Hudson’s fascination with bees, puzzles and music comes to a head with Honeycomb Beat. While the game is fun and accessible to all, it isn’t all that flashy. Honeycomb Beat, as the name implies, has players manipulating honeycombs while eclectic beats play in the background. While you might immediately associate it to a rhythm-based puzzler, the name is a tad bit misleading because the music is simply there as part of the overall presentation and not as a key component of the actually gameplay. No matter.

The "beat" referenced in the title is actually the acting of turning the Honeycomb over to produce the opposite color using the stylus on the touch screen. In each stage players are given a puzzle made up of a number of hexagons that they must find a way to turn from yellow to white. This is accomplished by tapping a hexagon to flip it over, but anything directly in contact with it will also flip over. So turning one hexagon white, as an example, might turn five hexagons directly next to their opposite. The trick is to find the right hexagon to flip over that will in turn flip the nearby hexagons to the color you want. As the game progresses and the puzzles get larger, that will prove to be a real task, but the earliest puzzles in the game aren't all that difficult.

As the game progresses some other elements are added to the mix that will challenge you. These include specials that can affect the way hexagons behave including Arrow icons you can use to flip a straight line of honeycombs to flip and a special that will prevent hexagons from flipping until they've been hit a number of times and a whole lot more. These extra elements are interesting and do change the flavor of the game from the earliest puzzles. There are around 200 hundred puzzles to play through, and as you do so you can unlock extras like backgrounds and music.

There are two modes in the game to choose from - the first is called puzzle mode which we've already described above but another called evolution mode gives you a different time-based Tetris style of game to play. In evolution mode you get a time limited Tetris style grid that moves forcing you to flip hexagons, match them and eliminate them before the screen fills up. The gameplay moves upwards instead of down and you can move the endless wall of hexagons up if you want to see more of the patterns at any time. The point is to get rid if these rows before than they fill the entire the screen. While it might seem like quite a task to accomplish, once you get the basic concept of this mode down it becomes fairly easy to solve beat this mode even on the more difficult play levels. This mode also offers a rating system that judges your performance at the end of each level, based on your ability to clear a number of rows with a single beat by giving you an odd title.

Honeycomb Beat is a simple puzzler once you get your head around how the puzzles work and is well suited for both adults and kids looking for some wholesome and safe fun. The biggest problem with the game is that it wears thin after a while. But with over 200 hundred puzzles to solve, two gameplay modes and some nifty unlockables this cool little puzzler is worth it. Honeycomb Beat is flashy or even slightly complex but it is fun.