Hexiv Demo Lands on a Lush but Dangerous Planet
Hexiv mixes deckbuilding, survival and light colony management into a compact, strategic package. You use cards to move, attack, assign tasks to your crew, expand territory and construct buildings as you try to keep a fragile expedition alive on procedurally generated islands. The demo puts you into the entire Introduction chapter so you can feel the systems at work without committing to the full campaign.
Cards Are Tools, Not Just Damage Numbers
The core loop revolves around cards that do a lot of different jobs. Some cards move your team across hexes, some attack hostile units, and others assign tasks like farming or construction. Playing the right card at the right time lets you balance exploration, resource gathering and combat. You can buy cards from the Trader or discover them through actions on the map, which opens up varied build paths each run.
Islands are procedural and come with different biomes, wildlife and topography. That means terrain and map layout influence which cards and crew strategies feel strong. Enemy tiles and units actively try to terraform the planet into a frozen wasteland, so exploration is not just about loot but about preventing the world from sliding into something worse.
Crew, Artifacts and Lander Choices Shape Your Run
Rescuing escape pods introduces new crew members, each with unique passive abilities and personal quests. The demo includes six crew members, which already gives you interesting synergies to chase. Artifacts are another big layer. Around 100 artifacts are in the demo build, each offering unique bonuses you can use to sculpt your strategy. You can also buy and upgrade items in the Research Lab, and artifacts can be upgraded permanently later in the full game by completing their achievements.
Landers change how you traverse the archipelago. The demo features three unlockable landers, each with unique mechanics, and refueling them is how you hop between islands toward the planet's equator and, eventually, the final showdown.
What the Demo Lets You Play and What Comes Next
The demo showcases:
- Pixel-perfect, dynamic pixel art and presentation.
- The full Introduction chapter difficulty so you can experience the opening systems end-to-end.
- Procedural islands with varied biomes, wildlife and topography.
- About 100 artifacts to discover and use.
- Dozens of cards available via the Trader and map actions.
- Six rescueable crew members with passives and quests.
- Three unlockable landers and the Research Lab for purchasing upgrades.
- Enemy tiles and units that actively reshape the world.
- A score leaderboard so you can compare runs with friends.
The full game promises to expand upon this foundation with 6 plus chapters and customizable difficulty modifiers, permanent artifact upgrades tied to achievements, more crew members, six total landers and a growing card pool currently at 115 and climbing.
Developer Graeme Little says Hexiv is the product of more than six years of work, born from a love of strategy, deckbuilding and board games and a nostalgia for 90s design, all presented in pixel art. The demo gives a solid taste of that vision and a satisfying look at how multiple systems interact without overwhelming you.
If you enjoy methodical decision making, asymmetric crew synergies and a deckbuilder that treats cards as multiuse tools, the Hexiv demo is worth a go.
Try the Hexiv Demo, available now on Steam, to build decks, explore a lush but hostile planet, feed your crew and battle a determined adversary as you unravel the mysteries of this genre-blending roguelike.
