[HN Gopher] Show HN: Trading cards made with e-ink displays
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Show HN: Trading cards made with e-ink displays
I made a thing! In 2014, I was holding a stack of iPhones and
thought to myself: "Hey, if I had each phone
display a playing card, I could click a button and they'd shuffle
themselves" I pared that idea all the way down to this:
trading cards made of e-ink displays. Right now, each card costs
me about $20 each, but with only a bit more scale, I think I can
get that down to $10. In doing this project, I learned how to
design electronics and circuit boards. I learned Rust and wrote my
first driver, I upped my CAD skills, 3D printed, and did my first
resin casting. I generated the images on the cards using stable-
diffusion. HN always seems to appreciate new uses for e-ink.
Thought I'd share :)
Author : jonahss
Score : 988 points
Date : 2022-11-30 00:24 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wyldcard.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wyldcard.io)
| upwardbound wrote:
| Amazing!! Are you taking orders? Have you considered setting up
| an Etsy where you can sell a few of them for $100 per tile when
| you feel like making a couple now and then?
| jonahss wrote:
| oh dang! I'd totally sell the cards, for less than that even.
| Sign up for the mailing list on wyldcard.io and if you shoot me
| an email I'll totally sell you cards, and even a base station
| (though those are pricier)
|
| jonah@wyldcard.io
| HardwareLust wrote:
| That is a really cool idea! I really want to see what kind of new
| games that can be created from this.
| jonahss wrote:
| Thanks! Yeah me too! I've got an idea for a game, but I'm not
| an experienced game designer. If others want to try to design a
| game for it, I'd be open to sharing with them :D
|
| Mostly wanted to inspire something new.
| k_sze wrote:
| Somehow this makes me think of the "Deck of Dragons" in "Malazan"
| because the faces can change.
| jonahss wrote:
| Adding to my list of fictional card games, thanks!
| lightedman wrote:
| Digital Tarot readings would be a possible use for this. You'd
| need to program the thing to randomly turn cards 180 degrees.
| jonahss wrote:
| Yeah! I was going for a Tarot/Occult vibe.
|
| Turning 90 degrees... maybe I could do some magic with
| magnets.....
| felipelalli wrote:
| Very nice!
| Ertimbrang94 wrote:
| I'm no expert on the subject, but wouldn't this be awesome as an
| addition to DnD or other tabletop RPGs? Like the card could be a
| great way to display and update player characters stats and
| information.
| ShredKazoo wrote:
| I guess the advantage of this setup, relative to playing a board
| game on an iPad, is that keeping info hidden from your opponent
| is more natural with cards. I suggest to exploit this, you either
| make the cards thin enough to hold in a hidden 'hand' the way
| someone might do in magic the gathering, or (much easier) have
| your plinth include a hidden hand prop section ala Scrabble.
|
| In terms of product development, I think the best path would
| probably be to create or find an opensource game engine for
| cardgames and have a nice development environment plus API where
| a dev can write a game for the engine that either runs on a PC or
| runs on the cards, with no code changes required. (PC support
| makes debugging and iterating on game design much faster.)
| jonahss wrote:
| I hadn't thought of a Scrabble style card holder, good idea.
|
| Ah yeah, I think the game design community mostly uses tabletop
| simulator and one other such program for testing out ideas.
| Being able to deploy to both is a good idea.
| ShredKazoo wrote:
| I suppose the simplest path to success is just to integrate
| with tabletop simulator so that any card game playable on
| tabletop simulator can be played with your thing too. You
| could even aim to get acquired by them.
|
| Product name: "Tabletop Simulator Simulator"
| worldmerge wrote:
| This is incredible! Nice job!!!
