Ian Henry
United States
Texas
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It seems that, given the limited availability of Hex boards, almost everyone who plays makes their own board (excluding those who keep exclusively to the computer). Usually this means PnP or gluing hundreds of small pieces of wood together. But if you could buy a quality Hex board, would you?
I know there are a few available on the internet right now, but none that I've found really do it for me. I was fantasizing about the "perfect Hex board" the other day when I realized I didn't really know what the perfect Hex board would be. So I pose the question: if you could design your own custom board, what would it look like?
I wrote a fairly extensive article on this which I link here for those with some interest in the topic. It also contains a summary of all the commercially available Hex boards I've been able to find.
http://www.tbltop.com/2010/04/perfect-hex-board.html
I'm curious about what's important to the Hex playing population. Would you rather have an expensive tabletop model, or a cheap portable board? I know this sounds like market research, and in a way it is - I've always dreamed of making and selling game boards, but it's a (very) far off goal. For now I'm just curious what people with more experience than me think about physical play. Any interest in a real board, or is everyone happy with Little Golem?
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David Molnar
United States
Ridgewood
New Jersey
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you're back! check out Ketchup!
for the record, my choice would be a wood board showing the dual tiling. But I usually play on paper; if I was going to spend money on games I'd spend it somewhere else. I love my wood Y board from Kadon - there are some in the picture gallery for Y, and that probably influences my preference here. Kadon also makes Hex boards; I think it might be just on request.
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Stephen Tavener
United Kingdom
London
England
The overtext below is true.
The overtext above is false.
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The first three are all good; but I'd love to see the diamond lattice.
I think go goes a good job of setting the bar for placement games:
- large enough to take full-sized go stones
- play on the intersections, not in the spaces
- I'd suggest a reversible board with a hex board on one side, and a go board on the other, in four sizes: 9x9, 11x11, 14x14, 19x19
- instead of marking the four sides, I'd have 4 circles, and let the players put a spare stone in there at the start of the game.
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David Bush
United States
Lexington
Virginia
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On your web page you say the 3mm thickness of the Mattesmedjan boards "surely is a typo." I disagree. They are all thin plywood sheets except for the deluxe 19x19 which is 9mm thick. If they were 3 cm (more than an inch) and 9 cm thick (more than three inches) the photos would show it. Also they are too small for standard Go stones. Look at the 8x8 board for example. If you include the space given around the edges, each side corresponds to about 9 hexes in width. The sides are 19 cm long, which means the hexes are about 2.1 cm across (interior circle.) Standard Go stones are 2.25 cm across, which would be larger than these hexes, but the stones shown are distinctly smaller than the hexes.
BTW another source for Go boards is Chessex, if the owner is willing to cut to shape. Their Battlemat with 1" hexes can be cut into a 15x15 diamond, and their Megamat can accomodate 26x26. These are fine for standard stones.
The Kadon board is 15x15 I think, and works with standard Go stones I think. It was $50 last I checked. You could email them for an image and details. It's rectangular not diamond shaped, which leaves blank space in each corner.
11x11 is perhaps the most widely used size, 13x13 and 19x19 are the sizes chosen for the Little Golem server, and 14x14 was favored by John Nash. If money were irrelevant, I would want wooden boards in each of these sizes, as well as roll up vinyl boards, all suitable for standard Go stones. Maybe 15x15 could be included as well.
The roll up boards would use hexagons and the wooden boards would be like the rep image which I generated with POVray, with a triangular grid. So that's a total of 10 boards, or maybe just 8 if I use both sides of the wooden boards. I believe more than one grid per side of the board would be awkward. I already have Chessex boards cut to 14x14 and 19x19. (See the image gallery.) I have black thread hand stitched on the black edges, which are both clockwise from an acute corner (a tradition I hope will become popular, as opposed to playing on a mirror image board.) Machine stitching would look better but is difficult to do with the stretchy Chessex material.
The wooden boards would have black and white lines around the edges like with my rep image, NOT like your mirror image 11x11 set (which otherwise looks great.) The 19x19 would be at least an inch thick. All these boards would be diamond shaped, not rectangular. Coordinate labels are not necessary for a physical set IMO, but if done well they would not detract from the aesthetic appeal. Maybe some day I will get a Carvewright and make some wooden boards. The width limitation of the Carvewright would probably force me to forego coordinate labels for the large grid. I'm not sure what size the largest grid would be.
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David Bush
United States
Lexington
Virginia
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mrraow wrote:
- I'd suggest a reversible board with a hex board on one side, and a go board on the other, in four sizes: 9x9, 11x11, 14x14, 19x19
Four sizes means four boards, right? If you have NxN Go on one side and NxN Hex on the other, both sides sized for standard stones, you would have significant blank space around BOTH sides, regardless of the overall shape of the board or how the grids are oriented with respect to each other. Why not have two diamond shaped boards for Hex, one with sides 11x11 and 9x9, the other with sides 19x19 and 14x14? Then you would have significant blank space only on the sides with the smaller grids. You could have two separate Go boards for your chosen sizes.
