Shape is the second step of every Hexodic turn: the player raises or lowers one unlocked cell by exactly one tier, and the cell must be within 2 steps of the stone they just Projected. Shape is how Hexodic players build high ground for themselves and take it away from their opponent.
Reviewed 2026-09-15 against the Hexodic rules engine.
What Shape can do
- Raise a cell from tier 0 to 1, or from tier 1 to 2. Raises are unlimited.
- Lower a cell from tier 2 to 1, or from tier 1 to 0. Each player has a lowering budget of 6 for the whole game.
- A Shape may target an empty cell, a cell holding an enemy stone, or a cell holding your own stone.
- A locked cell can never be Shaped — that is what an Echo-Lock is for.
When Shape is mandatory
Shape is mandatory whenever at least one legal Shape targets a cell that is not occupied by your own stone. If every legal Shape would only change cells under your own stones, Shape is optional. If your Project was skipped by the capture cooldown, Shape is skipped too, because there is no Projected stone to measure reach from.
Why Shape matters
Shape is the only rule that changes tiers, and tiers decide everything else: a stone on tier 0 cannot be encircled, a Move capture needs strictly higher ground, the Network win needs tier-2 cells, and the tiebreak counts tier-2 stones first. Raising the cell under an enemy stone from tier 0 to tier 1 is often the first step toward capturing it.
Related
- Project — the step that sets Shape’s anchor.
- Capture — how tiers turn into captures.
- Glossary: Shape and Lowering budget
- All rules
Get the Hexodic app and watch how one raise changes a capture.
Run this rule
The rule below is not described here — it is executed here, by the same engine the game runs on. Opening a panel loads that engine; leaving it closed costs you nothing.
A Shape must target a cell within 2 steps of the stone you just Projected.
Draw that reach on an empty board
This panel asks the rules engine for every cell within reach of the board’s centre, draws them, and cross-checks the count against a second engine path. It needs JavaScript; the rule itself is stated above.