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| Amazing and so many possibilities. Good luck for your future.
| Many good ideas here ...
| [deleted]
| tomcam wrote:
| Dude, that's a whole lot of accomplishments. Super impressive.
| infinite8s wrote:
| This looks really great! Do you have any blog posts talking about
| the hardware design of the cards?
| an_aparallel wrote:
| ha! these are rad. But tbh they look more like electronic
| dominos. The docking station makes them less card like too (but
| love the way you've arranged the contacts)
| jonahss wrote:
| Ah thanks, I worked hard on the contacts.
|
| There's a thin and flexible e-ink display I could use instead,
| but they're $20 each instead of $4. I agree they're a bit
| chunky in this form :)
|
| I agree the docking station detracts a bit from the naturalness
| of just playing on a table.
|
| I decided to build what middle-school-me would have wanted to
| play with. I took a lot of inspiration from Yu-Gi-Oh which has
| the same docking station concept (just executed much better,
| where you wear it on your wrist).
| an_aparallel wrote:
| it looks great - its not often the electronics portion of a
| project is executed with aesthetics in mind.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Anyway to add NFC. I imagine a special gameboard which sends data
| to the cards based on game state.
|
| Very impressive!
| jonahss wrote:
| Heh heh, that's like phase 4 ;)
|
| I want kids to be able to play at school or at camp, so didn't
| add any connectivity. Plus I'm trying to stay cheap. But I can
| imagine adding bluetooth to the base or to your phone or
| something. Then I can go all "BILLS PC" and let you store your
| spirits on the cloud, let you load them in and out of cards,
| etc etc.
|
| Except I _don 't_ want to turn it into an online game. Computer
| games are awesome, I think it's lame to emulate physical cards
| with a computer, a'la' Hearthstone.
| nextaccountic wrote:
| I think that NFC ends up cheaper than Bluetooth. For one
| thing, you don't need a battery. (And you shouldn't need a
| battery on your current design either, since you are changing
| the screen while connected to a dock which can have power)
| jonahss wrote:
| Ah yeah, the current cards do not have batteries.
| retendo wrote:
| Finally, a way to play physical Sabacc[1] in real life.
|
| [1]: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Sabacc
| jonahss wrote:
| I'll add that to my list of fictional card games!
|
| I took inspiration from Yu-Gi-Oh, Card Captors, Angelic
| Layer...
| JetAlone wrote:
| Yes, your docking station is effectively a primitive duel
| disc. The write-able cards are new, though.
| jonahss wrote:
| I'll totally start a new project once holograms get good
| and cheap enough ;)
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| How thick would the e-ink version of this deck be:
|
| https://i.redd.it/wufrxonvm0t41.jpg
| connicpu wrote:
| I think the more troubling concern would be how much it
| would cost to manufacture that many of the e-ink cards, 5
| figures easily
| mbreese wrote:
| I got a Sabacc deck someplace a few years back. I think it
| might have been from a storefront in Disney(land|World). But,
| it looks like you can also buy a set online from a few places.
|
| My son was really into it for a while, but they included
| betting "credits" with the game that weren't nearly as fun as
| normal chips would have been.
| kevinmhickey wrote:
| Scrolled to find this comment and was not disappointed.
| ratioprosperous wrote:
| I would like the word "skifter" to appear somewhere in this
| thread, in case anyone was looking for it as I was
| zumu wrote:
| Can I load up whatever images I want? The dream would be proxying
| Magic cards for playtesting. If you could load net-decks and
| shuffle via an app over NFC somehow, that'd be amazing as well!
|
| Lots of possibilities here!
| jonahss wrote:
| Pretty much any image you want, but it's only 4-color greyscale
| and pretty low resolution. I'd have to make a nicer UX than the
| current "scp the images onto the raspberry pi" setup I have
| now.
| zumu wrote:
| Most proxies are crudely sharpied words over other cards, so
| the low-res 4-color greyscale is a huge improvement haha
| jojo259 wrote:
| I REALLY love this idea. The way that this could combine the
| tactile nature of physical games with the benefits of
| digitization is awesome. The example you gave somewhere of the
| vampire card is so cool.
| jonahss wrote:
| Thanks! You get it!
| hifikuno wrote:
| I haven't read all the comments here yet, but I reckon this would
| be cool to use as a dungeon exploration game. Each card is a room
| and you can lay them out as you explore new rooms. When certain
| events are triggered you put the card back on the machine to be
| shuffled then placed back where it was. Get in, get as much loot
| as you can and get out without dying.
