Alpha Hex proceeds in our spare time, but life being what it is, that spare time is a bit constrained.
Still, we would like to get the game out there for people to play with, both because we think it’s a fun game, and because we would like feedback. To that end, this is the “core” game of Alpha Hex, free for printing and play. (There are potentially several thousand card designs; this is a small selection of 36 to tinker with, with a board and rules.) This is copyrighted material, but it’s free for personal use.
I’m no DRM proponent, so there’s no sneaky skullduggery afoot. I’m just trusting that people will respect the work we’ve done here and try not to pass it off as their own. Please check it out, play it, and give us feedback (the email and some sample questions are on the last page of the PDF file). We’d also appreciate it if you would pass it on if you know someone who might appreciate it. The more the merrier!
We do reserve the right to build on this, potentially making commercial products. This Paper Beta will always be free, though, and the core digital version under development will be open source. Please enjoy the free version of Alpha Hex!
(Of course, we wouldn’t complain if you did decide to send us big bags of cash because you like the game so much. Small unmarked bills are best. Non-U.S. currency welcome.)
Now I need to get my friends together. It is not that easy, even more so to make them playing something else than WoW nowadays.
We play a game that is somewhat similar, at least the board. It is called “Kendo”, and it has this “SEX of HEX GAMING”, too. 🙂
http://translate.google.de/translate?prev=hp&hl=de&js=n&u=http://www.ludopedia.de/Kendo&sl=de&tl=en
Your counter cards are a bit more complex than the counters in this game, let’s see how it turns out.
Longasc, that link doesn’t seem to work for me. I did a quick search for Kendo, though, and it looks good. I’ve found that I quite like hex-based games. 🙂
Aye, my cards are more complex than just a cell marker, so it’s a bit more to keep track of, but that’s what gives it tactical depth and promotes balance between players.
Here’s hoping you have fun with it! Thanks!
First comment: I just printed out the board, and sent two friends a link.
“Ex: Fire vs. Water = +2 to Attack … Fire vs. Air or Dark = +1” – why is +2 vs the opposite element not good enough? +1 vs similar but not directly opposite elements is something people can forget and makes things a bit more complicated.
IMO – before having played the game yet. 🙂
The gradated bonuses are for deeper strategy. You can play without elemental bonuses at all, or with just the +2 if you feel like it. The game is pretty open to house rules. 😀
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I wish I had RL friends who actually sat down together to give this a whirl. Any ideas on how to play this via a webcam or something? =)
Well, Chris, it *is* standardized, so it could work like chess by email or something. We’d just need a notation system like Ll5r2c11 to describe moves. The “deck” might be tricky, but it’s perfectly acceptable to have a six card deck with everything known up front like Chess.
That code breaks down to Light, level 5, rotation 2, cell 11… meaning we’d need to number the cells, have the board rotated the same way, and define rotations. It’s not impossible, just something I haven’t thought of before now. See, this is why I need beta testing! 😀
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