Hex: Anxiety Relief Relax Game

Review by eFreeware

Some evenings you want a game that asks something of you, and some evenings you want the opposite: something quiet that occupies your hands while your head slows down. That second need is what Hex: Anxiety Relief Relax Game is built around, and the developer, Infinity Games, Lda, has made the intent clear in the title itself.

It is a free puzzle game for Android, rated for Everyone, and it has been on the store since August 2017. It has passed a million installs and holds a 4.5 average across more than 121,000 ratings, which suggests a lot of people have kept it around rather than deleting it after a week. The premise is simple: you connect pieces on a hexagonal board until every one of them forms part of a closed loop.

What makes it interesting to me is less the puzzle than the framing. The developer positions this as a way to take the edge off a stressful day, and describes it as helpful for stress, anxiety and headaches. The design decisions behind those claims are visible: no countdown, no score you can lose, no pressure to finish quickly.

Connecting every piece into one closed loop

The core activity is connecting. Each level gives you a board of hexagonal tiles, and your job is to rotate or join them so that the lines running through them meet up and form complete circuits with no loose ends. It is the same idea the developer used in its earlier Infinity Loop game, moved onto a hexagonal grid, which changes how the connections meet and gives the puzzles a different feel from a square board.

There is no timer anywhere in the game, and the developer explains that choice directly: people work at their own pace, and speed is not a measure of how well you think. I like that as a design position. It means a level can sit half-finished on your screen while you do something else, and coming back to it costs you nothing.

The developer also says the game is meant to help with focus and attention, which fits the type of puzzle this is. You are tracking lines across a board, holding several connections in your head at once, and adjusting one piece often means adjusting its neighbors. That is a gentle kind of concentration rather than a demanding one, and it is the reason I would expect this to work well as something to do with a podcast on or in a waiting room.

Infinite levels and a Wear OS version

The level supply is described as infinite, so there is no campaign to complete. You work through boards at whatever rate suits you, and the game keeps producing more. For a puzzle of this type that is the right structure: the appeal is the act of solving, not a narrative payoff at the end.

There is also a version for Wear OS. That is a genuinely useful detail for anyone with a smartwatch, since a puzzle with no timers and short individual levels is a natural fit for a small screen you glance at rather than stare into.

The most recent update, from August 2026, covers bug fixes and stability improvements. Nothing here suggests a game that has been reinvented over the years; it reads more like one that was built to do a single thing and has been kept working.

What the free version involves

Hex is free to download and it carries ads. It also offers in-app purchases, so there is a paid side to the game alongside the free one.

For a game with this much content and no timers, ads are the main thing I would flag before you install. A calm puzzle is a mood, and interruptions work against that mood, which is worth factoring in if the idea of a quiet ten minutes is the whole reason you are considering this.

The install count and rating suggest plenty of people have found the arrangement acceptable. That is not proof it will suit you, but it does suggest the free version is playable enough to have kept a large audience around for years.

The player this puzzle is built for

This is a game for someone who wants to wind down rather than compete. If your idea of a good puzzle is a leaderboard, a streak to protect or a level that finally defeats you, the absence of timers and pressure here will read as a lack of challenge. The developer has deliberately removed the things that create that tension.

It suits people who like small, tidy tasks: connecting the last piece of a loop and watching the board resolve into a clean pattern. It also suits anyone who wants something to do with their hands during a long phone call, a slow afternoon, or the twenty minutes before sleep, where a more stimulating game would keep them awake.

The minimalist look is part of that. There is no clutter competing for attention, and the hexagonal board gives the screen a geometric order that is pleasant to look at even when you are stuck. If you have enjoyed this developer's earlier loop game, the move to hexagons is the obvious reason to try this one.

A quiet puzzle worth keeping on your phone

Hex does one thing and does it without fuss. You connect pieces, the board closes into loops, and the game asks nothing else of you. The lack of timers is the feature I would point to first, because it changes the whole tone: you can be bad at a level for as long as you like, and the game will wait.

The trade-offs are straightforward. It is free with ads and in-app purchases, so the calm is not entirely uninterrupted. The puzzles are also the whole of it, with no competitive layer to give you a reason to return beyond wanting to solve another board.

If that sounds like enough, this is an easy install. It is best suited to people who want a low-stakes puzzle to fill quiet moments, who value a clean look, and who would rather think slowly than quickly. Anyone chasing a challenge or a sense of achievement should look at what this game deliberately leaves out and decide accordingly.

What's new

- Bug fixes and stability improvements