Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Trading cards with e-ink displays (2023)

howtoware.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 144 posts

Re: Trading cards with e-ink displays (2023)

#81

Post by jonahss »

awinter-py wrote: post #71

looks like there is still a pcb within the enclosure? not sure exactly how e-phoretic screens are driven, but I wonder if you could remove the controller entirely? have just a loose eink screen with a zif that you pass around like this thing is 0.25mm thick https://www.adafruit.com/product/4262#technical-details

The pcb on the card is just a charge pump that the display demands in order to regulate its voltage. If I shipped that off the card and onto the base, I'd need more contacts.

Those flat flex displays are awesome, though way pricier. Then I'd lose the nice stiff pcb board which allows all the contacts on the back to mate. I could go wireless, but then the power delivery needs to charge a capacitor and the delay between button press and display refresh will go to 30 seconds or beyond

Re: Trading cards with e-ink displays (2023)

#82

Post by parthianshotgun »

93po wrote: post #59
parthianshotgun wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Is it because it's esoteric, not meant for all?

i would guess it's probably an annoyance with people assigning significance to the insignificant and the belief they've discovered something profound when it's intellectually pretty shallow. i can understand an eye roll at people who try to answer really complex questions about life and existence with something like pretty patterns, but i personally choose to be fine with people finding the things that help them unde…

Yes, I'm more in the continental mindset myself. To paraphrase Gene Wolfe, the meaning of life is life itself, not as a means to an end, but an end unto itself. Which is why I was originally curious about the why, assuming OP didn't take my curiosity as bad faith

Re: Trading cards with e-ink displays (2023)

#84

Post by looping8 »

These look really good, I love the style. Don't know if I'm interested in them as trading cards but posters or "stickers" with this style actually seem like a very cool idea. Instead of traditional paper stuff you get a display thing which you can change and make better or fit your taste more.

Re: Trading cards with e-ink displays (2023)

#85

Post by 1024core »

konschubert wrote: post #76
1024core wrote: post #73

I have an idea for such an e-ink display. Are there pre-made e-ink displays out there with maybe a couple of buttons of input and maybe wifi for software update? I imagine it could be running something like Pico-W and have an e-ink display? Any ideas? Edit: turns out someone had already posted about this widget called a "Pimoroni Badger" and it fits the bill nicely: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/badger-2040-w?va…

Hi, I make this display: https://shop.invisible-computers.com/products/invisible-cale... You can play your own content to it as an image, by serving it on an internet-accessible URL. It can also render any website you point it to. (The results vary, it's a black-and-white display!) And it has a built-in calendar app and picture frame app.

It looks beautiful!!

Re: Trading cards with e-ink displays (2023)

#86

Post by samatman »

GuB-42 wrote: post #30

Just curious, is there really a "trading" aspect or is it more for deck-building type games? Trading card games usually have a notion of rarity, collection, and, well, trading. It is a controversial aspect so I understand that you want to stay away from that as much as possible. But if you embrace this aspect, how would it be implemented?

I'm aware that mentioning this tends to get you crucified on HN, but making something like this fun is a good use for blockchain technology.

Blockchains create digital scarcity, and in fact, are the only decentralized way to have digital scarcity. So having the "cards" represent tokens on e.g. Ethereum would be a clever way to do that, I'm sure the processors can provide a secp256k1 signature, and the rest is read-only. I'd suggest not keeping your playing cards on the same wallet as other valuable stuff though.

I think some of the deep antipathy which certain commenters on this site exhibit towards the blockchain, is a hangover from the proof of work days. Sure, Bitcoin still uses it, but Ethereum doesn't. So it's decentralized digital scarcity, which is a useful property, at a reasonable environmental price.

There's plenty left to criticize about some uses of Ethereum, sure, but this wouldn't be one of those uses.

Re: Trading cards with e-ink displays (2023)

#87

Post by Timwi »

nerdjon wrote: post #39
jonahss wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, Wyldcard creator here, thanks to HowToWare for the interview :) The cards can store data, and I imagine that things which happen to the card during a game leave a lasting impact, which is carried from game to game. The cards grow and change over time, and so when you trade one, you're trading an entire legacy :D

That sounds more like a legacy style board game than an actual trading card game. Which seems to me like the better implementation of this technology, anything else due to its digital nature just feels like it is going to be exploited making any value disappear completely. I think this would be an amazing idea for a legacy style game, especially since it opens up the possibility of resetting the game and it really si…

Leave it to the capitalists to insinuate that something that doesn't make you money has no value, no matter how much fun and entertainment it provides to people.

Re: Trading cards with e-ink displays (2023)

#88

Post by samatman »

Izkata wrote: post #47

People sometimes mock how in Star Trek they'd occasionally have a bunch of PADDs splayed out on a table, almost using the futuristic tablets as if they were clipboards instead of how someone might use a real computer or tablet. Then we get projects like this, which I see as a step towards that future.

I don't know why someone would mock that in the first place. Surely a starship with a built in matter replicator would use as many tablets as they found convenient.

Owning like six iPads wouldn't be a good use of the resources that would represent for me, personally. But I could do useful things with them, and if I could politely request a magic box to give me one, I'd have at least six around already.

Re: Trading cards with e-ink displays (2023)

#89

Post by matsz »

jonahss wrote: post #38
matsz wrote: post #34

Since nobody in this or the original thread has asked this and I can't find any reference to it in the post - why is there a cable that connects the device to itself?

Wyldcard creator here, thanks to HowToWare for the interview. It's a link cable to connect your base to your friend's when you play against them. I link it into itself just to keep it tidy and it doubles as a strap to carry it by.

Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you!

What a great low-cost idea for multiplayer games.

Re: Trading cards with e-ink displays (2023)

#90

Post by bena »

edye wrote: post #63
bena wrote: post #61

It just seems like a bit much for not enough. You are asking each player to carry around this "plinth" and however many cards would be necessary to play the game in question. Do the cards start on the plinth, then go to a common area? Are games played with connected plinths? You say "MTG meets Yu-gi-oh meets Pokemon meets Tamagotchi" but I don't really see that here. You're putting pictures on plastic cards. And with…

To set the record straight, I was the one that reached out to the creator to get his story, because I thought the cards were cool. He would not have spent the time doing this interview if I hadn't asked him to.

And that's fair enough.

The larger point of having a platform without a product still exists.

And I think this is still something where the idea is cooler than the current reality. Mostly because you can vaguely imagine the coolest version of this and you aren't being asked to put anything on the line for it.

Is there some version of this that's genuinely fun and engaging? Maybe so. The potential of non-destructive persistent changes to physical game pieces you own is pretty appealing.

Would I spend $300 for it? Hard no. Especially since the plinth has four slots, but they only give you cards in sets of three. I'd add a fourth card to the base sets and sell the cards in single units and in sets of 4. Three is really weird. It's a hot dog/bun situation.

But that doesn't even address the core issue. For the same price, I can get a game console. I can also get an Android tablet and a couple hundred NFC tags. The only thing you lose is the ability for the card itself to be a small pixelated image.

They claim they've raised $7277, which comes out to 21 base sets at $299 ($6279) and 2 deluxe sets at $499 ($998). And then he spent the last year delivering those 23 units. He claims 25 units sold, but I can't make the math work for that. 25 units at $299 would be $7475, so I'm going to have to guess that the prices have changed over the course of time. Which is normally fine, but that means the cost of these things have already gone up.

It just seems that from every angle I look at this thing, I see clear problems with bringing it to market as a viable product.

Post reply on HN