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It all started when I met this guy Ben, who had made this simple triangle-based strategy game. Only problem was that it didn't work too well, and as a hardcore gaming nerd it was fairly obvious why to me. So in the days that followed I set out to keep the original spirit of the game but fix it so that it worked. Of course the moment I started doing so I went off on a tangent and made another game instead. But afterwards I went back and made the original game, so it was all good :p
Both games use the original hex shaped board divided into triangles. So I went out in search of a Kent set* to make a board and pieces. Apparently they aren't being made anymore, and no other company has stepped in to fill the breach. Long story short, I bought a crappy geometry set from Coles for 50c, and then the next day went to a newsagent and shelled out $2.50 for a protractor that you can actually see through. Being able to see through your protractor is much more important than you would think for making precise angles. Anyway, turns out that I didn't need one anyway. Remember all those geometry/sketching tricks they drummed into us at high school? Turns out that they're actually pretty useful, assuming that at some point in your life you feel the hankering to draw giant hexagons, equilateral triangles and then subdivide those triangles a la Pascal's Triangle. You can make all of the above using nothing but string, compass, ruler and pencil, and it's actually pretty cool. It's especially cool if you're like me, and are so uncoordinated that cutting a straight line is difficult even when following a line drawn on the page , because all these methods are fairly idiot-proof.
*Kent sets were these geometry sets that everyone had in high school. They were fairly uber, packing clear plastic ruler, triangle ruler thingies and protractor, metal compass, and small but serviceable pencil
( Cool geometry tricks.. ).
And thus ends the geometry lesson for today :p
I'll post more about the games at a later date when I have more to show off about them. Also, despite all my gloating about noob-friendly methods of drawing all these shapes they're still not perfect. When I drew the three main lines to break the hexagon into six triangles they didn't *quite* intersect nicely. Instead there's this tiny triangle of about one or two millimetre sides in the centre. It might not sound like much but it does bug me that I spent so many hours working on this stupid thing, and not have a better result.
Both games use the original hex shaped board divided into triangles. So I went out in search of a Kent set* to make a board and pieces. Apparently they aren't being made anymore, and no other company has stepped in to fill the breach. Long story short, I bought a crappy geometry set from Coles for 50c, and then the next day went to a newsagent and shelled out $2.50 for a protractor that you can actually see through. Being able to see through your protractor is much more important than you would think for making precise angles. Anyway, turns out that I didn't need one anyway. Remember all those geometry/sketching tricks they drummed into us at high school? Turns out that they're actually pretty useful, assuming that at some point in your life you feel the hankering to draw giant hexagons, equilateral triangles and then subdivide those triangles a la Pascal's Triangle. You can make all of the above using nothing but string, compass, ruler and pencil, and it's actually pretty cool. It's especially cool if you're like me, and are so uncoordinated that cutting a straight line is difficult even when following a line drawn on the page , because all these methods are fairly idiot-proof.
*Kent sets were these geometry sets that everyone had in high school. They were fairly uber, packing clear plastic ruler, triangle ruler thingies and protractor, metal compass, and small but serviceable pencil
( Cool geometry tricks.. ).And thus ends the geometry lesson for today :p
I'll post more about the games at a later date when I have more to show off about them. Also, despite all my gloating about noob-friendly methods of drawing all these shapes they're still not perfect. When I drew the three main lines to break the hexagon into six triangles they didn't *quite* intersect nicely. Instead there's this tiny triangle of about one or two millimetre sides in the centre. It might not sound like much but it does bug me that I spent so many hours working on this stupid thing, and not have a better result.
