Hextris

The original Hextris got its name from the hexagonal pieces. This game got its name because its pieces—which do not fall down, but have to be dropped manually—can consist of up to six blocks. For more details of the rather unconventional gameplay, read the original documentation below. To download it, click on the screenshot above.

Basic rules

In the middle of the screen is the playing field. It is a rectangular field where the actual playing takes place. At the top of the playing field, a Hextris piece will appear. (The piece does not descend by itself though, as it does in Tetris or Pentris.) You can move the piece to the sides or downwards, you can rotate it, you can mirror it, and you can drop it to the bottom of the playing field. To place a piece, you either drop it, or move it downwards until it stops against the bottom or against previously placed pieces. Your goal is to place the pieces so that they form solid lines across the playing field. Every solid line that you form will be removed. Every tenth line you manage to remove, will take you to the next level. The top lines of the playing field is marked red. If you place a piece so that any part of it is inside the red area, your game is over.

Keys

Use the Key setup in the main menu to find out which keys are used, or to reconfigure the keys. This is the default key configuration: Number 4 and 6 on the numerical keypad, or the left and right arrow keys, moves the piece left and right. Number 2 on the numerical keypad, or down arrow key moves the piece downwards. Number 5 on the numerical keypad rotates the piece. Number 1 on the numerical keypad, or the end key, mirrors the piece. Number 3 on the numerical keypad, or the page down key, drops the piece. Pressing P pauses the game. This also covers the playing area, preventing you from cheating… Pressing S changes the sound mode. It can be set to no sounds, some sounds, or all sounds. Pressing Q changes the quick drop status. This skips the animation of falling pieces, reducing the waiting times slightly. Pressing I changes the drop image. It can have the colours red, green, blue or it can be invisible. Pressing Escape exits the current game. You will however be included in any top list for which your results are good enough. (The Escape key cannot be reconfigured.)

Scoring

There are some different ways to increase your score: Placing a piece before it's time limit expires, adds the remaining time to your score. Your streaking counter (see below) is added to your score for each piece you place. Streaking can give you a maximum of 30 points per piece, though. Forming a line across the playing field increases your score by 50. Multi line removals (see below) increases your score dramatically. A Tritris adds 500 points, a Tetris adds 1000 points, a Pentris adds 1500 points, and a Hextris adds 2000 points. Totally removing a Filler (see below) increases your score anywhere between 1000 and 5000 points, depending on the Filler.

Levels

There are fifteen levels of difficulty. At the first level there are only twelve different pieces. Every level then adds another three pieces, each level having its own color. At the 15th level there is a total of 54 different pieces.

Starting level

By changing the starting level, you start off with a larger variety of pieces. To get to the next level, however, you must remove as many lines as would have be needed to get there starting from level one.

Streaking

Each piece starts off with a time limit, which also serves as a score counter. When you place the piece, your score increases with the remaining time. Placing many pieces after each other inside the time limit is called streaking, and increases your streaking counter. A single failure resets the counter to zero, though. Up to 30, the streaking counter is added to your score for each piece you place. If you continue to increase the streak counter, you will still only get another 30 points for each piece. (Yes, I know the term streaking already exists, but as it is out of fashion, I decided to recycle it…)

Multi line removals

If you remove more than two lines at a time, it is a multi line removal. Three lines is called a Tritris. Four lines is a classic Tetris (found in Tetris, and in every Tetris clone). Five lines is a Pentris (also found in the game Pentris). Six lines is a Hextris.

Fillers

In the original Tetris game, and in Pentris, you may select a number of lines filled with garbage. In Hextris there are Fillers instead. Fillers are patterns that are placed initially in the playing field, and your goal is to remove every piece of the filler. When you manage to remove every piece, you are rewarded a certain amount of points, specific for each filler (see below). There are 13 different fillers, each with it's own shape and background, and each with it's own top list. Here is a complete list of the fillers, with the score you recieve for removing them, and their background:

• Big Apple (1000): Scyscrapers against the night sky. Watch out for the choppers…
• Dome (1200): Much space, but you have to get to it…
• Circle (1500): So simple, but still somewhat hard…
• Creator (1800): Actually not me, but my logotype.
• Answer (2000): If you haven't read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, you may not understand this one…
• Diamond (2000): A classic playing card symbol.
• Spade (2000): Another classic playing card symbol.
• Clubs (2000): What, another classic playing card symbol?
• Heart (2500): What could this be? A classic playing card symbol?
• Sargon (2500): Sargon was a computer chess game back in the 80's.
• Hiroshima (3000): A poisonous mushroom…
• Big Boss (3500): Well, almost every game has a big boss to beat. Why not in this one?
• Kasparov (5000): A famous russian chess player. This one really takes some thinking, planning and hard work to beat.

Hall of fame

There are sixteen different top lists. Different players will end up at the top of different lists, as they promote different styles of playing.

• High scores: This is the common high score list. Playing at a constant high speed, removing many lines at the same time, will place you high on this list.
• Best streakers: The longest streak of each game have the chance to enter this list. Playing at a constant high speed will get you here.
• Best placers: This is simply the number of pieces that you have placed. Playing slow and planning ahead allows you to place many pieces.
• Fastest removers: This is a set of thirteen lists, one for each filler. The quicker you remove the filler, the better. The least number of pieces placed before removing the filler, get the top placing.