THERE IS ONLY ONE MAGIC HEXAGON
September 21, 2014 1:09 AM   Subscribe

 
Neat.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:15 AM on September 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


Hex is a strategy board game played on a hexagonal grid ... [t]he goal of [which] is to form a connected path with one’s pieces from one side of the board ... to the opposite side before one’s opponent does the same. The first player to complete his or her connection wins.
Do this with general knowledge questions and teenagers, and it's Blockbusters.

"I'd like an E, Bob!"
posted by Grangousier at 3:09 AM on September 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


Neat.

Auro, the hex based follow up to 100 Rogues, has just been released on Android - iOS gets a release once some issues have been fixed, but you could always play Hoplite in the meantime.
posted by Artw at 4:52 AM on September 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


Thirded: neat!

Also: What is it about bees and hexagons?
posted by moonmilk at 5:02 AM on September 21, 2014


Also: What is it about bees and hexagons?

Related, a Larry Gonick "Science Classics" cartoon that is etched into my brain, and comes up each time I think about any of this: "Fill'er Up!" (previously).
posted by wormwood23 at 5:29 AM on September 21, 2014 [2 favorites]


Fun grid fact #14: A polyhex is a plane figure composed of n regular hexagons joined at their edges, in the manner of a regular hexagonal tessellation
posted by sammyo at 5:55 AM on September 21, 2014




More information about hexagons is available at the Global Hexagon Awareness Resource Center.
posted by narain at 6:25 AM on September 21, 2014 [4 favorites]


Wormwood: thank you! It's crazy that anyone thinks bees "choose" to build hexes instead of squares or triangles because they want to conserve wax. They're not building hexes, they're building tightly-spaced tesselations of circles, which naturally have hexagonal boundaries. It's not biology, it's math.
posted by El Mariachi at 6:48 AM on September 21, 2014 [5 favorites]


I like the brick wall comparison as functionally similar, and now wonder if anyone has designed or made a brick or block hex wall. Especially wondering how corners would work, or if curves were easier.
posted by Brian B. at 7:26 AM on September 21, 2014


Did someone say hexagons? As everyone knows, hexagons are my totem shape.

YAYYYYYYYYYYYYY!
posted by symbioid at 7:55 AM on September 21, 2014


It's useful to draw when working on game algorithms or mechanics, but drawing hexagons on paper is a nuisance. Of course, you can print out some hex-graph paper, but when an idea strikes you in the middle of nowhere (or if you draw as much as I do), then you need to be able to make hex grids quickly on paper.

One could also carry a pad or notebook of hex graph paper with one.

Not that I ever have, of course.

Well, not recently anyhow.

Some days I really miss the Spinward Marches.
posted by Celsius1414 at 8:50 AM on September 21, 2014


they're building tightly-spaced tesselations of circles, which naturally have hexagonal boundaries. It's not biology, it's math.

It's biology and math. Other species try to build close-packed structures out of tubes of wax. Darwin mentioned "a Mexican bee, Melipona domestica, that made a rough comb of cylindrical or nearly spherical cells, with flat sides where cells happened to meet." In other words, heaps of wasted wax. Math tells us that hexagons are efficient, biology tells us why and how honeybees (and not all species) build those efficient structures.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 9:17 AM on September 21, 2014 [3 favorites]


Fun grid fact #17 Complex numbers can be used instead of vectors for hex coordinates

I read this the other day and this fact is the one I can't quite wrap my head around.
posted by RobotHero at 9:20 AM on September 21, 2014


I read this the other day and this fact is the one I can't quite wrap my head around.

Perhaps this.
posted by Brian B. at 9:29 AM on September 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


Suggested soundtrack
posted by Wolfdog at 11:01 AM on September 21, 2014


Hey, a Traveller space map. Yay hexagons.
posted by GuyZero at 12:46 PM on September 21, 2014


Might I suggest an alternative soundtrack?

After all, Music is Math.
posted by PROD_TPSL at 12:49 PM on September 21, 2014


In case you haven't seen it, Amit Patel's notes on hex grids are an excellent resource for programmers. Also a really beautiful example of web-based publishing of teaching material.

My favorite thing about hex grids for games is the way distance works correctly, without the fiddly diagonal moves of square grids.
posted by Nelson at 1:05 PM on September 21, 2014 [7 favorites]


Some days I really miss the Spinward Marches.

Mongoose did a reboot of Traveller a few years back, that keeps all the gritty flavour while tidying up some of the wackier excesses of 80s RPG design (dying during character creation is now an optional rule).

And the wonderful Garth Hanrahan, who wrote the new rules, is partway through an excellent free sandbox campaign, The Pirates of Drinax, which is worth reading for ideas even if you never want to run Traveller.

Today, the trade ships from the Imperium and the Hierate pass by broken, beggared worlds. The worlds once claimed by Drinax realise they have exchanged one master for another, and that the Aslan have even less regard for them than the kings did. The Imperium and the Hierate pretend to be friends while they jockey for position. The sector stands on a knife edge. The right pressure could push half the Trojan Reach into the claws of the Aslan, or force an already overstretched Imperium to extend its forces deeper into the sector, or permit Drinax to rise again – or carve out a new kingdom in blood and steel!

Now is the time for corsairs and privateers, for rogues and empire-builders. The King of Drinax offers a small band of trusted, resourceful bastards the chance to make their fortune. He gives them a ship and a letter of marque. They are to go adventuring in the Trojan Reach, to prey on shipping and to build up support in the worlds once held by the Kingdom of Drinax, and to play the two great powers off against each other. If they succeed, they will become princes in the renewed kingdom. If they fail, the stars will be their grave!

posted by Sebmojo at 2:52 PM on September 21, 2014


Oh, and a link to someone making characters (which is its own absorbing minigame).
posted by Sebmojo at 3:06 PM on September 21, 2014


"This pattern, it's so random, there IS no pattern. It's all over the place. How are we going to figure out where this bastard strikes next?!"

"Easy there cowboy. I know it's frustrating. You can't let this get to you. Don't make it personal."

"He went there first. Numbering victims completely randomly. But telling us in advance how many there's going to be? You bet it's personal."

"If only we could figure out who this 'Magic Square Killer' is and why he keeps telling us he's put some sort of hex on the city."

"It's a clue. But to WHAT?"

FADE

also they're wearing numbered jerseys and trading wood for sheep
posted by bigbigdog at 4:10 PM on September 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


i forgot the part where they got the jerseys from the killer but you get the idea
posted by bigbigdog at 4:21 PM on September 21, 2014


Eponic self-link to cellular automata
Also Games and Stuff
And Hex Rogue
The above are java applets and require java, which may make your browser cry.
posted by hexatron at 5:50 PM on September 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


Gamasutra seems to 403 attempts to read their articles from some countries. I had to use a proxy. Any reason for this?
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 6:23 AM on September 22, 2014


Obligatory t-shirt link: '70s Sci-Fi Was All About The Hexagons
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:12 AM on September 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


Related to Hexatron's cellular automata post, here is a little something I whipped up in Flash a few years back: Hexagonal (ish) Langton's Ants. Unlike regular grid-shaped Langton's ants, this one tends to form symmetrical patterns.
posted by JohnFromGR at 11:18 AM on September 22, 2014


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