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HexWind Update 8 - Improving Melee Wand Combat

Happy New Year everybody! We have big plans for HexWind in 2025 which we're going to share in a roadmap update after our team ramps back up from the holidays. In the meantime, HexWind Update 8 this week brings major improvements to wand combat, with a focus on melee and HexTime, the time dilation mechanic for when you're up close and personal with lots of enemies.

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[h3]Wand Sword Parrying[/h3]

In HexWind, your wand has always had a "sword mode", useful for parrying melee attacks from up-close enemies and to deflect projectiles. But the sword's auto-retraction could have hilariously bad timing. Think of reaching up to parry an incoming sword swing and seeing your blade auto-retract at the perfect moment to allow an enemy attack right to your face. Well we fixed that! Your wand will now always be in sword mode while you have threats in close range, so parrying should be much more reliable and predictable. (Note - being in sword mode does not stop your wand from slashing to fire projectiles) This change will also feed directly into a family of new combo mechanics we're working on for both melee and ranged combat. More on that soon!

[h3]HexTime Threat Indicator[/h3]

HexTime is always active while you have threats in close range, the goal being to give you ways of slowing down the chaos of melee combat. Our first version of the visual feedback for HexTime was really hard to see and understand with tons of enemies and projectiles around. We redid the visual design for this entirely, and added some new information to show you how many threats are nearby at any particular time. The goal here is to give better situational awareness in close combat without overloading the screen, but that's a fine balance to manage so please let us know how you think these changes are working!

[h3]The Mausoleum[/h3]

We've trickled out a bunch of changes to the Mausoleum over recent updates, as we build it up into your Mission HQ for the fight against Chaos. Be sure to poke around there to see what's new, and keep your eyes open for even more new improvements for mission planning and overall quality of life.

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As always, your feedback gives us life! So let us know what you're thinking here on the HexWind Community page, or come on over and say hi in our growing Discord community.

The Charm Games Team

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[h2]Hey new folks! Want to try HexWind?[/h2] We do our best to keep the free HexWind demo up to date with all major changes to the full game, so if you like what you see here but aren't sure if you're ready to buy yet, head to the HexWind Store Page and grab that demo!