Independent: "How's your spelling? No, this isn't an educational title designed to test your letters but a sorcery-packed game that has players casting runes to magical effect.
In order to perform spells, you have to collect different runes, then draw them in the right order to gain power. The action is split between scribbling and collecting, tournaments and challenges, all of which work well enough, but overall Doodle Hex feels like an interesting concept stretched a little too thinly across a whole game."
Indeed, it's the drawn out (sorry) nature of Doodle Hex's core offerings as a whole that is its starkest non-recommendation. While it's obvious and commendable what basic design in entertainment developer Tragnarion Studios is aiming for, the game nevertheless comes across as a clever yet shallow distraction you'd otherwise normally expect as a throwaway mini-game in a meatier product. With a Wii version of the game in the works, those enticed by the curiosity of battling with doodles may want to skip the DS snack and see what satisfaction may rise from the console drawing board.
RealGamer writes: "Doodle Hex is probably best described as a strategy game, although the storyline doesn't seem the sort of thing you'd expect from this genre. Firstly, I'll describe the mechanics of the game as this will make it easier to understand the rest of the review.
You take part in battles with opponents, your character is at the bottom of the screen depicted by your characters face and your opponents face is at the top of the screen. You attack each other by drawing runes on the touch screen, these runes then travel around a circular track towards your opponent, but obviously your opponent will be doing the same thing to you. Different runes are selected by drawing different shapes on the touch screen with the stylus, so the first rune you learn to draw is just a simple upside down V shape, but others are circles or squares, but they are always one continuous line making them fairly easy to draw. Each rune you cast uses up your mana, which is your magical energy, it regenerates as long as you don't cast any more runes or use your shield, stronger runes use more mana, so if you have low mana you'll only be able to cast smaller runes until your mana regenerates to a certain level. You can defend yourself from your opponent's attacks by holding the stylus on your face to create a shield that is held there as long as you hold the stylus on your face, but as mentioned above this will stop your mana from regenerating so you can't just constantly defend. The winner is the person who depletes the other player's health bar, there is also a time limit and at the end of it the player with the lowest health is the loser. Each battle is the best of three rounds, so don't worry too much if you lose the first round."
I thought this game sounded interesting when it was announced last year but the style is really disappointing.