№ 90 | A Thinking Things ✨Special Edition:✨Hexagon Card Decks!
Welcome to a special edition of the Thinking Things newsletter. Instead of my usual, brisk, roundup of 5-6 ‘playful things to think with’, this issue is devoted to a very specific topic … 🥁 learning cards that use a hexagon shape. 🤪
Context:
Hexagons are widely used in games. Popular board games such as Catan, Castles of Burgundy, and Cascadia, all use hex tiles; many wargames use a hex grid for their maps.
Yet, when it comes to serious games or learning card decks, the use of the hexagon shape is the rare exception, which makes these toolkits all the more intriguing.
For this special edition of the Thinking Things newsletter, I’m going to profile seven card decks I’ve collected that use the hexagon shape; and, offer some thoughts on how and when you might try using this shape instead of the more standard rectangle shape we commonly associate with cards decks.
But first…
“Hexagons?!”
You may be thinking “Seriously, why should I care this much about a simple shape?” 🤨
Ahh… prepare to be converted!
Before scrolling down to see the card decks I’ve gathered, check out Hexagons are the Bestagons! This lovely little indoctrination video should help ease your transition into the cult of hexagons. ;-)
No, seriously. Watch the video first. 😵💫
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Hexagons are cool, right? RIGHT?!
And now, onto the card decks… 🎉
1/ What’s Worth Doing? card deck
There’s a lot to discuss with this card deck. In fact, I recently published an entire post Deconstructing “What’s Worth Doing?” Essentially, you sort through 75 hexagon shaped cards to form a mind map around four main questions:
- What challenges do you want to address?
- What kind of people do you enjoy working with?
- What do you like to make?
- What do you need to get started?
Both the process and resulting tableaux of cards helps you to draw connections that identify interesting and meaningful projects you might want to do next.
👉 What's Worth Doing? Cards for your next step.
As I said, there’s a lot to take away from this (see the linked post). But, in terms of hexagon specific card patterns, I’d note these observations:
✅ Four colored suits aligned to each question
✅ A small set of starter cards form a central core around which things are arranged
✅ Use of the hexagon shape to balance structure with more flexible arrangement possibilities
2/ HexiKits
I first mentioned the Hexi™ for Scrum toolkit back in issue № 69. This is a fitting way for teams (in this case software teams) to model complex ways of working, unique to each situation. In contrast to most “method” cards, the Hexi™ system goes beyond just methods, also including things like Roles, Tools, Frameworks, Metrics, and so on (identified here as 10 Hexi-types). Teams work together to select the cards most relevant to their situation. Expressing these concepts as hexagons is fitting, as it’s a better way to model complex relationships between chosen cards; as with the What’s Worth Doing? toolkit, you can make more free form and organic arrangements, especially when contrasted with the more common left-to-right linear arrangement common with the traditional rectangle shape.
👉 Hexi Kits
👉 This video presentation is a good introduction to Hexi kits
3/ Teaching WalkThrus | Clusters
Teaching WalkThrus presents “a selection of 150 evidence-based teaching strategies rooted in a deep understanding of how learning works.” Similar to how teams can freely arrange the various Hexi™ kit tiles to suit their needs, each Teaching WalkThrus tile represents a specific teaching strategy which can be grouped with other strategies to form ‘clusters.’
Successful teaching involves knowing how to combine and sequence selected techniques. We call these Clusters.
This helps teachers to organize and develop their fluency at using and combining various teaching strategies.
The various teaching strategies are organized into 6 categories, indicated by the initials at the top of the tile:
- B&R — Behaviors & Relationships
- CR — Curriculum Planning
- E&M — Explaining & Modeling
- Q&F — Questioning & Feedback
- P&R — Practice & Retrieval
- MB— Mode B Teaching
The color coding on the tiles had me baffled, until I figured out these colors correlate with each book in the series, indicating where to look for detailed information on a specific technique.
👉 https://walkthrus.co.uk/whats-included
Both the Hexi™ kit tiles and Teaching WalkThrus represent what I suspect could be the most common way to approach a hexagon based cards deck:
✅ Put referenceable information on tiles.
✅ Add suits to support selection and organization.
✅ Use of the hexagon shape to balance structure with more flexible arrangement possibilities
Both of these are similar (in structure) to What’s Worth Doing?, except there isn’t a small set of starter cards forming a central core around which things are arranged.
4/ Challenge & Opportunity Cards
The Challenge & Opportunity Cards (aka ‘C/O Cards’, first mentioned in issue № 50) are all about exploring closely related challenges and opportunities when adopting design in the public sector.
