Introduction
HexStatic is a tile-laying puzzle strategy game of Red Green and Blue. Players attempt to make loops and lines by selectively laying tiles to form their own structures while blocking those of the other players. But first you need to fight for the right to own a colour in the first place! Will you rush in early, or play a waiting game of blocking?
What you will need?
Scissors (optional), a Printer, paper and/or thin card, or blank Hex tiles.
Print out the PDF file (link below) and paste on to thin card, or use red, green and blue pens (or colours of your own choice) to create your own pieces using purchased blank hex tiles.
How to play with 2 or 3 players
All the tiles except the nexus tiles (tiles where all three colours are end points) are turned over and shuffled.
[Insert picture of Nexus tiles]
Players select 6 tiles randomly, which they can look at but must keep secret from the other . Then the starting player chooses one of the nexus tiles to play first, and the rest are shuffled among the remaining face down tiles. Who gets to be starting player? The last winner of the game, or you can choose randomly. This ends the starting player’s first turn.
Then play commences in a clockwise direction. Each turn, players choose one of their six tiles to lay, where lines of the same colour always line up on all connected sides. Once played, a replacement tile is randomly chosen from the remaining face down tiles. If a tile could not be played, or the player chooses not to lay a tile, one tile is discarded for a random replacement then the remaining face down tiles are shuffled.
When the first structure is completed, either by having a line finished with two end tiles or by creating a self-contained loop, the successful player is assigned that colour for the rest of the game. Similarly for the second player to complete a structure. In a 3 player game, the remaining colour is allocated to the final player. In a two player game the last colour counts as neutral.
Play continues until no more players are able to lay legal tiles. If all players agree, play can be suspended and remaining tiles turned over to confirm no legal moves remain. If there are tiles that can be laid, play continues in the same order, but with all tiles being available to each player in turn order until legal moves are exhausted.
Scoring can be done continuously during play or at the end of the game, as follows:
- Loops – count the number of tiles in a loop when completed and multiply by 4. So, a loop of 3 (the smallest possible) scores 12 points.
- Lines – count the number of tiles including the two end tiles when a line is completed, and multiply by 2. So, a completed line can be as short as 2 (only two end tiles), which would score 4, but could be significantly longer!
- Fragments – lines that have one end tile only are scored by counting the number of connected tiles, excluding the end tile. This should only happen at the end of the game.
- Connected tiles – Fragments that don’t have at least one end tile are NOT counted unless there is a tie with scoring for Loops, Lines and Fragments. This should only happen if there is a draw at the end of the game.
How to play a Single Player Game
Set up is the same as for multiplayer, in that 6 tiles are chosen randomly from shuffled face down tiles, excluding the nexus tiles (those consisting solely of line ends), a nexus tile is chosen and played, with the rest being shuffled into the remaining tiles.
Then play proceeds with laying a tile then taking another (or swapping a new tile for an old one and shuffling) until there are no more legal moves possible; confirmation of this may require all remaining tiles being turned over, at which point but the player has effectively given up placing any more tiles and scoring begins.
Scoring for single player games is the same as for multiplayer games, but all colours are counted and only loops and lines score. The aim of single player is to get a new high score, or beat other player’s best scores.
Notes
For a commercial version of this, I would imagine pieces similar to those for Hive; chunky hexagonal tiles with raised grooves. Ideally, I would have coloured lines of different types – dashed, thin and thick lines – to allow colourblind or visually impaired players to have an accessible version. If you’d like to publish this game, please contact me, provided you agree that this Print and Play version is allowed to remain in the Public Domain indefinitely.
Print and Play Files
To come later today. Apologies, I can’t get a decent upload connection right now.
Play in Progress 