Quote: - instead of marking the four sides, I'd have 4 circles, and let the players put a spare stone in there at the start of the game.
Just curious- why not lines?
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Stephen Tavener
United Kingdom
London
England
The overtext below is true.
The overtext above is false.
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twixter wrote: Quote: - instead of marking the four sides, I'd have 4 circles, and let the players put a spare stone in there at the start of the game. Just curious- why not lines?
http://www.algorithmicartisan.com/gostones/ 
(Incidentally, I wasn't expecting the go board and reverse hex boards to be the same dimensions.)
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Harald Korneliussen
Norway
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twixter wrote: On your web page you say the 3mm thickness of the Mattesmedjan boards "surely is a typo." I disagree. They are all thin plywood sheets except for the deluxe 19x19 which is 9mm thick. If they were 3 cm (more than an inch) and 9 cm thick (more than three inches) the photos would show it. Also they are too small for standard Go stones.
Correct, it's very thin plywood. The Mattesmedjan boards come with their own plastic "stones", which are quite a bit smaller than go stones, about the size of the stones magic players use to count health. They used to be real stone, but the color rubbed off.
They come in lovely hexagonal boxes, though. I'm pretty sure they had 11x11 when I visited; maybe they're out of stock. The 19x19 (as well as some larger boards in the same "deluxe style") were custom-made for a customer who apparently disappeared.
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Ian Henry
United States
Texas
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I'm not sure if it's usual to post each reply individually or as one group post in cases like this, so apologies if I chose the wrong way:
Quote: you're back! check out Ketchup!
Yeah; I kinda disappeared off the face of the board game planet -- sorry about that. Thanks for the link; that looks like an excellent candidate for a future Tabletop entry!
Quote: Kadon also makes Hex boards; I think it might be just on request.
Thanks for the tip; I emailed Kadon a few minutes ago and I'll update my article once I hear back.
Quote: -instead of marking the four sides, I'd have 4 circles, and let the players put a spare stone in there at the start of the game.
This is a good solution; your reasoning is the same as mine. But it causes a problem: you would need wide enough margins to fit the hole. In a diamond-shaped board, this would cause the acute corners to project much farther beyond the end of the board, so you'd need to round them significantly or cut them off (like the Mattesmedjan boards).
It might also look weird, because except for the stone on each edge you'd just have really wide margins. What about having little "wings" that stick off slightly, so that the margin was only wider where it needed to be? Talk about looking weird, though...
Or just do this on a non-diamond shaped board? Hexboard.com adopted a similar approach with a hexagonal board.
Quote: - I'd suggest a reversible board with a hex board on one side, and a go board on the other, in four sizes: 9x9, 11x11, 14x14, 19x19
How would you propose aligning the hex board on the square board? Corner to corner would give you the most efficient use of space, but you'd have to play with the board at a 45 angle. Edge to edge would be most traditional, but also the most wasteful of space. Having it at a 30 degree angle, so that two edges were parallel to the edges of the board would be slightly more efficient, and allow players to use the horz/vert distinction. None of these really click with me, though.
Quote: On your web page you say the 3mm thickness of the Mattesmedjan boards "surely is a typo." I disagree. They are all thin plywood sheets except for the deluxe 19x19 which is 9mm thick. If they were 3 cm (more than an inch) and 9 cm thick (more than three inches) the photos would show it. Quote: Correct, it's very thin plywood. The Mattesmedjan boards come with their own plastic "stones", which are quite a bit smaller than go stones, about the size of the stones magic players use to count health. They used to be real stone, but the color rubbed off.
Thanks guys; I updated the article with this information. I thought the images were just at the right angle to hide the depth and I didn't notice the 9mm - 9cm would be pretty unwieldy.
Quote: the wooden boards would be like the rep image which I generated with POVray
I'm sorry I called it drab! Seeing that image on Hexwiki was my first inspiration to start rendering board games, for what that's worth. Question about it, though: you have Go-style dots marking various points in a hexagonal arrangement (or rhomboidal? If the other two are covered by stones). Do you think this is something a real board should have? I think for a 19x19 it would be helpful to have a center dot at the very least. What do you guys think? How many dots would be helpful, and on what size boards?
Quote: I have black thread hand stitched on the black edges, which are both clockwise from an acute corner (a tradition I hope will become popular, as opposed to playing on a mirror image board.)
Just out of curiosity - was this placement decision random? I'm all for sticking to it (it never occurred to me that there was a convention when I first made my board), I'm just wondering if it has a root in something. Similarly, does anyone know why Chess boards have a white square in the lower right-hand corner? Was that just Decided long ago?
Quote: All these boards would be diamond shaped, not rectangular
In my opinion diamond-shaped with slightly rounded edges is the optimal shape. Maybe a sharp-edged board could look nice as well, but I don't really like the Mattesmedjan cutoff style. Rectangular boards seem like they'd just bother me somehow - although maybe those used to the Horz/Vert distinction might like them. Any votes for non-diamond shaped boards?