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| If you haven't encountered it you should check out Legends
| Untold
| https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/legendsuntold/legends-u...
|
| Obviously not eink, but exactly that kind of card game
| exploration.
| jonahss wrote:
| Hadn't seen that one! Will check it out.
| jonahss wrote:
| Oh cool, good idea!
| jdhn wrote:
| This looks pretty cool! I know that HN is very bearish on crypto,
| but I could see this or something like it be used by a crypto
| company to promote NFTs in conjunction with a card game or
| something like that.
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| Does it needthe power source and logic? Could you have some kind
| of pogo pin or contact on the base and make them thinner/cheaper?
| gigel82 wrote:
| There are a lot of "electronic price tags" which are basically
| the same form factor as your trading cards, except they mass
| produce them (have nice plastic cases) and they usually include a
| 3-color eink (black-white-red or black-white-yellow) plus a
| wireless transmitter (usually proprietary protocol, but sometimes
| plain Bluetooth and/or NFC) for OTA updates and a 10-year battery
| (sometimes replaceable CR2032). Also, if you can grab them at $6
| / piece, I imagine they're being produced for a lot less than
| that (random AliExpress link:
| https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256803094207083.html).
|
| If you're thinking of mass-production might be worth reaching out
| to one of those manufacturers; you can buy in bulk if nothing
| else (but I'm sure they'd be open to customizing it a bit - maybe
| some branding on the plastic molding and whatnot).
| jonahss wrote:
| Heh, the screens I use are exactly the ones contained in those
| products.
|
| Huh, the battery lasts for ten years? I wonder how many
| refreshes you get for that. Maybe I should just be using
| those.....
| woodleader wrote:
| I've worked in retail for an electronics store where we
| gradually changed over to those. They were from
| https://www.ses-imagotag.com/products/electronic-shelf-
| label... They even calimed to us 13 years batery life at an
| average of 1 refresh per day. They are pretty power efficient
| and we've had many devices that ran for years without an
| issue.
| stavros wrote:
| That's around 5000 refreshes, being a bit charitable. If
| I'm playing cards, I might see that in a few days, as I'm
| going to be doing tens or hundreds of refreshes a day,
| rather than one.
| andai wrote:
| If the cards are always on a table / special playing
| surface, they could be wirelessly charged during play.
| DougBTX wrote:
| Some variants use NFC power to drive the display update,
| so no batteries!
| jonahss wrote:
| I didn't realize NFC could deliver enough power for that.
| I'll look into it.
| AdamTReineke wrote:
| The demos I saw of this were slow, on the order of 10
| seconds to get enough power through.
| jonahss wrote:
| aha! So there is a catch. Still worth checking out.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| The Waveshare ones are even powered purely by NFC. So they
| don't need a battery, yet you can rewrite them with ease.
| worldmerge wrote:
| Oh wow, that's so cool
| jonahss wrote:
| I'm going to have to look into that
| pjerem wrote:
| Looks like you need a gateway (not that expensive but too
| expensive to just hack with those tags at home).
|
| I'd love to find cheap e-ink tags that can just receive a
| picture over some cheap wireless protocol and display it.
| gigel82 wrote:
| The link was entirely random to show a similar mass produced
| product, I didn't do much research.
|
| You can search for NFC ones on the same website, they're a
| few bucks more.
|
| There are also Bluetooth variants which is more friendly to
| hacking at home (update over the air from farther away) but
| those look pricier.
| gh02t wrote:
| Does anybody here know a Bluetooth (ideally) or NFC one?
| Preferably with a known protocol that has open source
| software... at least a known/open protocol to set the
| displays if not end-to-end open. I have wanted to play with
| one of these but haven't been able to find one that is easy
| to hack on.
|
| I'd really like a $10-20 epaper display that I could update
| wirelessly on very low power, there are so many fun
| projects that could be done with that. There are a few dev
| boards that almost hit that price point but software
| support is really bad in my experience.
| iamflimflam1 wrote:
| There's a pretty good set of videos here showing how to
| hack them: https://youtu.be/S44NSr37eoo
| bitwrangler wrote:
| Thanks for this video!
