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on Gopher (inofficial)
URI Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI Board: New game console recognizes physical pieces, with an open SDK
mrighele wrote 43 min ago:
Reminds of Microsoft Surface, the original coffee table [1]. It was
quite cool at the time, but too expensive for what could have been
useful application.
Hopefully for them, this will have more luck.
On a side not, the website is completely blank on Firefox.
URI [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRU3NemA95k
evertedsphere wrote 46 min ago:
This reminds me a lot ofâ¦something Dynamicland.
whitehexagon wrote 52 min ago:
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 temptation for developers
to add these more addictive online/networked games.
fhcbix wrote 14 min ago:
> 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.
npodbielski wrote 55 min ago:
1 year warranty is good? In EU you get two years warranty for
everything. I.e. for shoes or a light bulb.
mcintyre1994 wrote 1 hour 19 min ago:
I love this! Not in the US but this looks really cool and looks like
itâd be a blast to play with an SDK for it!
throwaway743 wrote 1 hour 43 min ago:
Kinda related/unrelated, but I'm dying for something that solves the
problem of fog of war for tabletop games, while still allowing for
physical minis
coffee-- wrote 3 hours 18 min ago:
Looks a lot like The Last Gameboard[1], which almost worked well (but
didnât, at least for me). It had a mechanism for detecting and
tracking pieces, and a module for FoundryVTT, but the tracking was too
glitchy. And the hardware was too slow.
URI [1]: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gameboard1/gameboard-1
bee_rider wrote 4 hours 4 min ago:
Could be neat for DnD.
Or maybe even a proper wargame, although I guess it might be too small.
sleepybrett wrote 4 hours 25 min ago:
Honestly it's nice enough as an encased screen for TTRPG virtual
tabletop play. I have a few friends that have built custom tabletops to
hold consumer TVs or have set up top down projectors (worse)... those
are solutions for the deeply dedicated. Something even simpler that
this is a pretty nice form-factor for a somewhat more modest table.
johannesf wrote 5 hours 51 min ago:
This looks super cool, thanks for sharing! Very interested. How much
storage does a typical game require? I assume the SD slot allows for
storage expansion? Are you able to share what it's running on under the
hood? I assume Android/Linux?
october8140 wrote 5 hours 59 min ago:
If I wanted to build one where could I get a touch screen that big?
edit: found this
URI [1]: https://arkenforge.com/using-a-touch-screen-with-your-digital-...
renewiltord wrote 4 hours 36 min ago:
Dude I had jamboards with this idea but I could never get root on the
device to make it work but clearly the hardware must exist. In the
end I had to sell the damn things.
october8140 wrote 6 hours 2 min ago:
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.
1313ed01 wrote 34 min ago:
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.
shib71 wrote 3 hours 2 min ago:
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.
qwertytyyuu wrote 3 hours 16 min ago:
its too small to work for TTRPGs at the moment but if we could get
the capacitive pattern tech and expand that to work on digitiser
layer on a tv sized screen, i would be really cool.
chrysoprace wrote 8 hours 2 min ago:
It's cute but it's definitely niche, especially given the price. It's
got some real potential for immersive D&D games though if the Board
could use feedback from pieces people placed on the board.
rcgy wrote 9 hours 2 min ago:
Very very snazzy tech. Get Foundry VTT on it, and you'd do quite well
with the TTRPG crowd.
chrysoprace wrote 8 hours 5 min ago:
Does Foundry have any of the interactive features this product
offers? I'd imagine the real killer feature would be to place your
miniature (I'm sure somebody could make a killing selling
Board-compatible minis) on the board and have its position update in
the software.
snicky wrote 9 hours 14 min ago:
Pretty cool! Did you think about a way to handle games that need some
secret elements (e.g. cards with roles/resources) that should be kept
away from other players?
nicoles wrote 7 hours 34 min ago:
We've played around with detecting various hand and arm gestures to
digitally reveal/hide hidden information, but none of our launch
titles ended up needing it. If you've got an idea that requires it,
happy to work with you to make it happen!
EmilStenstrom wrote 9 hours 44 min ago:
Looks really fun, but only ships to the US⦠such a disappointment
after reading up on it, and being ready to buy.
nicoles wrote 7 hours 40 min ago:
Apologies! We're a small team, and have to focus our efforts on one
market for the time being. We'll be looking to expand as soon as
we're able.