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David Bush
United States
Lexington
Virginia
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ianthehenry wrote: Quote: -instead of marking the four sides, I'd have 4 circles, and let the players put a spare stone in there at the start of the game. This is a good solution; your reasoning is the same as mine. But it causes a problem: you would need wide enough margins to fit the hole. In a diamond-shaped board, this would cause the acute corners to project much farther beyond the end of the board, so you'd need to round them significantly or cut them off (like the Mattesmedjan boards). It might also look weird, because except for the stone on each edge you'd just have really wide margins. What about having little "wings" that stick off slightly, so that the margin was only wider where it needed to be? Talk about looking weird, though...
Your reasoning is the same? I'm still not sure what that reasoning is. The link provided is to "Exotic SemiPrecious Go Stones." Apparently, the board should be adaptable to a variety of stones in different colors, not just black and white. Is that right? Well why should the board do that? Usually when a Go set is purchased, a set of stones for that board is purchased to match it aesthetically. What kind of aesthetics would this "stone on each side" board have? IMO "weird" is being kind. Sorry for the rant.
Quote: Quote: the wooden boards would be like the rep image which I generated with POVray I'm sorry I called it drab! Seeing that image on Hexwiki was my first inspiration to start rendering board games, for what that's worth. Question about it, though: you have Go-style dots marking various points in a hexagonal arrangement (or rhomboidal? If the other two are covered by stones). Do you think this is something a real board should have? I think for a 19x19 it would be helpful to have a center dot at the very least. What do you guys think? How many dots would be helpful, and on what size boards?
The POVray code was adapted from a Go board. I kept the dots from the Go board (yes, rhombodial) because they serve a purpose other than showing where to put handicap stones. They give a reference frame for the eye on this large grid. I saw no reason to mess with the arrangement which has worked so well for Go. But this point is so minor, it was sitting here a minute ago... hm must have dropped on the floor.
Quote: Quote: I have black thread hand stitched on the black edges, which are both clockwise from an acute corner (a tradition I hope will become popular, as opposed to playing on a mirror image board.) Just out of curiosity - was this placement decision random? I'm all for sticking to it (it never occurred to me that there was a convention when I first made my board), I'm just wondering if it has a root in something. Similarly, does anyone know why Chess boards have a white square in the lower right-hand corner? Was that just Decided long ago?
It just sort of turned out that way. I guess one faction screamed "I got dibs" first. But if everyone agrees on a standard, then we could have tournaments, and soon we will rule the world!
Quote: Quote: All these boards would be diamond shaped, not rectangular In my opinion diamond-shaped with slightly rounded edges is the optimal shape. Maybe a sharp-edged board could look nice as well, but I don't really like the Mattesmedjan cutoff style. Rectangular boards seem like they'd just bother me somehow - although maybe those used to the Horz/Vert distinction might like them. Any votes for non-diamond shaped boards?
Not only diamond shaped, but the players should orient this diamond shape so the short diagonal points at the players. Some players insist on rotating the board 30 degrees so two of the edges are normal to a line between the players. But this is VIRTUAL TYRANNY!
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Harald Korneliussen
Norway
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twixter wrote:
Not only diamond shaped, but the players should orient this diamond shape so the short diagonal points at the players. Some players insist on rotating the board 30 degrees so two of the edges are normal to a line between the players. But this is VIRTUAL TYRANNY!
Amen. It's become a convention on the net because it's easier to code, probably. Another ugly implementation convenience tradition is keeping the colors and replacing the piece in swap.
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Stephen Tavener
United Kingdom
London
England
The overtext below is true.
The overtext above is false.
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vintermann wrote: twixter wrote:
Not only diamond shaped, but the players should orient this diamond shape so the short diagonal points at the players. Some players insist on rotating the board 30 degrees so two of the edges are normal to a line between the players. But this is VIRTUAL TYRANNY!
Amen. It's become a convention on the net because it's easier to code, probably. Another ugly implementation convenience tradition is keeping the colors and replacing the piece in swap.
No! No! The two players should sit at a 120 degree angle to each other, so each is playing across the board 
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Douglas Glisson
Canada
Alberta
www.scottsigler.com/gfl
I'm gonna keep signing my posts so just let it go already.
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So who makes this one?
http://www.tbltop.com/2009/05/hex.html
I rather like it.
Kraken Fan #69
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Harald Korneliussen
Norway
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krakenfan69 wrote:
Tabletop site wrote:
Victory for green. Those bowls haven’t changed in the slightest
over the course of these images. Don’t tell anyone.
I think this means that the image is rendered. Sorry. I thought it was a very sweet board too.
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Douglas Glisson
Canada
Alberta
www.scottsigler.com/gfl
I'm gonna keep signing my posts so just let it go already.
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Crap. I just assumed he had taken the needed tokens out prior to the first pic. Too bad. Shapeways.com anyone?
Kraken Fan #69
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