hexaGONE
hexaGONE Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Setup
You should have a hexagon bag, 54 Sequence Cards, and 60 hexagon tiles (aka hexagons).
Place all hexagons in the hexagon bag and mix them up. Shuffle the Sequence Cards and draw for first play. The player who draws the highest value plays first. Return the Sequence Cards to the deck and shuffle again. Starting with the first player, each player draws 3 hexagons from the hexagon bag.
How to Play
Hexagon is played in turns with each player taking his or her turn and then proceeding to the next player in a clockwise direction. There are 4 steps to a turn:
Step 1: Draw a Sequence Card
Draw the top Sequence Card from the Sequence Card deck and place it face up in the Sequence Card Row. If there are already 3 Sequence Cards in the Sequence Card Row, discard the Sequence Card that has been there the longest. Note: you may find it easier to keep track of face-up Sequence Cards if you slide cards to the right as new ones are drawn.
Step 2: Play Hexagon(s)
In any order, you may:
- Place any number of hexagons from your hand onto the board
- Play any number of Special-play hexagons
Alternatively, you may choose to "pass" and not to play any hexagons. Instead, return any number of hexagons from your hand to the hexagon bag, shuffle the bag, and draw that many hexagons. If you choose to do this, your turn ends immediately.
When placing hexagons on the board, you must place each hexagon adjacent to a hexagon already on the board. Hexagons can only be played on an adjacent edge of another hexagon. Hexagons must be placed next to adjacent hexagons. After playing her first hexagon, Player 1 has 6 choices for her second placement. (The rulebook illustrates these placements with diagrams.)
If the board is empty, place the hexagon somewhere that all players can easily reach. The orientation of the hexagon does not matter when placing the hexagon on the board.
You may alternate between playing special hexagons and basic hexagons as many times as you like but must play at least 1 hexagon if you do not "pass." See the Special-Play section for more information.
Step 3: Claim Sequence Card(s)
Claim a Sequence Card from the Sequence Card row by identifying a hexagon sequence on the board that matches the sequence on the Sequence Card. Players may choose the order in which they claim Sequence Cards and may claim any number of Sequence Cards during this step. If a cracked hexagon is used as part of the sequence, that hexagon must be discarded.
You can claim the 12-point Sequence Card or the 3-point Sequence card but not both since the cracked hexagon used to claim the first Sequence Card must be discarded before claiming the next Sequence Card.
A correctly matched sequence matches both in color and shape. To match in color, each hexagon in the pattern must be the same color as each hexagon on the Sequence Card. To match in shape, the identified pattern must be the same shape as the one on the Sequence Card. Rotations are allowed.
See the Sequence Cards section for more information on how to claim Sequence Cards.
Step 4: Draw Hexagon(s)
Draw up to 3 hexagons from the hexagon bag and add them to your hand. You may not exceed your maximum hand size of 6 hexagons. You always draw hexagons from the bag provided. Use the bag to keep your draws as random as possible. You may not draw more hexagons than would be needed to bring your hand size to 6. E.g. if you have 4 hexagons in hand, you draw 2 hexagons instead of 3. Hexagons in your hand should be kept hidden from other players.
The game ends once the player who drew the final hexagon completes his or her next turn. E.g. if Ashley draws the last hexagon from the bag, Paul (her opponent) takes his turn (skipping Step 4 as there are no more hexagons to draw), then Ashley takes hers. The player with the highest score at the end of the game is the winner.
Sequence Cards
Sequence Cards are used to score points in hexaGONE and contain the following elements:
- Hexagon sequence. Identify a sequence on the board which matches the sequence on the Sequence Card.
- Difficulty Rating. Makes it easy to remove difficult cards when playing hexaGONE with children.
- Point Value. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins!
Players score points by collecting, i.e. "claiming," Sequence Cards. Sequence Cards are claimed during Step 3. To claim a Sequence Card, the player whose turn it is must identify a hexagon sequence on the game board which matches the sequence on the Sequence Card. A correctly matched sequence has 2 criteria:
- The sequence of colors is identical, and
- The identified pattern must be the same shape as the one on the Sequence Card. Rotations are allowed.
Examples
The pattern identified on the board matches the pattern on the Sequence Card, despite being slightly rotated.
In the image on the left, the sequence outlined in blue is good but the sequence outlined in red is not since there is a blue hexagon where a gray one should be. This sequence (red line) does not match the Sequence Card but the other sequence (blue line) does. Note that cracked hexagons count as basic gray hexagons for the purpose of identifying sequences.
If a player successfully claims a Sequence Card, he or she takes that card and leaves it face up in front of them until the end of the game. Scoring is done by adding up the point values on all claimed Sequence Cards. Each player's score is considered public knowledge.
Basic Hexagons
There are 2 basic, solid colored, hexagons in hexaGONE, gray and blue. The basic hexagons will be used to create the sequences that players use to claim Sequence cards and, thus, get points. Some gray hexagons have a crack icon on them. Cracked hexagons used to claim a Sequence Card must be discarded immediately after claiming that Sequence Card. Thus, a cracked hexagon may not be used to claim more than one Sequence Card. Place the removed hexagons face down in the hexagon discard pile. Discarded hexagons may no longer be used by any player.
Any Cracked hexagons used to claim a Sequence Card are immediately discarded after claiming the Sequence Card. Note that other Cracked hexagons that were not used to claim the Sequence Card still remain on the board.
Special-Play Hexagons
In addition to the basic hexagons, there are four Special-Play hexagons:
- Move-agon: move any hexagon on the board to another location on the board.
- Bomb-agon: discard a card from the Sequence Card Row. You may draw a new one.
- Swap-agon: swap the positions of any two hexagons on the board.
- Draw-agon: draw 2 hexagons. You may exceed your hand size limit for this step only.
Note that, while your maximum hand size is 6 hexgons, you may exceed this limit during the Play Hexagons step of your turn if you played a Draw-agon. You still must discard down to 6 hexagons if you end your turn with more than 6 hexagons in hand.
Gameplay Variations
When playing with the kiddos, it may be best to remove all 3-star Sequence Cards from the Sequence Card deck to cut down on spatial complexity. Other ways to enjoy hexaGONE include:
- Free-for-all (up to 4 players): All of the same rules above apply.
- Two-versus-two: This format plays similar to a 4-player free-for-all except that the 1st and 3rd players add their Sequence Cards at the end of game and compare their score to the sum of the 2nd and 4th players. Players should sit such that teams alternate turns and may not discuss their hands with each other.
Component List
Make sure you have the following:
- 20 gray hexagons with no crack
- 20 gray cracked hexagons
- 12 Blue hexagons
- 2 Swap-agons
- 2 Draw-agons
- 2 Bomb-agons
- 2 Move-agons
- 54 Sequence cards, and
- 1 Hexagon bag
Verify that all 54 cards match the cards shown on the next page.
Note: the final printed page is an illustrated catalogue of the 54 Sequence Cards (faces only, no rules text). It is not transcribed here; the card faces are the component reference the rules point to.