About Hexstead
Hexstead is a free online board game about settling a hexagon island. You build roads, settlements and cities, trade resources with the other players and race to ten victory points. It runs in any modern browser on a phone, tablet or computer, with nothing to install.
How a game goes
You start with a couple of settlements on an island made of hexagons: forests, hills, pastures, fields and mountains. Each turn the dice decide which tiles produce, and you collect wood, brick, wool, grain or ore from the land next to your settlements.
Spend those resources on roads, new settlements, cities and development cards, and trade with the other players or the harbours for the ones you're missing. Watch out for the robber, who blocks a tile and steals a card whenever a seven is rolled. The first player to reach ten victory points on their own turn wins. You can play as a guest in one click and sign up later to keep your stats.
Who makes it
Hexstead is an independent project made and run by Tylor, who wanted a quick, friendly way to play this kind of game online with friends, without downloads, sign-up walls or pay-to-win extras. It's built and maintained in spare time, and every bug report and suggestion gets read.
What's in the game
- The full base game for three or four players, on a fresh random island every game or one of the maps that come with it, with every rule handled for you: production, trading, the robber, development cards, Longest Road and Largest Army.
- Bots at three levels. Easy, Normal and Hard computer players can fill any seat, and they step in for anyone who drops out until that person comes back.
- A guided first game against two friendly bots that explains each step as it happens.
- Ways to find a table: private rooms with an invite link, a list of public games anyone can join, and matchmaking with ratings and a leaderboard for registered players.
- Realms, an optional expansion with commodities, city improvements, knights, barbarian attacks and progress cards.
- Custom maps you design in the map editor and share with a link, and replays of every game you've played.
Fair play
The server checks every move against the rules, and each player only receives what they're allowed to see, so nobody can peek at your hand. The dice are fair and verifiable: at the start of each game Hexstead publishes a fingerprint of the dice seed, and reveals the seed at the end, so anyone can check that every roll was decided in advance and never changed.
How it's paid for
Hexstead is free to play. Hosting is paid for by a small ad on the home page. There are never ads during a game.
Get in touch
Found a bug, have an idea, or just want to say hello? Email contact@hexstead.app or see the contact page. New to the game? Start with how to play, or jump straight into a game against bots.