It's more Hexcells! More importantly, it's harder Hexcells, and it strongly reinforces the mechanics of the original while also adding some new surprises, and is absolutely a more satisfying experience than its predecessor.

The core idea is the same - as it should absolutely be, else you might as well call it something else. There's a grid of hexes, and you can left click them if you think they're blue, or right click if you think they're black. A black hex will (usually) then offer a hint, a number indicating the amount of blue hexes directly in its perimeter. New to this installment, however, are blue hexes being able to display a number of their own, showing how many other blue hexes are within a 12-hex radius. Puzzles are generally bigger, better, and far more demanding.

My main complaint with the original Hexcells was that despite being a fun puzzle experience, it spent most of its runtime as a tutorial for the mechanics of the game, and only truly tested the player in the final chapter. Here, the tutorials take up far less time - the game assumes you're familiar, gives you a brief catch-up, shows off the new mechanics, then wastes no time in making you prove you have what it takes. If I were to demonstrate this in terms of numbers, the original game took me a little over 2 hours to 100%; this one took me almost 12 - and in the same amount of levels. I think that speaks for itself.

Any puzzle aficionado should absolutely have Hexcells in their library, and if they're left wanting more, then Hexcells Plus doesn't just deliver, it surpasses. Simple, satisfying, and shittingly-cheap.

This could have easily just been another set of puzzles in the same formula as the last game and I would've still enjoyed it, but this game pulls no punches. This one definitely can't be beaten in one sitting like the last one. It very much starts at the level of difficulty of the last game and continues from there, resulting in some pretty grueling puzzles in terms of length and detail. Like the beginning of the game says, no guessing will ever be required, but in order to get through the game without guessing, a hell of a lot of attention to detail is needed. Like Picross, it's about spotting the one place where a cell can go, but the added mechanics and size of many of the puzzles can make that process take quite a while. Minutes will be spent combing through every hex looking for the one possible area you can solve. Add to that the fact that getting 100% requires beating levels with no mistakes, and some of these puzzles had me tearing my hair out. Maybe a little rougher than the last game, but still a good time as someone who really liked the first Hexcells.

The first Hexcells was a nice little puzzle game, and this game is basically just more of that but amped up a ton. However, it's amped up to the point that I actually really didn't enjoy this one in comparison to the first. I feel that the mechanics they introduced here are just too complicated for my liking, especially ones like certain cells just flat out not telling you how many blue cells are next to them. (Like, thanks game, that's real helpful.) All the mechanics can also combine together so wildly in the later stages that it gets really hard to even find out where to start them. And it doesn't help that said later stages are almost always long and complex as hell, so they take an extensively long time to solve as well. And it also doesn't help that because of the extreme length and complexity of those stages, the mistake counter mechanic is especially punishing here. Having to redo a rather lengthy puzzle for completion if you made an error here or there is really frustrating. I just wish that this game didn't go to the extent that it did since the first game was pretty cool in my eyes, but here I really just didn't wanna bother.

It's more Hexcells. Anything I wrote in my initial review applies to this expansion, with one small caveat:

Hexcells Plus is noticeably harder than the original. As in, it outright tells you everything can be completed without guessing and while that IS true, there are a few puzzles where you have to think a few more steps ahead than anything in the original. Combine that with bigger levels and episodes having more levels in general, I easily spent more time on a single midgame puzzle than I have spent on the original Hexcells's last episode. It can get a bit nervewracking when you go for perfect scores and one mistake means restarting the entire level over, and that is at odds with how soothing the game wants to be. Not enough to completely ruin the mood, though.

I liked this game.

+ Guessing is never required
+ Greatly ramps challenge from original while still teaching player
+ Soothing, zen ambiance ("tetris effect")
+ Incredibly satisfying to clear

- Blue grids aren't as easy to visually decipher (colored overlays might help)

Basically take the original Hexcells, add more levels, make them a ton harder, and add a couple more mechanics to provide further complexity to the puzzles, and you've got Hexcells Plus. Overall I enjoyed this game a lot more, with the puzzles almost always requiring a couple bits of higher order logic to actually complete the puzzles, making it overall way trickier and take more focus. While one could argue that this detracted from the more casual experience that Hexcells states that it wants to offer, I still feel like it serves this purpose rather well, with some of the earlier levels still being really chill while taking a bit longer, and only the later stages ramping things up to the incredible degree that it does. As such, people who are in this for the calmer experience get more or less the same time investment for this sort of content here, but then have the option of tackling these more difficult puzzles if they so choose.

As before, I also love how at no point does the game actually require guesswork, and while certain approaches ultimately make the player think many steps ahead in some creative ways, it makes it all the more satisfying once you figure out what needs to be done, perform the plan, and then realise that the puzzle now completely falls into place. My only issue is that I feel that the mistake counter is still a pain, even moreso now that the game requires you to think in these more complex ways while also performing them on bigger boards, making it a bit stressful since you know that it could make you have to go back and tediously input everything again. I feel like especially for this, the counter should have been increased before it stopped you getting maximum score, as this would still have stopped people from simply randomly clicking their way through without feeling so unnecessarily punishing. Even so, this is a fantastic little puzzle game that really tests you at points yet remains fun to pick apart even when things get really tricky.