|
| It shows a nice layout with 3D-printed holder, pogo-pins,
| ESP32 Lolin as programmer, with CC2531 RF dongle as the
| access point.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| Woah that's really impressive! What sort of microcontroller are
| they running? Why Rust?
| jonahss wrote:
| See my other comment. I wanted to learn rust, but by the end,
| once I knew it, I wouldn't have chosen rust for a prototype if
| I started again.
|
| These prototypes are running on a raspberry pi, though I
| wouldn't want to put them into production like that.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| Ah so the docking board uses a raspberry Pi eh? You could
| probably implement the same using an esp32 (if u want
| wifi/Bluetooth) or even an stm32 chip, you can definitely
| find a good chip for under $5 each that can do what you need.
| That's another way to take your learning to the next level
| while reducing costs. Also not as difficult as it looks!
| jonahss wrote:
| Yeah, I can run it on an stm32, which is what I'd do for an
| early Kickstarter where I only have to make <100.
|
| Since I only made two, it was easier just to keep it on the
| raspi for now.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| No need to physically shuffle.
| yumraj wrote:
| A very simple game could be Rock-Paper-Scissors if you can add a
| gyroscope or something to detect shaking and then show Rock,
| Paper or Scissor at random.
|
| Sorry for adding more work. :)
| selcuka wrote:
| I believe they don't have any batteries in them but only
| powered when connected to the dock. E-ink only requires power
| when changing the image, not for displaying it.
| newsclues wrote:
| I never got into it, but I could see this having some use for AR
| D&D, and while it enables new games, show how it could be used in
| existing popular games today so that people can understand it and
| how it could enable/change existing games in new ways.
| elliotpage wrote:
| Was it intentional to have the pin layout be in the shape of the
| Sefirot? Either way, spooky!
| vmatsiiako wrote:
| Wow! Very cool! Love the idea
| cableshaft wrote:
| This is very cool. I think you'll have a hard time finding a
| traditional board game publisher willing to put money into this
| (there might be one or two out there, but most will see this as
| prohibitively expensive for them), but you might be able to pull
| off a successful Kickstarter for them on your own.
|
| Kind of like the Blinks game system, these little hexes with
| colored lights in them that each have a separate game in them and
| can 'teach' the other hexes they connect to.
|
| One of the Blinks Kickstarters:
| https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/move38/blinks-smart-boa...
| piyh wrote:
| Card games are generally played with 10-20 cards once you hit
| your mid/endgames. I can't think of a system where you'd have
| mechanical benefit of all those being epaper before you should
| go full digital. Having a few choice mechanics tied to them is
| the way to go.
|
| What does epaper get you that paper doesn't? A microprocessor
| and persistent state. RFID cards on a board game might be a
| good middle state for most cards. Scan them as played. Build
| gamestate or dynamics to be populated to epaper.
|
| Epaper would be good for storyline branches, timeline
| progressions, evolving characters. Make them traveling
| characters being owned by different players. Differentiate them
| from becoming a static scoreboard that could be represented on
| a single tablet.
| jonahss wrote:
| Yeah, I've been thinking evolving characters. Also more
| complex algorithms that you can't do on paper or in your head
| (and can't inspect).
|
| When watching TV shows that have cool card games, like Yu-Gi-
| Oh, it seems like the game doesn't have rules, but instead
| the kids reason about the characters by looking at the
| pictures. Weird unexpected stuff happens all the time, I was
| thinking about how to implement that in the real world.
|
| For example, imagine a vampire card that has its eyes closed.
| You try using it, but it doesn't do anything. But, you notice
| that when you play at night the eyes are open and now it's a
| powerful vampire!
|
| So you can do time-based mechanics, I could add location-
| based mechanics. You can also make the cards do different
| things based on what other cards are in play.
| masklinn wrote:
| All of those are existing TCG mechanics, though easier and
| more flexible in digital-only TCG (hearthstone, snap).
