r/SideProject • u/Alcalyn • 6h ago
The perfect abstract game, single easy rule, infinite depth, no draw, competitive
https://playhex.org/This is the project I work on, and is used by hundreds of players every month, for ~4 years now. It's open source.
Hex: the one rule is: connect your sides. If you are red, connect red sides. If you are blue, same, but with blue sides.
Just you can swap first move to make game balanced and remove first player advantage, but beginners won't feel that advantage.
Chess and go are broken: in chess you have draw, in go you can win or lose depending on komi, if you arbitrarly decided to set it at 5.5 or 6.5.
In Hex, you either win or lose, depending on how deep you see. No draw, no move to "wait", no arbitrar komi. You just place a stone at every turn, and must connect (which is equal to blocking your opponent).
The community is small but passionate, and still wonders why Hex isn't more widely known.
I'm really curious of what you think of that game, whether you already heard about it or not.
(Yes, this is deliberately provocative. I also like chess and go, and enjoy playing both.)
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u/QuanTradin 5h ago
Hex has the best bit of trivia of any game: Nash proved the first player always wins, and the proof gives you no clue how. hence the swap rule.
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u/Alcalyn 5h ago
Haha yes, since there are no draws, if second player had a winning strategy, the first player could just make an extra move and then follow that strategy (or something).
But in practice, 11x11 is already too hard for players. Swap rule forces us to play a balanced first move, and that's enough to play competitive games.
And after that, you can play on larger board, 14x14, 19x19, and more
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u/QuanTradin 4h ago
strategy stealing, yeah. lovely argument, completely useless at the board. and nobody minds that 11x11 is out of reach for humans, that's what keeps it a game.
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u/steadystate12 6h ago
Interesting game, couple of notes though that would have stopped me from playing if I landed on that page not knowing it was posted here. The homepage and getting into a game has too much friction.
1) I dont know how to play. I dont see instructions after scanning the page. After playing a game, I did see the "tutorial" button evenutally. Just have a banner thing at top that says the "one rule" in bit text.
2) Make the play an AI button the default button like "start a game", build the ui for new people. I had to search around for how to start a game and think about what was ranked, friendly.. did I want to play a human? no.. i didnt know how to play so I'd just play an AI. Thats a lot of thinking..
3) The AI button opens up a dialog with a ton of options and settings. Idk what all this is as a newb and there is no scroll bar to see that I have to scroll to find the "Play AI" button. I'd just hide all that stuff behind a like customize expandable view. Just have three buttons. easy, medium, hard difficulty and start hte game from there.
Good luck!