I love playing endless runners but I didn’t find myself enjoy playing them in AR. The main reason for that is that I just dislike the long path gameplay in augmented reality. It just looks, I don’t know, awkward. Anyways, Hexa Drive looked like a well-designed game so I’ve decided to try it out. The game can be played in standard non-AR mode, but it features an AR mode as well.
Unlike some of the other runners where you need to jump on cubes or platforms like Leap: Endless Run or AR Robot Runner, in Hexa Drive you drive a car on a long hexagonal road. You choose a car to ride and try to avoid obstacles while picking up power-ups as you go and obtaining fruits which increase your score and rewards you with coins after each run. You get coins for the number of fruits collected, for the distance you covered and for “Near Miss” risky gameplay. You can later use those coins to unlock new cars and level up boosters (e.g. Rocket, Magnet, Shield). Upgrading the booster will improve its performance.
The game features a long list of achievements which rewards the player with coins upon completion. For example, Travel 1000 meters in one game, Crash between 500 and 800 meters, Drive 200 meters without collecting any fruit. etc. The game also features a global leaderboard, which is essential for this type of competitive game.
Now regarding the AR Experience. I still don’t like the long level design. However, The game was designed with elegant changing themes that is beautifully wrapped around the lane.
The game controls also felt good. You avoid obstacles by moving your car across lanes. Each of the facets of the hexagonal road can be driven on. To move a lane, all you have to do is flick (swipe) right or left, and the car will quickly move to the nearby lane. It looks really nice when you see the trees and the other items rotate around the z-axis as you move from lane to lane. I think the developer could have made the road shorter but still, it turned out pretty good. You also get those notifications when doing a “Near Miss” move or completing an achievement, you can see the distance you have been covering at the top-left side of the screen and some other useful information presented in a simple and elegant way that complemented the art design of the game.
The flicking part is super addicting. In my opinion, this what makes the game so much fun to play. It actually reminds me of playing a Table Foosball game. I also played the standard non-AR mode, and it actually felt better. It’s those type of games that I don’t see a reason playing them in AR, but prefer playing them in their regular mode. Having said that, the AR mode does make the game feel more engaging and visually more pleasing, at least this how it was for me, but I felt more comfortable playing the game in the default mode. By the way, there is a button to pause the game, just in case you are doing great and need to go to the bathroom or answer an important call.
Conclusion
Í think that the AR mode is a good feature and I’m sure those who play the game will give it a try. The game controls are simple, intuitive, fun and very addicting. The game looks great with beautiful organic environments that change as you progress. It features in-game mini-missions and Game Center leaderboard and achievements.
You can feel that it’s a well thought through recreation and that the developer paid a great deal of attention to make the game fun and challenging to play and also make it stand out from the rest.
Overall, it’s a great little endless runner with good-looking AR mode. I definitely recommend this game to endless runner fans. It doesn’t bring anything exciting in the AR department, but it’s a fun and challenging game nevertheless.
You can download Hexa Drive from the App Store here. Have fun!