Atomhex

By: Derek Yu

On: March 11th, 2008

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!)