Visibility Model
The world is divided into three distinct visibility states, influenced by both light sources and player skill:
- Lit Tiles: Fully visible and safe for movement. These tiles are directly illuminated by the town’s power grid or personal light sources.
- Remembered Tiles: Previously explored tiles that are currently unlit. They are faintly visible in a ring around the player, allowing for basic navigation of established routes. The range of this memory is determined by the Eidetic Memory skill.
- Dark Tiles: Unlit and unexplored (or unremembered) tiles. Hidden by default, these represent the true darkness of the wasteland and are lethal without a light source.
The Darkness Threat
Darkness is the primary existential threat in Hex Survival.
- Fear: Entering dark tiles without a lamp increases the player’s Fear stat.
- Individual Death: Moving into unlit hexes without a lamp results in immediate death.
- Global Game Over: If the city’s critical systems fail and the entire town falls into darkness, everyone dies and the run is over.
- City Survival: The city only survives as long as it has light. Preventing darkness from taking over is the ultimate objective.
Light Sources
Players must manage light to safely navigate the map.
- Personal Light: Items like the “Starter Lamp” provide a mobile radius of safety but have limited duration.
- Grid Illumination: Power Poles can be placed to permanently illuminate a hex. This requires the hex to be connected to the town’s power chain.
- Radius: A powered pole illuminates only its current hex (0-hex radius).
- Hex Light: The Base has inherent light.
Duration and Maintenance
- Degradation: Light sources like the Starter Lamp have a limited lifespan (e.g., “1 day of light remaining”).
- Midnight Expiration: Mobile light sources (lamps) degrade at the Midnight transition.
- The “Day Change” Trap: If a lamp has only “1 day remaining” and the player is standing in an unlit hex during the Midnight transition, the lamp expires. Without light, the player will begin accumulating Fear each hour. If this meter reaches its maximum, the player enters Fear Paralysis and is unable to move further into the unknown until light is recovered.
- Refueling: Items like the “Empty Lamp” require a “Battery” to be crafted into a functional light source.