|
| For instance in MTG day/night cycles were featured in the
| original werewolves (I want to say innistrad), location
| mechanics can be continuous effects on lands or ETBs,
| likewise for reaction to other cards in play.
| prox wrote:
| Perhaps you should reach out to Prozd (suong won) if you
| got something solid to promote, or even discuss, he is a
| huge board game enthusiast.
| jonahss wrote:
| I've enjoyed his videos :D I guess, sure I could try
| DM'ing him.
| bitwize wrote:
| The card game in Yu-Gi-Oh had "rules as the plot demands",
| at least during the seasons with Yugi and Yami-Yugi.
|
| When they released the real-world Dueling Monsters card
| game, they tried to keep the rules consistent with the
| manga/series, but changed them in places to make a more
| playable game. Ex.: there is an upper limit to the damage
| you can do with the Berserker Soul ability.
| Izkata wrote:
| Dwarf Fortress, the card game?
|
| > When watching TV shows that have cool card games, like
| Yu-Gi-Oh, it seems like the game doesn't have rules, but
| instead the kids reason about the characters by looking at
| the pictures.
|
| This is basically how it worked writing-wise in the
| original _Duel Monsters_ series (though the characters
| acted like these were mostly all known effects
| /interactions), after that came _GX_ where they toned down
| the creativity and mostly used real effects, then in
| _Zexal_ and afterwards I think they stuck almost entirely
| to real effects with occasional exceptions.
| jonahss wrote:
| I'll have to check out Duel Monsters, maybe can get some
| more inspiration. Have you ever seen Angelic Layer?
| Izkata wrote:
| No, and to clarify I think you have seen it: _Yu-Gi-Oh!_
| is the name of the franchise and the original series that
| not many know about outside of the fandom, _Yu-Gi-Oh!
| Duel Monsters_ is the retooling that focused on the card
| game and was the first one to be officially translated to
| English, the one where the characters acted as you
| describe. There 's been 7 spinoffs since then, the first
| two of which were _Yu-Gi-Oh! GX_ and _Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal_.
| jonahss wrote:
| Oh oh, gotcha. I only ever watched a few episodes when it
| was on TV in the US. And then a few more episodes of Yu-
| Gi-Oh Abridged ;)
| Izkata wrote:
| Yep, Abridged was the Duel Monsters era. Just looked it
| up and seems it's still going (188 of the 224 original
| episodes done).
| jonahss wrote:
| Oh wow, that's dedication
| trevyn wrote:
| There's a huge genre of computer-only card games now, many
| of which implement these kind of "card evolution"
| mechanics.
|
| If you're into this sort of thing, I highly recommend
| checking out Inscryption, it has some really fun twists on
| this idea.
| jonahss wrote:
| A few people have told me I should play that game. Guess
| I know what I'm doing for the rest of the week :D
| cableshaft wrote:
| You should also try the new free to play game Marvel
| Snap. It's actually fairly good about not requiring you
| to pay money yet still offer some good progression and
| unlocks, and there's a lot of good ideas in there for
| cards which only really work in a digital way or with a
| bunch of counters (do some things randomly, or add a
| bunch of temporary and situational buffs to the cards,
| etc), while providing super fast games (like 3-5 minutes)
| with a tight and small deck of cards (a player's deck is
| only 12 cards), and every single card is unique. And you
| play on locations that also all have unique abilities.
|
| I'm friends with a bunch of people in the board game
| industry, as well as being a game designer (with a game
| signed witha publisher that still hasn't been published
| yet after like, four years), and everyone thinks Marvel
| Snap is super fun and well designed (and addictive). It's
| the only mobile game I've really gotten into (that wasn't
| just a port of a physical board game) in several years.
|
| Slay the Spire is another one to consider as well. It's a
| rogue-like game where you fight with cards and build up
| your deck based on the choices you make in the run. The
| cards are fairly static (they even made a board game
| adaptation on Kickstarter very recently), although they
| can all be upgraded, which makes the cards better. I play
| that on PC but I know it's out on mobile and Switch as
| well.
| jonahss wrote:
| Ah yeah, I played Slay the Spire.
