I'm a bit of a sucker for match-3 games and Torment Hexus has style oozing out of it, so it was a must-played for me and it's great. It's now in Early Access, and it works great on Fedora KDE 44 with Proton 11 - no issues encountered at all. Disclosure: personal purchase.
Torment Hexus is all about storming a tower to take down evil corporate CEOs with grid-based movement and match-3 combat wrapped up in a roguelike format. I imagine you already know what a match-3 game is right? You have to match elemental tokens together on a grid to clear them, which here will generate a specific type of mana for spells based on the tokens you cleared. You then use that mana to cast specific spells to destroy weird bio-cybernetic creations, guards, robots and more.
What I like is how it uses your character movement on the map, to move the token grid around in a specific direction too. So not only do you have to think about your character placement in relation to enemies, but about what tokens you want to be matching up for what spells you want to cast. So it blends tactical strategy with match-3. Interesting idea and the implementation of it does work really well and keeps runs interesting.
See the main trailer below to get a feel for it:
Direct Link
Inspired by Puzzle Quest and Puzzle and Dragons, as well as the author's love of classic roguelike games like Angband and Dungeonmans.
- Match elemental tokens using your ex-military wristcomp, to charge up your spells.
- Cast devastating battle magic to wreak havoc on the robots, humans, and bizarre bio-cybernetic creations guarding the CEO's tower.
- Loot powerful relics from your enemies' remains, gaining power from remnants of the past world. Draw the latent energies from a scrap of fern, inject raw fire mana into your veins, hasten your spells' tempo with a bloody stopwatch.
- Navigate nuanced scenarios as you encounter the corporation's less-violent denizens. Sabotage evil experiments, convince the laborers to unionize, con the guards in a card game, and trade for equipment in an illicit black market.
Since it's in Early Access no full thoughts or review score - another I'll let continue to cook for a while for that. The full release is planned for sometime in 2027 while they add in more boss fights and enemies, more music, more spells, achievements, and a full story spanning multiple runs.
If you like match-3 games and roguelikes though, this is one you should check out as from my own time with it I have thoroughly enjoyed the mix. Some great design and ideas went into it, along with some nice tunes too.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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