T w e n t y S i d e d

Maybe the name of the project has given this away, but this game is going to be played on a hex grid. Hex grids are elegant, beautiful, and better-looking than standard square grids. The only downside to using a hex based gameboard is that the computer and I are both rubbish at thinking in hexes.

See, computer memory is really just a long list of addresses. You can think of it like a long street with houses in a row. At the start is house #1, and they go one after another all the way down to house #2,147,483,648 at the far end of the street. This is the structure of the world you work in. You can organize that information (conceptually, in your head) however you like. To can imagine them as a table of values by (say) treating it like a new row every 25 addresses. If you need a grid of data that’s (say) 25×25, then the item in row 2, column 2 is at position #27. Some simple math will let you treat that infinite line of addresses like a grid of points, but in the end your program is still dealing with a long, long list.

If I have a grid of 8×8 points, I can use them to make a 7×7 grid of squares. If that sounds confusing, (and I don’t blame you) then please enjoy the following visual aid, which was crafted by a small team of professional artists over the course of nine days, working in a variety of mediums, from calligraphy pens to watercolor:

Yes, prints are available.

This is really easy. (Making a grid, not the artwork.) It’s how my terrain project made a grid with millions of squares: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Project Hex: Part 2”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.