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Trapezoid tiles/pieces (half a hex?)

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Fri, 09/24/2004 - 17:05
Zzzzz
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Just wondering if anyone has seen a game (or attempted to create a game) that uses trapezoid shape pieces for tiles or a grid?

Does anyone see a benefit to using a trapezoid for tile or grid layouts? Would it allow for any original movement?

I was thinking that the trapezoid used as half of a hex could allow someone to have twice the number of board areas (you could layout two trapezoid pieces in place of one hex), but I am still wondering if this would gain anything.

Just looking for thoughts or inputs.

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Fri, 09/24/2004 - 17:24
#1
sedjtroll
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Trapezoid tiles/pieces (half a hex?)

I think this idea has some advantages over rectangular or square tiles if there are units moving on the board once constructed.

Hexes offer much better (and 'more accurate') movement than squares. Hex tiles are a little wonky though for tile laying. A trapezoidal tile (1/2hex) might be very cool though.

Similarly, triangular tiles (1/6hex) might be neat- Zaiga used them to good effect in Gheos.

- Seth

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Fri, 09/24/2004 - 17:32
#2
ensor
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Trapezoid tiles/pieces (half a hex?)

It would definitely change your neighborhood if you're making a tile-laying game. Hexs are nice since they make you feel like you have lots of freedom and there won't be any cases where you can't add a new hex (logistically, not semantically because of what's on the hex) With trapezoids you would have to specify that a non-parallel edge can only go against a non-parallel edge, if you didn't want to have any odd-shaped holes.

I have tried using a rhombus, but not a trapezoid, and have had to use similar restrictions, since my goal is to have players create cycles of three or six tiles, and unlimited tile-laying causes holes. I've since found some games on BGG that use the rhombus, and also add in small triangles to fill in the holes, like Tom Tube: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/6508 or others by Roland and Tobias Goslar.

Of course if it's not tile-laying but initial board construction, trapezoids would add more flexibility and randomness to a setup but keep the hex feel and movement options open.

Sounds interesting, good luck,

Mark

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Fri, 09/24/2004 - 22:56
#3
Trickydicky
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Trapezoid tiles/pieces (half a hex?)

I'm having a hard time visualizing what an entire board of trapezoids would look like, maybe I'll have to go draw one, but it seems to me like it would simply make it take twice as long to get where you want to go, unless you were never crossing the middle parallel of the hex. If this is the interesting movement possibilities you're looking for go for, otherwise I don't really see the point. Maybe someone with better visualization skills can enlighten me.

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Fri, 09/24/2004 - 23:20
#4
Zzzzz
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Trapezoid tiles/pieces (half a hex?)

Trickydicky wrote:
Maybe someone with better visualization skills can enlighten me.

Does this image help any?

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Sat, 09/25/2004 - 09:19
#5
lar
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Trapezoid tiles/pieces (half a hex?)

I like the fact that you are thinking outside of the box with this idea, but I don't think I like the new layout as far improving movement. The reason why is that now when you move, you are limited to 4 possible directions instead of 6. Additionally, if you want to want to move at any angle that is opposite the side of the hex you are on, you must spend a movement point to cross that middle line. It seems like it would slow down movement a lot.

Also, wouldn't you need smaller pieces to fit on the 1/2 hex size? And if you had smaller pieces then you could probably shrink the size of a whole hex down to create more spaces, but not limit movement.

Of course, this is without trying it and only thinking about it, so I could be very wrong. Good luck and keep thinking about it.

Lar

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Sat, 09/25/2004 - 12:52
#6
Trickydicky
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Trapezoid tiles/pieces (half a hex?)

Thanks for the image. It did help but I still think I agree with Lar. I don't see how it does anything but slow down movement, and limit your possible move directions from one space.

Perhaps we should ask what are you trying to accomplish with the new board shapes? or are you simply brainstorming different knds of movement based on the tile shapes?

If you're just brainstorming I have to say you've done a better job than I have. I've tried to think of original ways to create movement on a board and had never come up with the trapezoid. Let us know how it works. What the benefits and drawbacks are, when it is actually tested out.

Even if this one doesn't work out, its ideas like this that create really unique and fun games, I think.

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Sat, 09/25/2004 - 13:33
#7
Anonymous
Trapezoid tiles/pieces (half a hex?)

I think this would be interesting to try and build a game that had an up/down tile placement progression. you could have playrs able to place tiles together in a pattern as long as like edges touch. so they could place a long edge on a long edge, and any side edge against an equal side edge but the long edges would be forever horizontal or vertical dependant on the style of play you develop.

here is your BGDF game design contest! LOL!

o.

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Sun, 09/26/2004 - 01:16
#8
Zzzzz
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Trapezoid tiles/pieces (half a hex?)

Yeah my thought here was just a thought aside the box. When I was looking to some die cuts for creating hex pieces the catalog also contained the trapezoid shape, but placed in the hex pattern.