|
| I still maintain that it's lame to implement the concepts
| tied to physical playing cards in a computer that can
| simulate anything. It's funny how Slay the Spire is a
| card game which got popular as a computer game and then
| later made the transition to a physical card game,
| bringing us full-circle.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Some of the most effective app-asssisted games I've played
| involved hidden knowledge. Alchemists and Mansions of
| Madness in particular.
| steve_mcdougall wrote:
| The thing about that is, now instead of just printing cards
| and some rules, interested parties now need to program at
| least a large portion of the game logic to make this work
| which increases their cost a large amount. (Not to mention
| that most trading card companies would not have the in-
| house capabilities to do that.) The thing that makes
| trading cards so popular for kids is that they are cheap.
| When I was at school the Kaiba starter deck for Yu-Gi-Oh
| was $30 and I got 50 cards, a mat for the game area,
| instructions and some art. A 2" e-ink display is like
| $10-15 wholesale which means for the same price (even
| adjusted for inflation) I'd receive maybe two cards at cost
| price. That would not be enough to keep 11 year old me
| entertained and as a parent I would not buy things that can
| be easily broken for my kids.
|
| For what it's worth, the actual Yu-Gi-Oh trading card games
| has rules and the anime uses a very loose interpretation of
| those rules.
| jonahss wrote:
| Yeah, I know. I've been trying to design it in a way to
| push costs down the whole time, but it's still a far cry
| from paper. My idea was to target $80 for a "starter
| kit", making it the equivalent purchase of a video game.
|
| For interested parties needing to program, I could
| probably partner with them and do the development myself
| (or have employees do it). The real hard part is
| designing a game, the software to run it will be pretty
| basic to start with, once I write the general framework
| for taking turns, etc.
| Orothrim wrote:
| Could you have paper cards that have a barcode or qr code
| that are "activated" when placed into the console and
| then represented by your 2-3 E-Ink cards? Then the paper
| cards could be boosters/environment effects and all/some
| E-Ink cards are affected by them.
| jonahss wrote:
| Ooh yeah, that's doable.
| [deleted]
| lovich wrote:
| Something like Kingdom Death[1] where there's a state cup
| campaign and characters are upgraded via accumulation of
| cards might be a good candidate
|
| [1] nsfw https://shop.kingdomdeath.com/collections/in-
| stock/products/...
| safety1st wrote:
| Firstly super novel idea with tons of space for both technical
| and gameplay innovation. Really love it!
|
| If we're talking business models, the one which immediately
| comes to mind as appropriate is that of a gaming console. Sell
| the hardware (e-cards, maybe a mat?) at a loss, then sell games
| for it at no marginal cost. Let other people build games for it
| because hit games are what sell platforms.
|
| Since this essentially a portable gaming device, consumers may
| compare it to e.g. a Nintendo Switch - if you undercut the
| Switch and you have a blockbuster title or two, you could have
| incredible product on your hands.
|
| Presumably the lucrative economics of trading card games could
| be applied here as well...!
| jonahss wrote:
| Ooh hey, yes this could work.....
|
| I think I'd need funding for that though, can't bootstrap a
| platform without that first blockbuster game.
| jonahss wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| Yeah, it's a weird in-between. I don't think a game publisher
| would take a risk on it, but neither would silicon valley VCs.
|
| Kickstarter would be my bet too. I was going to put this
| project down for a little while and start a "real" startup
| though.....
| eru wrote:
| > I don't think a game publisher would take a risk on it, but
| neither would silicon valley VCs.
|
| You might still try for the latter. Especially if you can
| think of ways to make the business bigger.
| jonahss wrote:
| Really? Any specific funds you think I should talk to?
|
| Can intro me to anyone? email me: jonah@wyldcard.io
|
| I was thinking, very possibly, if I found some angel
| investors who also love boardgames.....
| conorcleary wrote:
| GameStop NFT. Legacy company and progressive structure
| meets the very future everyone except Wall Street and
| their bought media wants. I'm strongly advising you at
| least leave an on-ramp and off-ramp section for their
| blockchain integration in your long-term designs.
