Introducing …the cube map? A 2.5D Hexflower with more data storage.
I think I created something new, or just reinvented something old.
Today I was working out an alternative mechanic for city building and started with a basic hexflower. After some attempts at working ideas out in my head, I noticed that when I stared directly at the hexflower causing some binocular rivalry, which is when you relax your eyes and focus past the object, it causes a temporary misalignment in your visual processing, making the object appear doubled. I think a most people learn that as kids, at least I did.
Anyway noticed that when the hexflower overlapped just right, it formed cubes instead of hexes. I immediately created to skeletal hexflowers and combined them, sure enough, there it was.
This is the first image I came up with after combining two hexflowers together and then rotating the it ninety-degrees. After adding some different tones, arrows and finally, Lucy, I was able visually grasp a sense of orientation with only occasional perception changes.
I call it a ‘Cube Map’. Unless someone’s done this already and I’m just reinventing the wheel. Which I am to some extent. I mean I’m really just taking 19 hexes and turning them into 19 cubes. But I found it to be interesting enough to spend a few hours obessing over the possibilities that are present in this, dare I say, 2.5d (Two and Half Dimensional) perspective mechanic.
The center is an abstract position and can represent any given position desired. The entrance to a town, a random abstract location someplace within the town, a forest, dungeon, or someplace very specific, big or small or even a random location in space. It’s a means of documenting a given space, whatever it might be.
Some interesting examples of an abstract space one would explore is the inside of a lock, someone’s home, a room in a dungeon, or an entire planet and its contents.
Think of the shape and size of the cube made as representational and not exact. You may need only a handful of cubes pick a lock, or an infinite amount of them to explore an entire universe.
At least that’s part of what it can be, I’m still exploring and have found quite a few possibilities that I still want to play with to see if anything is there.
Note there are numbers, 1,2,3 and 4 which here represent the direction one can move onto the next facet. A facet can represent a single or multiple items depending on one’s needs. In most examples I give each facet represents a type of location in a town, such as someone’s home, a shop, or special feature like a fountain or town hall or an entrance to a sewer.
These aspects can be preprogrammed in order to provide some form of curation (usually via a bell curve) or chosen at random during play. One or the other might be preferred depending on the complexity of the mechanic applied to the cube map.
For example, one could use each of the four sides to represent different aspects, or influences. Such as the mood of an area, amount of light, increased or decreased chances of an encounter, trap, or other interactions.
Further one could curate a particular experience(s) or mood(s) based on a particular area. For example crime would be higher in certain areas of town and or be run down compared to other areas. Therefore your risk is a negative encounter potentially occurring more often until one leaves the influence of this area.
At any rate, like most of the mechanics I come up with, it looks far more complicated than it really is. Right now, in its current state it’s rather volatile, and in this case, it can be a bit disorienting as it’s likely that things will flip so that the floor becomes the ceiling while staring at any of the examples. Blink a few time and or back away from the screen a bit.
With that being said, I’m considering this to be more of a means to conceptualize the mechanic(s) that are possible, a starting point from where I can move on to, hopefully, simplify the process and even take away the visual aide entirely. It’s certainly possible, however, sometimes the steps are increased because the conversion from visual and lingual takes up more real estate in terms of instructional understanding.
Another option is using colored lines to represent different streets, that would look something like the above. The idea being that when you roll for the direction, if you cross over the same colored line, your on the same street. If not, you’ve taken a turn and are on a new street.
Of course this gets messy, so a separate notes or even a map, or method of mapping out the city would be needed as a well as a way of telling what street each building belonged on, it’s not always obvious here. However, I’m listing it for documentation purposes as I feel it has potential, I’ve jut not discovered what that is yet if any.
Please note, that I’m simply rolling single d4 a moving in that direction. I discovered that’s there using a basic set of tables, a Shop/Residence, a Shop, and a Feature table.
Starting in the center cube, roll a d4 and move in that direction, noting the color (street name) you’re on. Then roll a d6 on the first table above, if you land on anything other than a Residence, roll on either the Shop or Feature table to populate that facet with a location type. If you’ve rolled on a certain feature or shop type already, roll again or pick one by hand from the list.
Obviously not very extensive and aside from the Residence table the others could be expanded further. However, the more types of shops you have the less chance of finding something specific. Such as a place eat to sleep for the night.
