- [b]HexLemma 1.14.3 is live[/b] - 14 July 2026
The whole game got a graphics overhaul. The stained-glass finish when you solve a board was always the game's best moment, so the rest of the game now lives up to it. New typography throughout (an inscriptional wordmark, elegant screen titles, one clean face for every number on the board), gold hairline accents echoing the win screen's leading, glass-plate panels with cut corners, hexagonal sliders and checkboxes (it is a hex game, after all), and a soft vignette that pools light behind the board while you play. Light, dark, and both colorblind palettes all carry the new look automatically. Solved pieces are set in filigree. Every cell you solve is framed in fine silver wirework: a border with scrollwork curling off each edge and a riveted joint at every corner, raised like real metal. Solve the whole board and the stained-glass finish re-sets each pane's wire from silver to gold as the…
- Fifteen updates in seventeen days - 13 July 2026
HexLemma launched on June 26. Seventeen days and fifteen updates later, it's a bigger game in every direction. Every bit of it is free, save-compatible, and already installed. If you've had the game since day one, here's everything you own now that you didn't then. The game teaches itselfInteractive tutorial. Three guided lessons played on real boards. The game highlights, explains, and waits for you to make each deduction, from your first adjacency strike to chained multi-clue reasoning. Offered to new players automatically, replayable from the menu any time. Playable stage intros. Campaign stages no longer introduce their new clue with a wall of text. Each intro is a short paged demo on a live mini-board: do the move, get the flash, hop straight into the level. Hands-on help. The How-to-Play technique pages traded their static pictures for live practice boards. Read about equality cha…
- Stage intros are now playable — learn every clue by doing it (v1.12.0) - 13 July 2026
HexLemma 1.12.0 is live The campaign's stage intros are now playable. When 1.10 shipped the interactive tutorial, the wall-of-text stage introductions started looking… well, like walls of text. Fixed. Every stage now opens with a live mini-board: a line or two of copy, then you do the stage's new move on the real board — strike the odds off a parity cell, collapse a cell with an order arrow, commit the 7 a vertex sum forces. Success flash, board resets, try it again if you like. Stage 1 runs four quick pages covering the fundamentals; every later stage demos its new clue in seconds. And Continue never waits for you — skip straight into the level any time. One modal, not two. Stage intros used to chain into the full How-to-Play reference before your first level. That's gone — the intro teaches the clue itself now, and you land straight in the level. (How to Play is still in the pause men…
- Silky-smooth win screens & a weekly checkmark (v1.11.1) - 13 July 2026
HexLemma 1.11.1 is out — a quick quality patch for the two things you told us about this week. The stained-glass finale is now silky-smooth on huge boards. Finishing a big puzzle — especially a Weekly Big Board — could drag the solved screen's glass-and-gold finish down to a slideshow. The mosaic renders over 12× faster now, so the cascade, the gold leading, and the light following your cursor all glide at full frame rate, even on 271 cells. The menu now remembers your weekly triumph. Solve the Weekly Big Board and the main menu says so — Weekly Big Board ✓ — just like the daily. Mid-solve, it offers Continue Weekly instead. Keep the reports coming — this one was all you.
