Number of Players: 2

Goal: connect opposite sides of the board with a chain of letters.

Equipment: a deck of cards, 2 pencils, and a copy of the board.

The board is included with the PDF version of the rules.

Blind Hex is a variant of Hex that uses simultaneous movement like that used in Niebelungenlied. Hex was designed by Piet Hein in 1942, and independently designed by John Nash in 1947. Nibelungenlied was designed by Richard Vickery in 2003.

Blind Hex is CC-BY-SA Don Kirkby, 2012. Special thanks to playtesters Sheila, Eliza, and Lana.

Set Up

Players choose who will play “x” and who will play “o”. The “x” player takes the A, 2, 3, 4, 5 of diamonds as her hand, and the “o” player takes the A, 2, 3, 4, 5 of clubs as his hand. The remaining deck is shuffled and the players cut for high card. The losing player must take two cards from her hand and place them face up on the table, off to the side.

Play

Each turn, each player tries to write his letter in two spaces that will help him connect his two sides of the board. The player chooses cards that affect which spaces he can write in.

Step 1 - Choose Cards

Players choose two cards each from their hands and both reveal their cards at the same time. Aces are treated as the number one.

Step 2 - Write Letters

Based on the chosen cards, the players see where they can write their letters.

If both players chose the same two numbers, they write no letters, and the turn is over.

If they choose four different numbers, then each player writes one letter for each number they chose. Go through the chosen numbers in order, and the player who chose each number writes her letter in an empty space with hash marks matching that number on at least one side. Some spaces are surrounded by the same number on all sides, but most spaces have two different numbers. If there are no empty spaces with matching hash marks, then the player writes in any empty space.

Finally, if the players chose one number in common, then that number is skipped, and each player writes his letter in two spaces using his other number. For example, if Pat chose one and two, and Chris chose two and three, then Pat writes in two spaces using the number one, and Chris writes in two spaces using the number three.

Step 3 - Pick Up Cards

The player who has four cards on the table puts them all back in her hand. The other player should have two cards on the table, and moves them off to the side.

Winning

The left and right sides are labelled with x’s, and the “x” player wins by writing the letter “x” in an unbroken chain of spaces from the left side to the right side of the board. The top and bottom are labelled with o’s and the “o” player wins by writing the letter “o” in an unbroken chain of spaces from the top to the bottom of the board.