TIGSource: Atomhex

Atomhex

Derek Yu — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 21:32:00 +0000

Atomhex is a new arena shoot ‘em up from Mark Incitti, the developer of Grid Wars. While Grid Wars was an obvious Geometry Wars clone (and has subsequently been pulled from Mark’s site), Atomhex adds quite a few unique ideas to this full genre.

The game mechanics involve Atoms and Hexes. The player can collect hexes to change the color of their shot, and to release multipliers. Atoms can combine with Hexes to “energize their shields” and protect them (only shots of the same color will release the Hex). Combined Atoms/Hexes will also spawn enemies – the more Atoms attached to a Hex, the more deadly the enemies.

Finally, when six atoms combine with a hex, it becomes an Atomhex that sucks you into the “Subatomic World,” a new battleground where you must fight off a number of nasty Quarks. Quarks are nasty buggers that require a hit from every colored shot to be destroyed. (Better pray for a rainbow shot upgrade.)

It can all be kind of overwhelming at first, but you get the hang of it quick… and once you do, the variety of strategies that emerge, and the strange, cyclic “evolution” of the playfield really pull you in. Plus, multipliers of 10,000!

The trial version gives you the full game for 3 days. After that, you can buy the game on a sliding scale of $5 to $20.

(Thanks, MisterX!)

"Atomhex" by Oddbob

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:12:47 +0000

“That reminds me… whatever happened to Veck 2?”

Good question. It was in full working order last time I looked at it and played just fine.

Shame. It deserves to be out there.

"Atomhex" by Derek

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:57:26 +0000

raelz: I think I agree with you on that point. Since you “reset” the world every time you go Subatomic, the difficulty never really goes up.

"Atomhex" by Stij

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:43:12 +0000

K, tried it.

My only complaint is that sometimes there’s way too much stuff going on at once on the screen. I mean, the color switching and atom collecting mechanics would be fine on their own, but combining both in the same game makes things pretty crazy. It’s still fun, of course, but the learning curve is much steeper then your average shump.

"Atomhex" by Stij

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:09:32 +0000

Hey yeah, I thought that was supposed to come out a while ago. I liked the original Veck, it was ridiculously intense, if a bit simple.

"Atomhex" by mr

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 12:34:26 +0000

That reminds me… whatever happened to Veck 2? That looked promising, and it even earned the approval of the Bizarre Creations guys (if I remember correctly), but I wonder if it will ever be finished.

"Atomhex" by MisterX

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:26:03 +0000

I thought the same about the art at first, but I really enjoy it meanwhile. I think the bees, bugs and “plants” actually give it a rather unique look, while still maintaining this “vector”-styled feel through the bright, glowing colours.

I also agree about the strangely long playtime. But I mainly played on easy difficulty at first and didn’t get to trying out “hard” before my trial expired, so I figured it really was just a matter of difficulty.

"Atomhex" by Oddbob

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 08:55:48 +0000

Nah,the price just depends on how generous you’re feeling. Think the Radiohead model-ish-type lark thingy malarkey.

After an intial “what the?” on first play which very nearly put me off the game, I went back for a second run and it’s really enjoyable and quite tactical.

I need to find some time to give it some proper high score loving over the next few days though. I’m barely keeping my head above water scorewise at the moment.

My only real gripe after an extended play session is that it’s really not very good looking. The art is all over the shop with a mix of solid coloured stuff, hi-res creatures and geometric shapes. At least all the art is supplied with the game though, so you can always fiddle with that yourself.

It’s a vast improvement on Polarity and a nice extension of where Mark was heading with the black hole farming on Grid Wars.

All in all, I doth approve.

"Atomhex" by Stij

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 08:34:45 +0000

I loved Grid Wars, and this guy definately knows how to make a solid arena shooter. I’ll try the demo later today.

I don’t really get how the purchasing system works, though. A sliding scale of $5 to $20? So if you pay more do you get more features or something?

"Atomhex" by raelz

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 08:33:41 +0000

I love the idea and the game is really fun. There is one BIG wrong thing about it - it takes too long.. I mean I played just once and I survived for like 17 minutes, thats just too much for a game like that.. I am used to play these games like 3times a day, just to try get new highscore and it could take an hour with this one..

"Atomhex" by MisterX

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 04:17:51 +0000

Like I already posted I found this to be the very best “modern” arena shooter I’ve played so far, most notably because of the quite intriguing evolution-aspect that you also mentioned. If I didn’t have such a basically galactic amount of other games on my computer I guess buying this would rather be a no-brainer. In this case I’ll wait a little, but especially for that price tag I guess you can’t really go wrong with it, anyway :)