- Interactive tutorial, Weekly Big Board & solver ratings (v1.10.0) - 12 July 2026
HexLemma 1.10.0 is rolling out now — and it's another big drop. The game now teaches itself. A brand-new interactive tutorial walks you through every deduction on real boards — three short lessons covering the basics, all four special clues (≠, even/odd, vertex sums, line counts), and the techniques that make big boards fall — including the answer to the eternal question: "I found the badge's matches… why is it still lit?" New players get offered it before their first puzzle; veterans can replay any lesson from the menu. Weekly Big Board. One huge board — up to 271 cells — every week, rolling over Sunday midnight UTC, with its own leaderboard, weekly streak, and shareable result. The daily is your coffee; this is your project. Solver ratings. Every puzzle now carries an objective difficulty rating (600–3000), and solving hint-free moves your own solver rating against it — clean solves c…
- The Experience Update is live (v1.9.0) - 12 July 2026
HexLemma's biggest free update yet is here. Version 1.9.0 is rolling out on Steam right now — five new ways to see, finish, and keep coming back to the puzzle. No save wipe, nothing to reinstall; Steam grabs it automatically. What's new Stained-glass finish. Every solved board blooms into a one-of-a-kind mosaic — value-colored glass cascading out from your last move, a gold leading border embossing in over the top. Every win becomes a little piece of art, and they're all waiting in Past Solves. Value highlighting. Hold a number key — or tap a value chip — to light up every cell that can still take that value. A scanning aid that makes the big boards read at a glance. Graduated hints. Stuck? The new Hint button points at the next forced move: a nudge first, then the clue behind it, then a plain-language why. It never makes the move for you — the deduction stays yours. Daily streak & shar…
- Dropping Later Today: HexLemma's Biggest Update Yet (v1.9.0) - 12 July 2026
Dropping Later Today: HexLemma's Biggest Update Yet (v1.9.0) You're currently on v1.4.0 (Hardcore Mode) — and later today it leaps to v1.9.0, the biggest update since launch. Every solve now blooms into a unique, translucent stained-glass mosaic you can admire and share; a spoiler-free hint ladder points you at the next forced move without ever making it for you; the Daily gains a visible solve streak and one-tap shareable results; and a full lifetime stats page plus seven new achievements — including the merciless Nightmare — reward your Infinite and Hardcore runs. Add press-and-hold value highlighting and two fresh ambient tracks, and it's the comfiest HexLemma has ever been. These are quality of life features i've been working on in the background and since before I went away on my anniversary vacation (22 years to my best friend of 38 out of 43 years alive!) I have finished some tes…
- Hardcore Mode is out of beta — and completely reworked (v1.4.0) - 11 July 2026
Hardcore Mode is out of beta — and completely reworked Hardcore started as a rough first pass — a beta, really. It's now the real thing, rebuilt from the ground up into a full fill-in logic mode. This isn't accessible play with the safety off; it's a genuinely different discipline. Blank cells. No candidate pips, no scaffolding — you track every possibility yourself. Pencil & commit. Note your maybes, then commit your answers, with a pen/notes toggle for fast entry. No hand-holding. Wrong answers stick. Nothing warns you, nothing corrects you. Prove it. When the grid is full, hit Confirm completed? — we'll tell you how many cells are wrong, never which ones. Restore your clues and hunt them down, or restart clean. Every wrong submit is counted. If accessible mode is the conversation, Hardcore is the interrogation — the same hex logic with all the training wheels torn off. Flip it on in…
- Update 1.3.5 - The Frozen How to Play fix - 30 June 2026
v1.3.5 — June 29, 2026 Fixed Opening How to Play from the pause menu no longer locks up the game. Pulling up the How to Play screen mid-puzzle and returning could leave the mouse unable to click anything, forcing a hard quit. Fixed — the pause menu no longer catches stray clicks through the help screen, and menus close cleanly so input can't get stranded. The Steam overlay no longer freezes the game. Opening the Steam overlay (Shift+Tab) and closing it could leave the game paused with all input dead. Closing the overlay now reliably resumes play.
- Update 1.3.4 - Temp Bye Bye Custom Cursor - 30 June 2026
v1.3.4 — June 29, 2026 Changed Mouse cursor is always visible. Removed the custom software cursor and mouse-hiding logic. The OS cursor now shows at all times — including while using a controller. Controller navigation (sticks, d-pad, board cursor, menu focus) is fully intact; the mouse simply stays where it is when you pick up the pad. We will push this back at a later date.