So I figure I would ask for input to see what people thought. I would agree that for movement it might not be the best idea. But I wanted to get input on the idea from everyone interested, since you never know.

As Orillian stated I think a tile placement game might be possible. Maybe a placement tile game that requires you to connect your similar tiles, to score points. Maybe have an option that would allow players to block other players tile placement to hinder scoring (maybe sort of Othello like.... but no capturing of the opponents pieces).

As always I like tossing ideas out to see where they go. Maybe someone can take my outside the box idea and create something original, maybe not.

Thanks for the input so far....

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Sun, 09/26/2004 - 01:24
#9
Ken
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Trapezoid tiles/pieces (half a hex?)

Can't say that I've seen a board with this kind of layout (or what the immediate advantages might be) but in looking at the diagrams I'm struck by the movement possibilities of a PIECE of that shape on a standard HEX grid.

It seems to me that the shape in question has elements of facing and attack built right in. The wide side is forward, the two shorter are left and right sides (not as effective in combat but still do-able) and the last side is the back.

Combat modifiers could be assigned depending on where an enemy piece is in relation to these.

Therefore, movement of the piece to effect its facing within a grid would become very important in the game play.

What do you think?

Ken.

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Sun, 09/26/2004 - 01:55
#10
Zzzzz
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Trapezoid tiles/pieces (half a hex?)

Very interesting option, I was not even thinking about using the shape as a piece.

I think it could have a use in the way, but I will have to think about it more to see what could be done in the option of use.

Ken wrote:
Can't say that I've seen a board with this kind of layout (or what the immediate advantages might be) but in looking at the diagrams I'm struck by the movement possibilities of a PIECE of that shape on a standard HEX grid.

It seems to me that the shape in question has elements of facing and attack built right in. The wide side is forward, the two shorter are left and right sides (not as effective in combat but still do-able) and the last side is the back.

Combat modifiers could be assigned depending on where an enemy piece is in relation to these.

Therefore, movement of the piece to effect its facing within a grid would become very important in the game play.

What do you think?

Ken.

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Mon, 09/27/2004 - 12:49
#11
Anonymous
Trapezoid tiles/pieces (half a hex?)

What about triangles? 6=1 hex. You could use a lot of the same things discussed in this thread too.

Personally I want a game board of triangles made of Buckminster Fuller's map... You could use a world map with no distortion... making the poles the right sizes! Not sure how it would work in real life as I don't have one, but it is a thought.

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Mon, 09/27/2004 - 15:43
#12
Anonymous
rotate them around a bit...

such as having the two small sides of the trapazoid touching instead of the long ones, or if you had different sized trapazoids wheen the 45 degree side on one piece was as long as the "base" (ie longest side) of another trapazoid you could have all sorts of interesting patterns made in a game.

Plus just the option of "rotate" pieces one side or two sides might mean something, depending on what you are trying to accomplish.

This is of course if you don't mind gaps or spaces between the pieces though.

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Mon, 09/27/2004 - 15:52
#13
Anonymous
Trapezoid tiles/pieces (half a hex?)

I think that the concept would work well if you either eliminated the pieces moving over the tiles (focusing more on tile-laying) or if you treated the space as a single hex (or smaller hexes printed onto each piece). That way you would have more options and variety in creating the board (especially since the pieces can be rotated either 60, 120 or 180 degrees and still perfectly tasselate). I'll try to get an image to show what I mean.

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Mon, 09/27/2004 - 16:12
#14
Anonymous
Trapezoid tiles/pieces (half a hex?)

Since a picture's worth 1,000 words...

This is what I mean by having smaller hexes printed onto the trapezoid. In this example, the smaller hexes are exactly 25% of the larger hex (that is, the hex that would be made by joining two trapezoids as shown in the image). Each trapezoid is identical and joined along the long axis. As you can see, the smaller hexes line up perfectly giving you a hex grid upon which to base your movement.

On to the issue of tasselation, here's an image of multiple trapezoids joined correctly (matching short sides and long sides).

As you can see, the trapezoids can be rotated so that the finished hexes are 60 or 120 degrees rotated from horizontal and still form a fully tassellated area. In addition, the smaller hexes within the trapezoids line up regardless of the orientation of the trapezoid, giving you a perfect and unbroken hex field.

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Fri, 10/08/2004 - 17:19
#15
Trickydicky
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Trapezoid tiles/pieces (half a hex?)

I know this is kind of an old post, but I had a thought that counters what I previously believed (that is that hexes gave no benefit to movement options). If you didn't focus on the movement possibilities of each piece on a game board made of trapezoids, but focused on the type of movement each piece made, having a trapezoid/hex board could be interesting.

For example piece 1 can only move from trapezoid to trapezoid, but piece 2 can move directly from hex to hex touching both trapezoids at the same time. By adding the trapezoid you could create a little more variation in the way different pieces move. This could be useful in a tactical type war game.

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