Guide 01 of 04
How a honeycomb group pays
Neighbours, wilds that belong to two groups, and why five is the magic number.
Most casino-style games line symbols up in rows. Emberhex and Glasswing Grove do something else: they lay symbols on a honeycomb and pay for groups. This guide explains how a group is counted, so the result line under the board never feels like a mystery.
Six neighbours, not two
On a square grid a tile has four neighbours. On a hexagonal grid it has six, one across each edge. Tiles on the rim have fewer: three or four. A group is any set of matching symbols you can walk between by crossing edges. Corners do not count, because hexagons never meet at a corner alone.
That is why groups on a honeycomb grow faster than you might expect. Each new matching tile brings up to six fresh edges with it. It is also why the board has to be fairly crowded with different symbols for groups to stay modest: Emberhex uses seven regular symbols on nineteen tiles, Glasswing Grove nine on thirty-seven.
Where five comes from
We tried several minimum sizes while tuning Emberhex. With groups of four, two rounds in three paid something and most of those returns were tiny, which made the game feel busy and meaningless. Five brought the share of paying rounds to about a third and gave each group a clearer meaning. The larger board of Glasswing Grove needed six.
Wilds that serve two groups
A wild counts as whatever it touches. If an ember core sits between three anvils and four rubies, it can complete both groups at once: four anvils and five rubies. In Emberhex each core inside a group also doubles that group, so the same core can double two groups. In Glasswing Grove vines do not multiply; instead each one grows into a neighbouring tile before the count.
Worth knowing: a group that returns less than the stake is still shown as a group. The verdict line under the board always gives the plain sum, for example “6 back from 10 glints: 4 down on the round”.
Nothing carries over
Every drop is independent of the last. The board is filled from scratch each time, so a near miss (a group of four when five pays) says nothing about the next drop. It can feel like a group is “building”, but there is nothing on the board to build.
Glints have no cash value. Playing or success in these games does not imply future success at real-money gambling.
Next guide: The road that grows: free respins, explained