Hackbraten wrote 9 hours 46 min ago:
Are you planning to ship to the EU?
The order form only allows US shipping adresses as is.
nicoles wrote 7 hours 41 min ago:
Starting with the USA for now, expanding over time!
somethoughts wrote 9 hours 47 min ago:
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 18XX, Brass Birmingham,
Dune, Terraforming Mars or Gloomhaven. They would find the digital
board game experience useful for accessing expansion maps (i.e. 18xx)
or expansion campaigns (Gloomhaven). Additional features of interest
might be solo play against automated players, game state/score
tracking, game tutorials.
It almost feels like these two groups would have such different
profiles that two separate marketing approaches should be attempted.
1313ed01 wrote 26 min ago:
3. (Overlapping with 2). The DIY/print'n'play boardgame community.
But not sure how that would work with different designs of playing
pieces needed for every game. This group also overlaps with the much
larger group that is (hobby) game designers, if we could find a way
to quickly prototype games.
This somehow fails because it is a bit difficult to see the use for
tracking game pieces in this context. I remember a long time ago
seeing videos of game tables that tracked transparent tokens so that
the game board could display unique graphics for each token (just
detect the position and rotation of each token and change the pixels
on the screen below it) and that seems like it would make it more
useful (maybe not only for this group but for anyone to be able to
switch between different games while only having to use a single set
of tokens).
jkhdigital wrote 9 hours 54 min ago:
I can tell this is much more than just âTabletop Simulator on a
tabletâ, although at $500 youâre likely to get a lot of attention
from the Twilight Imperium and Gloomhaven crowd. I know more than a few
childless people in my local gaming circle who would drop a half-large
on accessories that simplify game execution.
But clearly this product isnât about making existing board games
easier to set-up/play/clean-up. I think the marketing dept has a lot of
heavy lifting to do, convincing buyers that this isnât just Juicero
for existing board games.
2muchcoffeeman wrote 6 hours 32 min ago:
I play games like Gloomhaven and TI4. Not sure how this product would
simplify anything. Far too small for any of the more complex board
games. I guess I could scroll around but then what does physical
piece detection give me? Then itâs $500USD. My game group and
myself got Gloomhaven from Epic for free and played through the
campaign together. BGA subscription is cheap. So many games have
online implementations that are free. And I can buy a lot of
boardgames for $500.
Whatâs the draw here?
sleepybrett wrote 4 hours 16 min ago:
it does open up some possibility for mechanics that exploit the
fact that the play area ("board") is almost infinitely mutable.
But honestly concepts like this, mixing of physical and digital,
have been tried to very little success in the gaming space for
years. Out best success is wii-motion controls and rockband-era ..
elaborate controllers. But there have been card games that utilized
cameras to read the cards, skylanders, etc.
Actually this is closest to some of the things that original run of
microsoft surface tables could do. I played some backgammon on one
with physical dice and disks. It was .. fine, but it was just
backgammon, they were just showing off the object tracking
features. The only thing you could do with the board was some fancy
animated board themes.
Anyways all of that stuff is largely abandoned. So I wish these
guys luck.
0xDEAFBEAD wrote 4 hours 20 min ago:
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.
2muchcoffeeman wrote 4 hours 4 min ago:
The main problem with games like Gloomhaven and TI4 isnât the
book keeping. Itâs 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 Iâve been playing the digital
versions online with my group.
0xDEAFBEAD wrote 3 hours 49 min ago:
That's fair, I do believe there are games where bookkeeping is
a problem though.
Novosell wrote 7 hours 53 min ago:
Exact same thoughts here. This should, imo, be marketed at boardgame
nerds, who are adults, and not 3-7 year olds which it seems to
currently be. Which toddler is asking for this for christmas? I
suppose a boardgame nerd might buy it to use with their toddler, but
that is a niche of a niche of a niche.
0xDEAFBEAD wrote 4 hours 22 min ago:
Maybe if they pitched it as a way to get your kids away from
solitary iPad usage and interacting with each other instead?
kcon wrote 9 hours 57 min ago:
I was looking for more info about developing for Board on [1] and
became confused because the page mentions an SDK that can be accessed
but does not explain how or link to any other information. Poking
around the website some more, I found [2] which clarifies:
> Can I add or create my own games?
