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Board: New game console recognizes physical pieces, with an open SDK

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Re: Board: New game console recognizes physical pieces, with an open SDK

#81

Post by 1313ed01 »

october8140 wrote: post #55

There is a huge demand for an off the shelf device like this for TTRPGs. There are entire companies making animated maps that are predicated on people laying a TV on its back on a table and building a custom case for it. I imagine they would all love to sell their maps on a dedicated off the shelf product.

Many say they would be useful for RPGs, but how? I know those that play with a large screen (i.e. old tv) on the table to display maps while playing. You do not need to track the pieces for that though? Typically the GM has a phone or laptop with a UI to control what is displayed when, to reveal new areas etc. I can't imagine a game or time when it would make sense that a player moves a miniature/token on a digital board and triggers something that happens automatically? Maybe if you were playing more like a solo or coop CRPG without a GM, but that is a completely different kind of game and everyone here is specifically mentioning using it to support TTRPGs.

Re: Board: New game console recognizes physical pieces, with an open SDK

#82

Post by [deleted] »

somethoughts wrote: post #29

Pretty cool! My hot take is that there are seem to be really two markets here: 1.) Candy crush type board games targeting kids with well-off parents. Basically really focused on immersive and interactive visuals like effects and cutscenes. 2.) Serious board games targeting older teenagers and adults playing heavy games with BoardGameGeek weightings of above 3.5 with money to spend on their own hobby. Think games like…

[deleted]

Re: Board: New game console recognizes physical pieces, with an open SDK

#83

Post by 1313ed01 »

vitovito wrote: post #13
pstuart wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are the pieces sensed?

Not the OP, but in the TechCrunch Disrupt launch, founder Brynn Putnam says, "capacitive material manufactured into the pieces." If you put capacitive material in a unique pattern on the footprint of each piece, and the rest of the piece material was conductive enough to carry your body's charge to register a touch, the shape of that touch could be unique per-piece. There's no mention of syncing pieces, charging piec…

Reminds me of some ~10 years ago I found a dirt cheap game in a budget bin in some store. It contained a few plastic, pre-painted, miniatures, that had some kind of special base with bumps on (possibly in some unique pattern for each miniature?) and then you were supposed to install an app game on a tablet and place the miniatures on the tablet to move them and have their locations (badly) tracked. Seems like it may have been a similar technology, but you only had to pay for the playing tokens and use a standard tablet. Not sure if special hardware is needed for better tracking of enough tokens or if a standard tablet today could be used with the right software?

Game(s) that you were supposed to play was not very fun, in addition to the tracking not working well, as I remember it, but I may still have the miniatures somewhere. There was another game from the same company that I also bought at the same time, but that one was made to be played with a phone camera as some kind of AR game instead, moving some plastic objects on a table, that also worked about as well as the other game.

Re: Board: New game console recognizes physical pieces, with an open SDK

#84

Post by fhcbix »

whitehexagon wrote: post #78

This looks like a perfect match for the music synth ReacTable, something that never ported well to ipad because of the lack of physical pieces. But my concern would be that this becomes just another Ad platform, but targeted at kids. For me a board-game is offline time. So I would picture this with no WiFi and SD card based games. Which could still be profitable via an other-device app store. But would also avoid tem…

> For me a board-game is offline time.

That's fair but not universal. Plenty of communities exist around playing board games online and often that's the only way to meet players of equal strength or run large tournaments.

Re: Board: New game console recognizes physical pieces, with an open SDK

#85

Post by mnky9800n »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #69
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they need to work with the creators of Gloomhaven etc to design their next game specifically so it can be played on this tablet, to cut down on the need for bookkeeping.

The main problem with games like Gloomhaven and TI4 isn’t the book keeping. It’s getting the people around a table at the same time. Need 6 players for TI4 and the same group multiple times for a campaign. Hence why I’ve been playing the digital versions online with my group.

That problem extends into a lot of spaces of adulthood.

Re: Board: New game console recognizes physical pieces, with an open SDK

#86

Post by gostsamo »

what is the accessibility story with this? One of the most difficult thing for blind people is having accessible board games where multiple cards or board state should be remembered and AR-ing the table seems to have some potential. If the board can pair with airbuds and the state could be easily described, it might have lots of blind clients.

Re: Board: New game console recognizes physical pieces, with an open SDK

#87

Post by internet_points »

I was about to say "this could make Ticket to Ride scoring so much easier" but then I see someone has actually made an app for that already https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/q4vwdl/ticket_t... :)

Anyone tried just taking a picture of a messy Ticket to Ride-board with ChatGPT?

Re: Board: New game console recognizes physical pieces, with an open SDK

#90

Post by kdmoyers »

shib71 wrote: post #74
october8140 wrote: post #55

There is a huge demand for an off the shelf device like this for TTRPGs. There are entire companies making animated maps that are predicated on people laying a TV on its back on a table and building a custom case for it. I imagine they would all love to sell their maps on a dedicated off the shelf product.

Yes, I could see a lot of GMs being interested in plug in and go product that fills that niche. Implementing the right feature set is challenging, as existing dedicated virtual tabletops have already shown. But something like a simple Owlbear Rodeo extension that adds basic miniature recognition might be all we need.

Sure! It's smallish, but ttrpg players are accustomed to filling in with their imagination. You might even have a pan feature that would shift the map and show markers to help minis get replaced correctly. This might help with the size problem a bit.
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