Hex-a-hop

About the game

Hex-a-hop is a puzzle game with no clock and no reflexes involved. A girl called Emy stands on a map of hexagonal tiles over the water, and each level has a simple goal: break every green tile. You break one by hopping onto it, which makes it crack, and then hopping off, which makes it fall apart. The trick is the order: if you step onto a tile whose neighbors are already gone, you are stuck and the level is lost, unless you rewind.

You can rewind as far as you like. Undo is unlimited and instant, so a wrong turn costs seconds instead of the whole level, and you are free to try a route to see where it ends. It is not always easy to see how far back the mistake was, and that is a good part of the challenge.

New kinds of tiles show up as you go, each one introduced with a short note the first time you meet it: purple trampolines to bounce across gaps, red spinners that rotate the tiles around them, yellow lasers that shoot when you step on them, slippery ice, builder tiles that grow new ground, floating boats to cross the water, lifts, colored walls that flatten when matching tiles are gone, and pickups such as the big golden jump. The levels come in groups, and after each one you pick the next from a map screen. Cleared levels turn silver, and every level has an efficiency target you can try to beat for a gold mark: every move and each non-green tile you destroy counts against you.

Hex-a-hop was written by Tom Beaumont in 2005-2007 and released as free software. The music is by remaxim, and the sounds are by several authors listed in the license text of this page. The menus and level notes are in English here.

Playing it here

This is Hex-a-hop 1.1.0 compiled for the browser from the project's source code, with the levels, graphics, music and sounds that come with it. The text is shown in a free font (Fira Sans) instead of the original's text library. The download is about 14 MB. Your progress through the levels is kept in this browser; clearing this site's data deletes it. Click the Start button first, so that the page gets the keyboard and the browser lets the game play sound.

Controls

Getting started

Read the notes. Each new tile or pickup comes with a short note the first time it appears. If you skipped one by accident, the help pages in the menu have them again.

Undo is free. Do not try to see the whole solution at the start. Hop somewhere, and when you get stuck, rewind and try the other way.

Pick your level on the map. Black balls are levels you can play now, silver ones are cleared. You are not forced to take them in order.

Tips

Count the exits. A green tile is only safe to step on if you can step off it onto another tile. Before you move onto a tile at the edge of the green, check where you will go next.

Plan the ending. Grey tiles are plain ground that does not break. Think about where you will stand when the last green tile is gone before you start breaking the ones around it.

Be careful with ice and water. Slippery tiles keep you moving, and water ends the attempt, but undo takes you back to just before the mistake.

Go back for the gold. Once a level is cleared, try again for fewer moves. Gold levels are marked on the map.

FAQ

Is there a time limit? No. Take as long as you like.

Is the game finished at some point? Yes: there is an ending after the last level, with its own music.

Does my progress stay? In this browser, yes. Another browser or a cleared site starts from the first level.