Hexus

(Click to Enlarge)

Brainwright is a recent discovery of mine, but so far I've been quite impressed with some of their puzzles. I only have a couple of them and another few that were later "adopted" by them, like the Rudenko's Disc or the Roundominoes. The one you see above is called Hexus and it's a logic game for one player with 44 challenges.

The name Hexus comes from the shape of the pieces, each in a different arrangement of hexagons that are linked together. The seven pieces are all distinct and they can be rearranged in many different ways inside the honeycomb-shaped tray, which is itself a collection of eight hexagons adjacent to each other.

(Click to Enlarge) - Challenge 10 (Left: Start; Right: Solved)

Besides the seven colored pieces, you can also see inside the tray a single red piece (can not be moved) and an odd-shaped white piece. This white piece is very important, because it shows the current challenge number marked on the tray, and no piece can be overlapping it. To get started, all you need to do is choose a position for the white piece and place the first pieces correspondent to that particular challenge. You can see the starting position for all 44 challenges on the back of a pamphlet provided with the game. There's no solutions included, so you're on your own.

Fortunately for you, the game starts off pretty easy, as the first few challenges only require a couple of pieces to be placed on the board, since the rest are already in their correct positions. As you progress, though, fewer and fewer pieces will be put in the board at the beginning, until you reach the final levels where you have to fit all the pieces with no help. You can flip the pieces on both sides, so you'll have more possibilities to fit them.

(Click to Enlarge) - Challenge 25 (Left: Start; Right: Solved)

Closing Comments:

I didn't find the game very difficult, even on the last challenges. Yes, these final ones are more challenging, but with only seven pieces and a tray with a fixed shape, there's only so much you can do. To make it more interesting and more difficult, you can start every challenge from scratch instead of placing the initial pieces - Just the white one. I did find it very fun to play with and quite enjoyable, because of the unusual shape of the tray and the pieces. The pocket size allows you to carry it anywhere with you.

Availability: The Hexus game is available at PuzzleMaster for $18.99 CAD. Check out the other Brainwright puzzles and games here.

(Click to Enlarge) - Challenge 40 (Left: Start; Right: Solved)