Hexalex, from Nathaniel Gray, takes word games in a new direction. While many have been constrained by having only four sides, Hexalex, as the name suggested added two more to give you far more interesting possibilities for play.

The game is like many other tile-based word games, you get 7 tiles with letters of varying points on them and are expected to place them on the board to score points. The person with the most points at the end wins. Because of the six-sided nature of the tiles you are allowed to make a few ’junk’ two-letter words. This is necessary or else the gameplay would be extremely limited. Plus, there are an amazing amount of two-letter words that will actually score you points anyway.

The game board is also six-sided and features bonus multiplier spots like 2x letter, 3x letter, 2x word and 3x word score. Using these spaces wisely as well as making side words is what will win you the game. Also you get bonuses if you use five or more tiles in a single play. A major difference from say, Scrabble, is that the starting point is a 3x letter score space and not a double word score space.

If you don’t like the tiles you’ve got you have some exchange options, the most important of which is the full exchange, which you have three of in each match. This allows you to change your entire rack at the beginning of the turn without losing that turn. You can also do partial exchanges, but then you will lose a turn. Finally, whomever uses all their tiles first will score points from the remaining tiles of the other players, who will also incur penalties of that many points. So it’s entirely possible that you could be behind on points at the end of the match but win based on the remaining tiles or vice versa.

The game also features online play against your friends, but they too have to have Hexalex and an account (obviously). There’s no random matchmaking available which would be a nice feature for an update later.

UPDATE: Of course the week I do the review is the week they come out with an update. What was included in the up...Shuffle Match. What’s that? Oh you know, random, online matchmaking of course. So there you go. The game is just about complete as I can’t think of anything else they might add, except being able to have it make my morning coffee, but that’s probably asking too much. The update also adds nudge which reminds others to play their turns and the ability to resign a match.

Overall, Hexalex balances some issues that are inherent in word tile games and adds some interesting features like the full exchange without penalty. This helps the game along and makes it more fun without making it less challenging.

Further Screens (note: my username is listed in one screen, feel free to add me for a few matches)