which each stage has its own unique set of rules that players need to work out for themselves to stand any chance of progressing to the next. Not only …
Earlier this year HexaNeph Games released Hint, an intriguing puzzler in which each stage has its own unique set of rules that players need to work out for themselves to stand any chance of progressing to the next.
Not only is Hint a highly original and charmingly presented puzzler, but it’s also a contest. The game contains a hidden ending, and HexaNeph Games is offering a grand prize to each of the first five players to find it.
The first of those winners has been announced, so let’s give it up for PuzzleTaker.
Before we get into what PuzzleTaker has won, it’s worth explaining a bit about the game. Hint consists of 27 stages, though you can play them through with two different guides: Hex and Neph.
Neph is a nice, encouraging lady who serves up hints whenever you get stuck, which is almost all of the time. Hex performs the same function, but in a gruff, vaguely Mr T-like way.
These hints aren’t straightforward. Some of them are more useful than others, and it’s likely that some of them aren’t useful at all. HexaNeph Games only promises that your guides, “almost never make things worse”. Very reassuring.
As to the puzzles themselves, they veer from infuriatingly obscure to infuriatingly straightforward. You can spend half an hour trying to work out the rules to a particularly complex poser, and you can just as easily spend half an hour failing to realise that a solution really is as obvious as it seems. Hint delights in wrong-footing you.
But it didn’t manage to wrong-foot PuzzleTaker, and as a result PuzzleTaker has earned a place on the credits screen, membership of the Hidden Ending Club, and the awesome privilege of devising their own custom level and hints.
The new stage is now available. It’s called You’re Not You, and HexaNeph Games describes it as “probably the hardest puzzle yet”. Gulp.
If you’ve already beaten the game, you can now access You’re Not You from the Levels menu – but new players will end up encountering it naturally.
So what are you waiting for? Head to the Google Play Store to download Hint right now.