Keywords on the cards represent recurring challenges and opportunities which are collected through empirical studies and literature reviews. By browsing through the cards, participants will be able to find keywords relatable to their own experiences and opinions.
In some ways, the C/O Cards remind me of Dan Brown’s Surviving Design Projects card game (issue № 77), in that you’re challenged to group together related cards from each of the two suits.
Both of these card decks present you with a Situation (or Challenge), and ask you to think about how you might respond. Both of these games also encourage reflection and dialogue, while also prompting you with possible responses.
A key difference here (other than a different domain) is of course the hexagonal shape, and the kinds of clustering possibilities afforded by this shape. The gameful constraint of Surviving Design Projects is that each player selects and argues for a single card from their hand that best matches the Situation card played by the judge; the judge chooses the best match, and that selected player wins the round (not unlike Apples to Apples). One situation card, multiple responses. The C/O Cards are less gamelike, and more of a facilitation activity. The hexagon shape provides a flexible arrangement possibilities for aligning multiple challenges and opportunities; e.g. one opportunity might be paired with multiple challenges, vice versa, or something in-between.
The other key difference is that the C/O Cards are intended to be written on, something we don’t see enough of in these card decks. Back in issue № 81, I remarked on John V. Willshire’s Papercamp talk “52 Things About Cards,” noting a blindspot I’ve had: I tend to see cards as preprinted, prepared things, when there’s actually a bit of a spectrum between this ‘fixed’ notion of cards, and sticky notes:
✅ Two suits, designed to be mapped in various ways
✅ Use of the hexagon shape to balance structure with more flexible arrangement possibilities
✅ Prompts encourage writing on the cards
5/ The Zenith Purpose Anatomy
This next one is quite unique—and I’m excited to share why! To understand (conceptually) what’s going on here, think about these MIX or MATCH books, from back in the day:
With these books, you could mix and match the panels into a crazy number of possible combinations (with the one shown here, 6 panels can be remixed into “more than 200,000 combinations”). But, none of these combinations are completely random. Every new combination of panels must adhere to the predefined—grammatical—system (e.g. a panel that says “on the rebel base” can only be swapped out with similar prepositional phrases like “in an asteroid belt” or “in Cloud City”). You’re not swapping any panel with another, rather instances of the same panel. This is something enforced through the die cut shapes and the coil binding.
Now, imagine this concept as a card deck, where you can mix and match cards of the same size and shape, so long as they adhere to the ‘rules’. How might we reinforce the required sequence? This is what’s going on with the Zenith Purpose Anatomy cards…
This deck has a total of 49 cards, with seven color coded categories. Think of these categories like most coherent narratives in our mix and match book, before things get scrambled.
Artoo-Detoo | was hiding behind a rock | on the Tatooine desert | when a Jawa came along | and vacuumed him into a sandcrawler | where old droids where stored.
But, we’re encouraged to find the “mix” of cards that’s right for us.
So how do we translate that ‘grammar’ from our MIX or MATCH book example? While then end result here isn’t a complete sentence, there is a pattern that governs how to place these cards:
To support this pattern, each card has been designed to be placed into this exact seven hexagon configuration. The white border at the edges and the text alignment reinforces this predefined structure, a structure that when followed forms a complete puzzle.
While there is a flaring stage, where you do explore more than the seven allotted cards, the goal is to end up in a final—unique-to-your situation—seven-card configuration, with each card in their fixed position.
I was so focused on the structure of these cards, I guess I skipped what the cards are about: 😜
Zenith Purpose Anatomy is designed to help you define your purpose—to reflect on Why we do certain things; and find your “spirit animal” in the process! Here, my friend Werner offers an excellent video introduction to this card deck:
🔍 Here are a few links you can try, if you'd like to secure a copy of this deck!
✅ Seven suits, representing seven categories
✅ Predefined placement rules for each question being answered
(only 1 card from each category fits into each space)
6/ Serious Games Idea Deck
The Serious Games Idea Deck is unique in that it only uses a single hexagon card, as a central way to organize standard rectangle cards with corresponding suits.
I showed this example to a colleague, working on his own hexagon shaped toolkit, and he made an astonishing remark, something to the effect of: “It’s almost like the six faces on a cube are being unfolded.” Yeah—I like thinking about this as a way to explore six dimensions of some topic… 🤔
When I shared this back in issue № 84, I mentioned my mind spinning with other creative possibilities. What I didn’t mention is I’ve been tinkering with a similar game design kit. While still in early stages, I’ll share a preview to show how this hexagon format can be further extended:
Rather than using my hexagon to organize six—equally weighted—suits of cards, the concept here is to use the typography and associated card sizes to communicate primary and secondary considerations. And something else I'm still working out.