> Soon. Weâre building tools that will let anyone design their own
Board games, starting with developers and expanding to players. The
future of play is one you can help create. Learn more at
board.fun/developers.
So I think I understand the SDK is not available yet. Can you clarify
that developer tools are not yet available but are coming soon on [1]
to avoid confusion?
URI [1]: https://board.fun/pages/developers
URI [2]: https://board.fun/pages/support?hcUrl=%2Fen-US%23article-28942...
URI [3]: https://board.fun/pages/developers
MarsIronPI wrote 8 hours 56 min ago:
To expand on the topic of the SDK: will the SDK be open-source? Will
I need to register as a developer or pay a fee to get the SDK? If
the SDK is open-source with no registration or fees required, then
you have my attention.
nicoles wrote 7 hours 44 min ago:
The SDK is open-source, no fees required. Coming in the next week
or two. We're figuring out the specific details regarding
registration, and would love feedback one way or the other if this
is critical for you. If you want to be notified the moment it hits,
email us: developers@board.fun
MarsIronPI wrote 6 hours 1 min ago:
Cool! I don't have any concrete plans yet, but I'm looking
forward to checking out the SDK when it releases. I'm relieved
that you aren't going for the Xbox/Playstation/Nintendo approach.
embedding-shape wrote 6 hours 14 min ago:
> The SDK is open-source, no fees required. Coming in the next
week or two. We're figuring out the specific details regarding
registration
It sounds like you've already figured out that the registration
would have to be optional, as you're planning to make it
open-source (it will be open-source once you release it, it isn't
open-source yet :) ).
cma wrote 6 hours 8 min ago:
Open-source could still have tivoization and require
registration, like Android mandatory developer signing that is
supposed to be on the way.
embedding-shape wrote 4 hours 20 min ago:
Yeah, I guess they could offer a downloadable .tar once
you've filled out your email on their website, or email it to
you or whatever. Not sure you'd wanna add that sort of
friction at that stage though, makes more sense to ask before
publishing what you've built.
yellow_postit wrote 10 hours 5 min ago:
Very cool. I love the tactical board game experience but automatic
upkeep for rules is appealing.
As a parent I wish it had more details on the durability. I can just
imagine spills, slams, non-game pieces being used and abused on this
thing.
nicoles wrote 7 hours 36 min ago:
We've done a bunch of testing with our manufacturer, and have found
that it's really resilient against spills, but don't go setting it in
a bathtub.
opminion wrote 10 hours 9 min ago:
As a player: What's the lag? Does it depend on the game and the
gesture?
As a developer: I'd like to implement a "game" which would be ideal for
Dynamicland (tens of cards with ID stickers on the corners), but this
might be a simpler platform to set up and use. Would that be possible
with the board as sold?
fritzo wrote 9 hours 32 min ago:
Also curious about latency. In the past I've worked around latency
using video sensors for high-bandwidth high-latency features, then
literally glued a contact mic to my interface to get low latency tap
detection. How does the Board hide latency?
Dayshine wrote 10 hours 23 min ago:
> Warranty Included
> Every purchase is covered by a 1-year warranty for peace of mind
protection.
Uh, why are you marketing a bare minimum (often legally required)
warranty as a pro? It kinda conflicts with "built to last"!
You'd be better off not even mentioning it.
acomjean wrote 10 hours 27 min ago:
As someone who plays amount of âboardgame arenaâ, I appreciate
this. Having software mediate rules helps bootstrap games.
But you still need physical pieces to loose and store.
Reminds me of a âdigital roulette wheelâ I saw in a casino.. which
was wierd, untrustworthy yet somehow very cool.
arjie wrote 10 hours 36 min ago:
Cool product. Is the SDK open? Any time I play a complex board game
like Ark Nova, Spirit Island, etc. game running consumes a lot of time.
