Article: Hexagonal Coordinates
by Blecki
This article describes how to use hexagonal coordinates and is provided with a sample project.
Hexagon Dimensions
Back from holidays. News Recap
Hi all!
I'm back from my holidays, so here's a list of news from the XNA world that stacked up, and you might have missed:
Nuclex welcomes us to the first part of his XNA Game Archtiecture Series, where he talks about his proposed development tree and third party libraries.
The series of Free Game Assets continues with a new free pack of Planet Sprites and Textures.
Innovative Game's "Game Engine Tutorial" continues with a new part about the Content Manager.
Shawn Hargreaves has two very enlightening posts the you should definitely read. This first is "Bug or Feature" talking about a bug in Extreme G that was seen as a feature by reviewers. The second one talks about AI Coordinate Systems, as used in Moto GP.
Finally, Nick Gravelyn posted some tweaks to his Interpolators.
Ratings And Pillory
SCENE X
A well known gamedev site.
Enter Richard “I'm the highest-rated user on this site” Fine.
Richard. One of the questions from a previous entry was what's happening to user ratings in V5. I don't have funky screenshots to show you this time, but I'll talk about what the plan is.
Lays out the plan.
Richard. The new system doesn't quite solve the problems that the original rating system set out to solve. Instead, it focuses on the deeper problems of how to get the best content into your hands as quickly as possible and how to describe users; they're harder problems, naturally, but I think more worthwhile.
INTERLUDE
The official XNA GS/FX site.
Enter the IDN Team.
IDN Team. Our MVP’s are an important part of the work done on XNA Creators Club Online, and are an extension of our team. Therefore we’ve listed each of our MVP’s and their bios on our new Meet the Team page, in order for you to get to know them better.
Observe: lacks contact information and photos.
Free UI sprites
Looks like I was wrong last time, when I assumed something 4D would be next in the series of Free Game Assets 
But even if it's not 4D, what we get this time is still cool: some sprites to use for User Interfaces.
Game Architecture Series
Markus Ewalds of Nuclex promises a series of articles about designing a game and it's architecture. I'm curious to see what he has in store for us, and hope the series will be an interesting one. Read the announcement on his site.
Merry Christmas, Thank You and Sgt. Conker wants to do more
As the festive season is now in full flow we would just like to say to those who celebrate it.
HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM ALL AT SGT. CONKER!
Here at Sgt. Conker we are all very impressed with the response our website has so far received.
So we would firstly like to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who visits our site and spreads the word.
We want to continue to get more visitors and to help the community as much as we can and need your help.
What else can Sgt. Conker do for you?
We know we need more articles, so please speak to us about any ideas for new articles and if you are an article author yourself, we are very happy to host great content on your behalf.
If there is something you think is missing or anything else you think we can do to help the community further, please comment on this post.
Sgt. Conker also takes feedback seriously, so please comment on anything you like or dislike about our existing or future content.
New And Bold
SCENE VII
A well known gamedev site.
Enter Richard “Superpig al rescate” Fine.
Richard. The navbar is really going to be your primary means for getting around the site, so it's important that we get it right. There's a lot of functionality packed in there! I'm not going to show you everything today, but we'll cover enough to be worth talking about.
Explains the navigation bar in detail.
Richard. The biggest risk that Search Don't Sort poses is to people who aren't really looking for anything; 'browsers,' in the purest sense. It's very important to make sure that users who don't have any particular information need in mind, still have the means to just float through the content at random. As you'll see in future posts, though, I think we've got this fairly well covered.
SCENE VIII
Twitter.
Enter Nick “We are running out of descriptions” Gravelyn.
Nick. EasyStorage 1.5 with localization support and some changes to the API is checked in.
Points to the source code on CodePlex.
Nick. If you speak Spanish, French, German, or Japanese, consider helping translate some strings for EasyStorage.
SCENE IX
A rural location Down Under. A campfire.
Enter Glenn “Not a Crocodile Dundee” Wilson.
Glenn. night all See you at #ozgamecamp in the morning.
Presents 5 sessions in 3 days.
Glenn. Been a good couple of days here at #ozgamecamp, on the final stretch.
Prophecy And Disaster
SCENE V
An innocent interview with Derek Yu and the public demise of a XBLIGer.
Enter George W. “Not the Bush” Clingerman and Jim “Not the Moustache” Perry to rescue the reputation of the community.
George. I also would like to point out that not all XBLIG devs have this same chip on the shoulder that Adam has.
Derek Yu is so dreamy!!!! 
Jim. Part of the problem is that many developers are looking at XBLIG wrong. […] If you're going to treat it like a business in that you want sites to review your game, you as a developer need to step up and be professional and do some PR. You have a ton of codes that you can hand out so use them.
Silence.
SCENE VI
A vent space on the interwebs.
Enter Promit “I am Slim” Roy.
Promit. So, how is Windows API Code Pack 1.0?
Tumbleweed crosses the stage.
About That Publicity Thingy Dingy
They say “Any publicity is good publicity” and P.T. Barnum is quoted to have said “I don't care what they say about me as long as they spell my name right.”
With this introduction I present you the comments thread on Pondering Indie Spirit: Derek Yu Speaks (the interview itself is worth reading). In the words of Michael Rose: “This thread went from irritating to epic in a matter of hours, and two things are definitely clear: (1) Spelunky is awesome and (2) Adam Coate should have his own chat show, as watching train-wrecks is fun”
“Flytrap” (no link yet as it is behind closed bars and there’s no webpage, video or anything else to link to…) is back in peer review now.
And to have a clearly positive take away in this post and the let’s-call-it-reputation-building of a XNA GS fellow: The Idiot's Guide to Marketing Your Indie Game by Michael Rose.
(Hat tip to Ben Baird)
More Free stuff
Remember that day when we linked to some free music for indie games? If you do, REJOICE! There's two more packs of free stuff coming from the same guys at Iron Star Media. First, some sprites for particle effects, followed by low poly sports models.
Following a linear progression, the next pack should contain something that's 4D! Can't wait to see what it is...