- Update v1.3.3 - 29 June 2026
v1.3.3 Bug fix: Daily challenges now always play in normal mode. With Hardcore on, a daily was starting in hardcore — hiding the mistake count and letting wrong moves stick, which skewed the leaderboard. Bug fix: Earned achievements now survive Purge Save Data. Purge still wipes puzzles, history, daily progress, and campaign progress, but no longer clears achievements you've already unlocked. Bug fix: Settings checkboxes are now visible in the Dark theme. The Skip-intro / Distraction-free / Swap-mouse / Hardcore boxes were drawing an un-themed glyph that vanished against the dark card.
- Patch v1.3.0 - 29 June 2026
HexLemma 1.3.0 Hardcore quality-of-life, learn-as-you-go onboarding, and a tighter click feel. Added Undo in Hardcore mode. Misclicked a cell? An Undo button (or Ctrl/⌘+Z) takes moves back one at a time — Hardcore-only, for rescuing fat-fingers. It still won't tell you whether a move was right; wrong cells are only revealed once the board is full. Dismiss clues by hand in Hardcore. Clues no longer fade on their own — right-click a clue (or press A on a controller) to tuck it away, and click again to bring it back. How-to-Play teaches techniques, not just clue types. A clue-highlighting page plus two shortcuts: equality-chain propagation, and clearing a value from a solved cell's six neighbors. Hints follow your Swap-mouse-buttons setting. Campaign stages walk you through the controls. The first time you open a stage, the rule intro is followed by a How-to-Play tailored to that stage's c…
- Play It Your Way - Update notes Patch 1.1.1 - 29 June 2026
HexLemma 1.1.1 — Play It Your Way Every change in this update came straight from your feedback. Thank you to everyone who's reached out — keep it coming. 🖱️ Swap Mouse ButtonsUsed to left-click-to-select in other puzzle games? You can now flip the controls so left-click commits a number and right-click eliminates a candidate. Settings → Gameplay → Swap mouse buttons 🍃 Distraction-Free ModeA cleaner board for when you want to disappear into the puzzle. The timer, counters, and menu button gently fade away during play and reappear the instant your cursor comes near. Off by default, so nothing moves unless you ask it to. Settings → Gameplay → Distraction-free UI 💀 Hardcore ModeFor the deduction purists: HexLemma stops holding your hand. Wrong moves stick, nothing gets flagged, and you only discover where you slipped once every cell is filled. A flawless solve is the only solve. Are you…
- Update Notes for Patch v1.0.2 - 28 June 2026
HexLemma — Update 1.0.2 Campaign: every level solvable by pure logic Every campaign puzzle has been rebuilt and verified end-to-end — each level is now guaranteed solvable by pure deduction, with no guessing. A new automated check blocks any guess-required level from ever shipping again. What this means for your save: Levels you've cleared stay cleared — your progress and best times are kept. A level you were part-way through restarts fresh with its updated puzzle. New levels — and replaying a finished one — use the updated puzzles. Bug fixes Thanks to everyone who sent reports this week — a big batch landed: No more freezes: the game could become unresponsive (mouse and Esc both dead) after opening the Steam overlay or returning from Settings. Fixed. Display settings stick: window mode and resolution now persist between launches (default is native borderless). Consistent puzzles: some…
- Patch #2 - 28 June 2026
Minor patch setting campaign loader to res:// vs user://campaigns/ to ensure authoritative location for save games. Added campaign migration so progress isn't lost.
- Day 0 patch! - 28 June 2026
Hello folks, This is a quick version update for the game to fix a few quick bugs that were reported: - Overlay mouse freeze: This should resolve the mouse getting killed when screen is popped into and out of repeatedly. - Window-mode persistence + borderless default: Bug reported that screen mode and resolution was not saved on exit. Resolved - Missing In-game "Report a Bug". Now will report with OS, Screen (Where you are in the game), If in puzzle - Seed, Size, Shape, Difficulty. - The d-key-under-modals leak into the puzzle. Resolved - HexStar determinism: It was noted that hexstar puzzles and generation based off of it didn't use the same deterministic path as other code (This was while I was prototyping different base shapes and I never pushed it to the corrected path). This should resolve it.