And while we’re on this particular pattern, here’s a random find: Badge Bloom by Visual Thinkery is an online tool that helps you create and share “your own badge.”
✅ Use of a single hexagon card, to centrally organize 6 suits of regular rectangle cards.
7/ TDD Game
JitterTed's TDD Game (first shared way back in issue № 29) is a way to learn about predictive Test-Driven Development, and open up a discussion with other players . The gameplay itself is a traditional ‘track movement’ game (moving a pawn along a path), supported by additional cards (action cards, test results cards, plus cards to track risks and commits) not shown below. The hex tiles used in this game represent the test process, and they form the gameboard; as such, these are tiles you place upfront, as part of the game setup (similar to a game like Catan). If you look closely at the green and orange “notches,” these indicate where you can advance to, and what checks you must pass to do so. The first player to five commits wins the game!
Both The TDD Game and the Serious Games Idea Deck:
✅ Use one or more hexagon shapes to form a gameboard.
Looking back over all the examples I’ve shared, there’s an interesting distinction here between:
🤔 hexagon cards you play (as part of the activity)
🤔 hexagon tiles (or cards) you setup (at the outset of an activity)
*/ BONUS ROUND…!
I have a final concept to share. Two concepts, actually. Variations on a theme…
I brought up this topic of hexagon card decks at the last Cardstock meetup, and left with my head spinning, thinking in a wildly different direction I had not considered (not uncommon, with so many brilliant folks in attendance!). Fortunately, we recorded this meetup; you can watch our discussion of hexagons (starting around 36:16 mark, here):
Save for the Serious Games Idea Deck, something all of these examples here share in common is a singular idea or concept, represented by each hexagon card. But, what if we focused on each of the six edges of a hexagon card, instead?
Matt Ballantine brought up a concept he created a few years back, where there were six cards, each with six dimensions:
His proposal: What if these were “a bit like dominoes, could you use these as a way to spur ideas for innovation?”
Matt went on to explain his concept, that you would (a) travel across this (randomly generated) hexagon board, by (b) brainstorming possible ideas for each word pairing in your path (e.g. camera + distributed ledger). Here’s my attempt to capture this idea:
Helen Liang and John V. Willshire riffed on this, both quickly arriving at the same idea: What if we used the corners, instead of the sides, thus allowing the forced combination of three concepts.
🤯
🤔 🤔 🤔
FWIW, the card patterns used here (edge matching and forced combination) are ones I’ve accounted for as part of my How Cards Work toolkit. But, I’d never thought of also combining these with the hexagon shape!
✅ Complete a path across or down a game board composed of hexagons
✅ Traverse the cards, with a focus on edge content
✅ Focus on multiple pieces of content at each edge (or corner), vs a single bit of content in the center.
Your turn!
Hopefully this roundup of hexagon card decks serves as a bit of inspiration for something you’re working on, or would like to create. If you have something already in progress (in the early stages), you could try out the hexagon shape, to see how it alters things. Or, if you were inspired by one of the hexagon patterns I’ve identified here, you should try that out with your original content!
Some general advice: There is some amount of discovery and serendipity that only happens when working with tangible things. I find having a stack of blank, hexagon cards within reach helps me to quickly explore ideas. Fortunately, there are a number of places like The Game Crafter, and Make Playing Cards where you can stock up on blank white hex cards. And when you’re ready to print or prototype your hexagon card deck, you can return to these same places for their print-on-demand services.
Miscellany:
In the course of preparing this special edition of the Thinking Things newsletter, I discovered a few other interesting links:
- Can Chess, with Hexagons?
- Board Games That Use Hexagonal Tiles
- John’s Artefact Hex —blank hexagons, in assorted colors! (currently sold out ☹️)
Finally…
A Public Challenge for my friend Per:
👉 Create an Elements of Digital Ethics card deck! 👈
While not a card deck—yet—I’d regret not taking this opportunity to challenge my friend Per Axbom to turn his Elements of Digital Ethics poster to turn this into a ‘playful thing to think with’. I’m not sure what the gameplay or learning goals would be, but… at least in terms of appearance and content, this already looks halfway to being a useful business game! 😉
I hope you’ve enjoyed this special edition of the Thinking Things newsletter. The last special edition was in May of 2023, when I wrote about my then budding interest in all things Solarpunk: № 38 | A Friday Finds ✨Special Edition:✨ Solarpunk!.