Another option would be to add an additional table, and or dice roll to determine a new road. Perhaps a 1 out of 4 (d4) means you’ve turned onto a new road. A d4 and d8 combo could tell us quite a bit more, such as the direction of the road, and if it runs at an angle for example.
In addition a preloaded cube map can be provided where the author has already laid out the design of the town, dungeon, space ship, forest, etc. One could then lock off certain areas until certain requirements have been satisfied. My Foraging Mechanic is a good starting point for implementing something like this.
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Finally, after having trimmed away the ‘walls’, or incomplete cubes, I ended up with the same value found in a traditional hexflower, 19, 3 faceted cubes. 19 x 3 = 57. So a total of 57 facets and 19 cubes.
Using the same mechanics described above, rolling a d4 as a means of acquiring a direction, with the addition of the rule, that if I roll a value that causes me to backtrack, I would make an active choice as to which direction I should travel.
In use it can be disorienting to figure out which direction to ago if for example your are standing on one of the light grey or dark grey tiles. For example when I moved from facet number 15 to 17, where I rolled a 2 and moved to the right, or when I moved from facet number 18 to 31, where I also rolled a 1 when I am still moving right, but also downward. This is an unfortunate side effect where it can get rather hard to navigate without some practice. After a a given amount of rolls it does get easier and becomes second nature.
Green is my starting point, red my ending point. The blue lines represent the path I took and the orange is where I rolled to enter a space I’ve already been, so instead chose a direction to travel on my own and finally, yellow. Yellow is where I’ve fallen off the map and then rotate back around to the opposite side in the same level as the one I exited.
Seems rather simple but applying the choice mechanic changes what would be a lot back tracking patterns. Backtracking could be a mechanic one could utilize, for example say in if you had a loitering mechanic. A backtracking result would be ignored, and instead you’d receive a loitering or suspicion point or two. Get too many any you’ve drawn some attention from people around you, and eventually the guards.
A backtracking result could also represent a failure of some sort. If say for example you used a cube map (or hexflower) as means of solving a puzzle, disarming a trap, picking a lock, etc. As I stated earlier, these things are possible through curation and modifying the chances (values) based on skill, stress, environment, etc. I explored point based system that is an excellent start in my Foraging Mechanic. Take a look if you’re curious. You could apply those same ideas with a cube map.
Above and to the left, 4 and 2 in green and red movements are always in one of two directions that are equivalent to East and West. To the right, 1 and 3 in white and blue move North and South respectively. I like to think of these patterns as a magnetic force, or perhaps even a wind that pushes one in a given direction based on your placement on the cube.
A good example of this ‘force’ is the downdraft needed to push one down from 2 to 4 (left) and the updraft needed to push one up from 1 to 3 (right). Other examples show what happens when you exit off the map and need to rotate back onto the opposite side. All values and directions can be reversed.
These are just some of the ideas and concepts I’ve managed to come up with over the past 4-5 hours and they represent at the very least the tip of what’s possible, and at best a very buggy look some mechanics that need more work and exploration.
Yes, it’s basically a hexflower, however, there are enough differences in use that I can confidently (so far) proclaim that any mechanics thrown at either one will act different due to the needed modifications; such as the reduction in values that get input, as well as possibilities such as using each block as a single unit containing 12 (3 facets x 4 sides) facets of additional potential storage space. A hex contains only 6 sides of which have the potential for storing information.
If we think in terms of each facet and or side having the potential to hold some sort of value, it’s a lot like a hard drive on a computer. It can either be prefilled with data or the data can be created as it’s discovered, or even altered as needed.
Lastly, at least for now. I’d like to emphasize on the fact that one can expand a cube map much in the way a hexflower can be added onto. It can also be taken away from as well. And I’d like to remind everyone that that standard 19 cube, 57 facet version is an abstract representation of any given space. It’s large enough to accommodate a large space as well as a tiny space. Use as little or as much as you like and add to it as you see fit, one cube or one hundred.
You know the drill. Not gonna say this is part one of whatever. This may never come up again are it might be my obsession for the rest of the year. We don’t know. But I do now this is rather exciting and I’m happy to have stumbled upon it.
If you’re interested in playing around with it, the image below can be clicked on for a much larger version (PNG) that you are free to play around with and see what you can come up with. If you find anything interesting, please share it with me.
Have a wonderful week everyone, and if you celebrate it, happy Independence Day. Be safe, be responsible, watch out for, and take care of yourselves and each other. Appreciate you all very much.