So this tool is to me better showcased with a complex game that needs
game-running that computers handle better. Also I'm curious about the
board pieces and how more could be made. Do they have stickers on the
bottom I could just transpose onto existing pieces, etc
wmeredith wrote 10 hours 56 min ago:
Me and a dungeon master friend of mine are interested in developing for
this. Is there a cost associated with the SDK? Or can we just buy a
Board and get to it?
hinkley wrote 6 hours 48 min ago:
Hopefully they offer a large version at some point. This could be a
little tricky for DMing.
nicoles wrote 7 hours 39 min ago:
No cost for the SDK, we'll be fleshing out our SDK pages over the
next couple weeks. Email developer@board.fun to be the first to get
access!
monero-xmr wrote 11 hours 6 min ago:
Is there an SDK? The link on the site to Developer program just has
copy, no actual API docs
nicoles wrote 7 hours 38 min ago:
There's currently a Unity SDK, we're just super focused on our launch
and haven't been able to flesh out those pages. We'll be fleshing it
out over the coming weeks, email developer@board.fun to hear about it
the moment we update!
wmeredith wrote 11 hours 12 min ago:
I don't have a comment on the tech, but Board (homonym for bored) is
genius branding.
ethmarks wrote 10 hours 32 min ago:
And also like a board game, which I think is what they were going
for.
vintermann wrote 19 hours 58 min ago:
Not quite the first such product, Microsoft's original "Surface"
advertised similar boardgame potential. But if it worked well, I don't
know of anyone who was rich enough to try it!
Hopefully the technology has matured since then.
sleepybrett wrote 4 hours 13 min ago:
I have a first gen surface in storage. Company I was working for
wanted to get rid of the heavy as hell awkward thing... There is a
backgammon app on it, when i played it years earlier there were
physical dice and pieces. Buy lost from my table or not included, but
playable by tap as well.
waltbosz wrote 5 hours 18 min ago:
I think I used there was a Surface used at the "Sum of all thrills"
attraction in Epcot in Disney World.
It behaved very similar to the Board. It definitely had a "knob" that
you placed on a screen could spin to make adjustments.
october8140 wrote 6 hours 5 min ago:
I played games on a Surface table in 2012. It was fun but very finicy
with input. I imagine this as 10+ years of better input detection
technology.
escapecharacter wrote 18 hours 58 min ago:
(Disclosure: I worked on both)
Detection technology on Board is much more robust. The MS Surface
FTIR approach was lovely, but so over-featured no one could imagine a
scoped-down (ie. cheaper) version of it.
vintermann wrote 18 hours 40 min ago:
Aha, so there are ex-Surface developers working on this too! That's
reassuring actually. Yeah, the boardgame demos of Surface were
gorgeous, and I was definitively disappointed that this cool
technology didn't "arrive" even as the years went by. Wishing you
all good luck, and I may have to see how hard it is to get my hands
on one of these...
vunderba wrote 1 day ago:
Nice job! Very slick demo video. As a dev, a couple of things
immediately stand out to me.
1. Launching at $500 means it is going to be a "relatively" boutique
product. At around the same price as an iPad Air, you're definitely
going to want to focus on how the included games simply would not be
playable on a more conventional touchscreen interface without the
corresponding physical components.
Which leads to my second question:
2. Are the included physical pieces modular / generic enough such that
prospective game developers could leverage them in future apps, or
would they essentially need to design, 3D print, or contract out to
your team to create their own props?
nkrisc wrote 11 hours 6 min ago:
> At around the same price as an iPad Air, you're definitely going to
want to focus on how the included games simply would not be playable
on a more conventional touchscreen interface without the
corresponding physical components.
And why thatâs worth $500. I canât think of any game(s) that are
so fun or unique Iâd pay $500 to be able to play them, even with my
family.
nicoles wrote 1 day ago:
1. This is absolutely the case for the launch portfolio. These games
are super unique experiences that are really only possible from
mixing the physical and digital in this way. Does the site not make
that clear to you? Super useful feedback!
2. The piece sets can be used as is for new games/apps, especially
for prototyping! However if itâs super promising and you want to
bring it into our (future) store, weâd love to work with you to
make a bespoke set of pieces to go with the game. Whether the launch
sets are modular enough as-is is really dependent on the ergonomics
and aesthetics of the game you want to make. Weâre excited to make
ourselves available to devs who want to explore this though, and
happy to work with folks to figure out ways forward.
Karliss wrote 7 hours 15 min ago:
> 1. super unique experiences that are really only possible from
mixing the physical and digital in this way. Does the site not make
that clear to you?