| jonahss wrote:
| Good point. It would almost make too much sense if
| GameStop's next crazy investment was an actual game. I'd
| go along with any crypto stuff they want if they give me
| a million bux :D
| bemmu wrote:
| I could see people backing this on kickstarter even if it
| wouldn't actually be a game you'd play for a long time,
| because of just the novelty of being able to invite your
| friends over to show them these cool cards.
| jonahss wrote:
| I might do that!
|
| By the way, I've been following your posts here for years!
| I'll trade you cards for candy!
| dalbasal wrote:
| I feel like Kickstarter is more like a tactic than a
| strategy.
|
| That said, this might be a good "real startup." The problem
| domain seems modest (e-ink playing cards) but... could be a
| bridgehead to interesting territory.
|
| These might be designed/used as playing cards, but it's
| actually a computer with lots of little portable screens. The
| actual thing is general, a proverbial "computing paradigm."
|
| These are playing cards, but could be concert tickets,
| conference badges, security doohickeys... They can open a
| door, clock you in and display your in/out status. If you
| want to go full "SV Pitch:" _these cards are money_. Transfer
| 69 FTX coins onto a card at a secure terminal, and pay by
| handing it to the hooker. A casino could give you one of
| these to be your wallet.
|
| Solutions looking for problems sometimes find them. See
| apple/msft.
| jonahss wrote:
| I think the road to a new ubiquitous technology often
| starts with toys.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Transfer 69 FTX coins onto a card at a secure terminal,
| and pay by handing it to the hooker.
|
| Nah. Part of the strip club experience will always be
| showering the strippers in dollar bills... and why would
| you do regular payments for hookers with a special token?!
| Almost all credit and debit cards (=EMV cards) already can
| do this by NFC and you can also use watches and phones for
| this, the problem rather is:
|
| - sex workers are pretty much banned from conventional
| payment methods and networks because sex work is illicit in
| many countries and even where it's legal, many sex workers
| prefer hard cash because chargeback fraud aka "post nut
| clarity" or actually stolen credentials is so common
|
| - whenever you start a new payment scheme - because you
| _are_ doing precisely this! - you _WILL_ have to follow
| banking laws and regulations: customer identification,
| anti-smurfing and other money laundering measures,
| compliances for data protection, reports to banking
| authorities... an insane mess to do right. Of course, you
| can also hope to do a Bitcoin... but given the penalties if
| you are ever caught by the authorities, it 's not worth it.
| dalbasal wrote:
| >> whenever you start a new payment scheme - because you
| are doing precisely this! - you WILL have to follow
| banking laws and regulations
|
| Sure. Problems problems. The FTX coin reference was
| supposed to tongue-in-cheek over specifics. Yes payment
| systems have payment system problems.
|
| My point is that these cards have all sorts of potential
| uses. They're a programmable physical tokens that display
| a fixed image until updated by physical contact with the
| plinth. Playing cards are just one set of use cases. The
| device itself is more general than that, potentially.
| GenericDev wrote:
| This is so cool. I'm a sucker for card games and e-ink, so to get
| both in one serving is VERY exciting. Thanks for being an
| innovator :)
| yurikoval wrote:
| the big question is can it display NFTs?
| jonahss wrote:
| sure
| Animats wrote:
| _" Based on an idea I had in 2014, built in my spare time
| over the past two years, I've finally completed my first
| physical prototypes."_
|
| Too late! He completely missed the NFT boom. These could have
| been the definitive way to deliver NFTs. The device would
| check in with the blockchain, and only if the owner of the
| device and the owner of the NFT matches would it display.
| trynewideas wrote:
| The tray interface immediately reminded me of Harmonix's
| Dropmix.[1] A Dropmix-alike where you can program your own
| "cards" to store and play, or even just trigger, short loops on a
| playback device would be incredible.
