What are good games like Hive, Tak, or Onitama — and where does hexodic fit?
If you’re here, you probably already love perfect-information, zero-luck games. So do we — hexodic was built by studying what makes them last. Here’s the honest comparison.
| Game | Board / pieces | Luck | Typical game | Memorization burden | What it asks of you |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| hexodic | 37-cell hex board, one piece type with three tiers | None — fully deterministic | About 5–6 minutes (measured mean 5.92) | Minimal — a handful of rules, no opening theory required | Read three simultaneous win threats on a small board |
| Chess | 64 squares, six piece types | None | 10–60+ minutes | Heavy — opening theory is a lifetime study | Deep calculation plus a serious knowledge investment |
| Go | 361 points, one stone type | None | 20–90+ minutes | Moderate rules, enormous pattern vocabulary (joseki) | Whole-board judgment built over years |
| Hive | No board, five-plus bug types | None | 10–20 minutes | Light — each bug moves differently | Spatial reasoning with piece-type asymmetry |
| Tak | Square board (3×3 to 8×8), flats/walls/capstone | None | 10–30 minutes | Light rules, real road-building pattern depth | Building while blocking on one shared axis |
| Onitama | 5×5 board, five movement cards in play | Card setup varies per game | 5–15 minutes | Very light — the five cards are the whole rulebook | Tactical sharpness within a tiny move vocabulary |
What hexodic borrows, and what it adds
From Go: one piece type whose meaning comes from position. From chess: the branching-factor bar — hexodic’s measured branching (911/1,009/665 at half-moves 5/10/20) clears the chess-class target by more than 20×. From Hive and Onitama: the conviction that depth shouldn’t require homework. What it adds: three simultaneous win conditions (Network, Takeover, Strangle) on just 37 cells, a three-charge Echo economy that makes scarcity itself a strategic axis, and bots that get stronger from real human play — no other game on this table does that. Read the full rules or how the bots improve.
What the others still do better
Honesty clause: chess and Go have centuries of literature, communities, and over-the-board culture hexodic can only dream of. Hive travels in a bag with no board at all. Onitama’s five-card rulebook is a masterclass in minimalism. If those are the qualities you’re optimizing for, play those games — hexodic’s bet is specifically chess-class depth, five-minute games, zero homework, on your phone.