Yes most of those game don't look like they significantly add
anything to the experience over similar already existing games that
have or easily could have tablet versions. Even if they are doing a
bit more website makes them look like cheap versions of well
established computer games.
Bloogs -> that's just lemmings
Spycraft -> doesn't look like something you couldn't design
touchscreen controls with little effect on puzzles
Omakase -> you are selecting positions + direction within grid,
don't see why press and swipe on touchscreen wouldn't work
Mushka -> the tamagochi style game. All that the special pieces
achieve is select an action which could easily be done with
touchscreen menu and afterwords positioning it with finger
Cosmic crush -> again one more game where all you do is move single
game piece per player on a grid
Space rocks -> asteroid like spaceship shooter
Snek -> just point the finger directly on touchscreen without
special game pieces
Out of all them maybe 2 look like they are trying to consider
unique strengths of the physical game pieces. The cooking game and
3d block game. And even for those it feels questionable whether it
provides sufficient improvement compared to existing games.
By it's nature product like this means that you get worst parts of
niche gaming console and a physical board game. Niche console means
that the set of available games will be very limited with many of
them either being ports from other platforms using generic pieces
(meaning you can just play them on those other more popular
platforms) or the gameplay isn't as good due too limited budget.
Hardly any developer is going to spend years to design unique game
for niche platform with very limited player base.
And like with physical board games you need to buy the pieces in
physical store or have them delivered.
Tilt-5 also tried to fill the gap between digital and physical
board games. They had much more interesting value add but that
wasn't enough.
pstuart wrote 15 hours 59 min ago:
How are the pieces sensed?
vitovito wrote 14 hours 51 min ago:
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 pieces, keeping
pieces in view of a wide-angle camera, anything like that, so
that's my bet. (This would also mean moving a piece using a
non-conductive material would be a way to cheat by having it not
get registered!)
I just shared this on LI this morning, linking back to a video
showing showing related touchscreen explorations I did for a
colleague in early 2013, sensing different coins by their radii
as you touch them:
URI [1]: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vmiliano_a-vertical-tript...
1313ed01 wrote 17 min ago:
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.
nicoles wrote 13 hours 34 min ago:
This is nearly bang on correct. The pieces don't contain any
electronics or sensors, they have a conductive pattern built
into the surface using specialized materials and a
manufacturing technique we developed in house. Our custom
software stack processes the raw data from the device's touch
sensor using embedded ML on the NPU, which detects and tracks
the pieces in real time.
That said, the device can detect the pieces whether you touch
them or not. Touching them absolutely does change the response,
and we pass that along as a parameter to the SDK.
Your coin exploration is seriously cool, please hit me up when
you're next in NYC!
pstuart wrote 8 hours 46 min ago:
> they have a conductive pattern built into the surface using
specialized materials and a manufacturing technique we
developed in house.
Would this be something a home 3D printer could do? I'm not a
maker but I could see the value of others being able to
quickly build a universe of playing pieces if that was
possible.
nicoles wrote 7 hours 42 min ago:
It's possible to make your own pieces with a multi-material
3d printer (our early prototypes have been made with Bambu
X1C & H2D printers), though it's pretty finicky to do so,
and requires some rather expensive filament. Happy to help
anyone along though!
sleepybrett wrote 4 hours 10 min ago:
i imagine the special filament might only be needed for a
layer or two (assuming the board contact surface is the
top or the bottom that is)?
doctorpangloss wrote 9 hours 8 min ago:
Have you played the zAPPed games?
Should Mars After Midnight be released on Steam?
gedy wrote 18 hours 34 min ago:
Looks really cool though did not see what the SDK is or languages
it requires? I've built game tables before with flat panel TVs and
web tech, but have wanted to integrate miniatures, position, etc
into the apps.
nicoles wrote 15 hours 48 min ago:
Currently the sdk is built for Unity, weâre working on
Unreal/Godot though!
sjsivak wrote 1 day ago:
Looks awesome
nicoles wrote 1 day ago:
Thank you!
nicoles wrote 1 day ago:
Just launched today at TechCrunch Disrupt. Our 12 game launch portfolio
was all developed in Unity using our sdk, and we cannot be more excited
to see what developers can make with our launch piece sets!
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