Hexguardian is a roguelite, tower defense game where you build your own maps with hexagonal tiles! Build and upgrade towers, recruit armies, learn spells, construct wonders and place hexagonal tiles to create a path to enhance your defenses. With plenty of game modes and talents to unlock!
Players build and upgrade a variety of towers to defend against waves of enemies. The towers have different elemental affinities, such as fire, ice, and lightning, which can create unique synergistic effects when placed together. For example, pairing a fire tower with an ice tower triggers an explosive reaction that damages nearby foes. In addition to towers, players can recruit and position different unit types, including melee soldiers, archers, and mages. These units can slow down, distract, or directly engage the enemy forces, complementing the stationary tower defenses.
A distinctive aspect of the gameplay is the ability to place and arrange hex-shaped tiles to modify the map layout. Defeating enemies drops these tiles, which players can use to extend paths, create loops, and block enemy spawns. Carefully planning the tile placement is crucial for optimizing the map and defense. Players can construct longer, more winding paths to keep enemies in range of towers for extended periods. They can also completely seal off enemy spawns by forming loops with the hex tiles, effectively eliminating those threats from the map. The randomized nature of the hex tiles, and the need to adapt the map layout as the game progresses, add an extra layer of strategy and replayability to the tower defense mechanics.
As players progress through the game, they unlock new towers, units, spells, and other upgrades via a talent tree system. This progression system allows for more customization and strategic depth with each successive run. The randomized nature of the hex tiles, enemy spawns, and available upgrades at the end of each day contribute to the game's high replayability. No two runs are exactly the same, ensuring that players are continuously challenged to adapt their strategies. The inclusion of both standard and challenge modes, with the latter offering weekly changes, further enhances the replayability and encourages players to experiment with different approaches.