A Beehive In The Sky? Sort Of...

Hexagon Skylands is a game created by yellowwaffle

�except this hive is rather devoid of bees, honeycomb or anything you might expect to find in a self-respecting beehive. Apart from the signature hexagon, that is. Anyway�

Well, what do you know? I�ve wanted to be a reviewer for ages now, and there was a point where I thought I�d never do it, but here I am! And my favourite creator is the PPG, so when I checked the features page and saw Hexagon Skylands, by yellowwaffle, it seemed the perfect choice of game to use for my first review. I hope I can meet the high standard that I have seen in other reviews around Sploder.

Storyline

You are an inhabitant of the hexagon skylands; nor are you the only one. The skylands have been invaded by the dogoos, little dog-like creatures with cute brown ears that aren�t nearly as nice as they look. (That�s the dogoos, not the ears. You knew that right? Anyway�) You have to defeat these dogoos and claim back the hexagon skylands. Not a complex storyline by any means; simple, but sufficient. I feel it helps to give the game more structure, since without it, the game may well have ended up with a simple �walk to the goal� concept with a few embellishments. So, how do you get past all these dogoos?

Gameplay

The controls are as follows: Move the player (yellowwaffle�s avatar) with the arrows, and aim and shoot with the cursor. In each level you move the player around the skylands, taking out dogoos as you go. You have to shoot every dogoo to pass the level, which I feel helps to strengthen the storyline and affirm the concept � if the dogoos were merely blocking a path to the goal, it wouldn�t be quite as important to get rid of them. This way, you�re forced to get rid of them. Of course, you have to cross the whole map to do so, but it�s not just getting there that counts. On one level, I skirted past a dogoo and reached the far end of the map before I realized I should have shot that one too.

Speaking of shooting, in each level you�re only allowed a certain number of shots. I found this out the hard way when I suddenly heard the ominous sound that means �no ammo left�. I was out of ammo, but not out of dogoos. I had to restart. This is a good aspect of the game � you�re allowed a couple of misses, but to a certain extent you have to use your shots sparingly, and only when you are close enough to one of those doggyish fiends. Aiming is obviously important too, though not hugely, and all this makes for a fairly challenging shooting game.

There is also a miniboss and a boss, the latter of which is fought on a giant hexagon. I quite liked that; it gives the game structure and fits in with the hexagon theme.

Scenery and Aesthetics

The primary background of each level is the multitude of hexagons of different colours. The backdrop is blue, to represent the sky, and mostly green and brown hexagons to represent the land. Lots of other colours were used as well, giving the game a more varied and bright feel. I feel a hexagon was a good choice of shape to use, for two reasons: Firstly, a hexagon is essentially six triangles joined at a point, which gives the game a more isometric feel; secondly, and perhaps more crucially, hexagons tessellate (fit together without leaving gaps.) I wouldn�t want to have seen umpteen gaps of sky peeking through, which would have been an issue if the game had been called, say, Pentagon Skylands, but thankfully that�s not a problem, so yellowwaffle made a good choice there. Strictly speaking, the hexagons in the game aren�t proper regular hexagons, with all angles equal, but who cares? They lock together snugly and that we can work with. Anyway�

Using the hexagons as a blueprint, yellowwaffle then went on to create a rather convincing scene with minimal graphics. He also used some brown shapes extending down from the hexagons to add to the appearance that the land was raised up into the sky, which I thought was a nice touch. I did have a minor issue with the clouds though: Every cloud was composed of a few white hexagons with a marble-like design on them. I understand that this was trying to fit in with the hexagonal theme, but I would have personally preferred clouds with no pattern, or even some cloud graphics. However, this doesn�t discount much at all from the overall scenery, which is improved further with the finishing touches of sky mushrooms and some houses later on.

Enemies and Hazards

So now the dogoos get a section to themselves, and I�m not barking mad to award them this (go on, roll your eyes.) The dogoos are the only main hazard throughout the entire game, since, wisely in my opinion, yellowwaffle chose to remove the out of bounds hazard entirely. That�s right, you�ll be pleased to know it�s impossible to fall out of the skylands. The edge of land is like a wall; you can�t pass it, and the same applies to the lake in level 7. That leaves just our good old friends the dogoos to deal with.

Some of the dogoos are stationary; the rest move back and forth along the standard baddie line (no circular motion.) Touch one, and you�re out. They�re placed in reasonable places, and most weren�t too hard to shoot, provided you shoot straight at them as you run straight at them. But as the game goes on, the dogoos evolve and gain different abilities: Some have the ability to shoot projectiles at you, while others explode when you shoot them. Every different species of dogoo was a different colour, which helped to tell them apart easily, but I did have a bone to pick with one in particular. The green camouflage dogoo, which makes its debut in level 6, is designed to blend in with the grass. Did it? A confident NO! It sticks out like a sore thumb as much as any of the other dogoos, thanks to the ears and all-to-obvious white patch on every dogoo�s face. If the camouflage dogoos had any other unique abilities, like shooting at periodic intervals for example, I might not have minded so much, but those puppies were just regular dogoos painted green. I wasn�t particularly impressed by the red exploding dogoos either � the explosion had no effect on the player unless you were right up close when it happened. But I did like the fact that the dogoos evolved as the game progressed.

I�ve just realized� I didn�t devote that entire section to the dogoos, did I? I also talked about the out-of-bounds. Oh well. Anyway�

Addictiveness and Difficulty

Well, I think it�s fair to say this game presents itself as a decent challenge. The game gets harder as the levels progress � always a good sign � and when I lost, I felt compelled to go back for another try, especially for the final boss. As for the non-boss levels, I wasn�t sure if there was quite enough difficulty at first, but that question gradually disintegrated as the levels progressed, and I believe there is. Now onto the last part of my first review.

Ratings

Concept: 4/5

Gameplay: 5/5

Scenery & Aesthetics: 5/5

Enemies and Hazards: 3/5

Addictiveness & Difficulty: 4/5

Total score: 21/25 = 84%

Final Thoughts: Hexagon Skylands has a good shape (geddit?) a good design, a good enemy and a good difficulty level. Although I don�t think I would describe it as best of the best, its spot on the features page is certainly justifiable.

There you have it � my first review as a reviewer! Any feedback would be appreciated.