|
| Adventure card games,[2][3] which blend tabletop RPG and card
| game mechanics to play through a story and often rely on mutable
| and custom third-party or player-created cards, are another niche
| that could rock programmable cards. They don't rely on
| collectability or random card packs - everything to play comes in
| a base set, and expansions take the forms of additional classes
| or adventures. But they can be tedious to set up, card mutability
| means marking and smudging cards or sleeving them, and using
| third-party or player-made cards usually requires getting them
| printed to fit into the deck seamlessly - programmable cards can
| dodge all of those issues.
|
| 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZLXSmq9s1A
|
| 2: https://www.strangeassembly.com/2019/review-pathfinder-
| adven...
|
| 3:
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.obsidian.p...
| JonSchneider wrote:
| Hello Sabacc.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| You should probably start talking to a patent attorney right
| about now. 99% chance this goes nowhere, 1% chance you're the
| next Gary Gygax.
| jonahss wrote:
| I'd settle for Richard Garfield ;)
|
| You think I should patent? Isn't that going to cost me like 20
| grand? Plus if Wizards of the Coast really wants to, they can
| work around my patents somehow.
|
| If I could patent for only a couple thousand dollars maybe I
| would..... But I WANT other game developers to use this idea.
| Just, if they want to skip ahead, they can work with me, I'd be
| happy to share.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| I think it's a cool idea, but couldn't begin to guesstimate
| what the underlying IP might be worth if anything. It may
| already be pretty well covered by other patent claims, for
| that matter.
|
| I do think it's cool enough to be worth spending a few $K to
| consult with an attorney, though, especially since you've
| taken it this far. Mistakes made early in the process of
| commercializing something can have disproportionate effects
| later on.
|
| If it does turn out to be patentable, you have up to 1 year
| to file after first public disclosure (IIRC), and that clock
| is now ticking, for better or worse.
| jonahss wrote:
| Thanks, I've got a patent attorney in the family; I'll see
| if I can get a discount ;)
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| This is amazing - but don't just limit yourself to table top
| games. While the killer app has not popped into my head I am sure
| there are business uses as well - from name tags to ... err - but
| just the very existence of these things means people will find
| new uses. fantastic
| jonahss wrote:
| The trick then, would be making an easy way to write images to
| them. Maybe a phone attachment...
| reportgunner wrote:
| Reverse wireless charging and NFC or usb-c to usb-c cable
| nathias wrote:
| This is really cool! I had the same idea but dismissed it because
| e-inks were so expensive, it's really impressive you can get them
| down to $10. This enables you to make games that are digital and
| analog at the same time, which is in itself interesting. I think
| this tech combines well with NFTs to extend this functionality
| (if you need unique cards, unforgable etc.).
| crote wrote:
| Ooooh, I love this! Are the design file available somewhere?
| jonahss wrote:
| Ah, not at this time, but maybe I should open source em?
| KomoD wrote:
| Yes, please do!
| bee_rider wrote:
| Echoing everybody else here, really neat!
|
| Questions:
|
| Do the cards contain any battery? I'm wondering if they have
| always-running CPUs in there, or if all the compute happens in
| the base (and then it just writes to the screen).
|
| I guess color eInk would probably be cost-prohibitive, huh?
| jonahss wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| Yup, you called it. The cards are totally passive. Just the
| screen and an eeprom memory chip, no battery.
|
| All the compute happens in the base.
|
| Color e-ink way too expensive for now, but if Wizards of the
| Coast wants to invest 100MM we can make em in color, thinner,
| and flexible!
| bee_rider wrote:
| > Color e-ink way too expensive for now, but if Wizards of
| the Coast wants to invest 100MM we can make em in color,
| thinner, and flexible!
|
| 100% makes sense. eInk is so frustrating sometimes, I wish
| somebody had an application that used a bazillion of the
| things so they'd get some economy of scale going. You are
| just going to have to make these things the next Magic to
| solve the scaling issue.
|
| > Yup, you called it. The cards are totally passive. Just the
| screen and an eeprom memory chip, no battery.
|
| Sensible way of doing it.
|
| For a game like Talisman, your player token could the the
| card. It would be nice to have the pins inside the game
| board, though, so that you could just place your token on a
| special location, and an event happens. This would require a
| powered board, though, which kind of detracts from the idea
| that the games could be played disconnected.
| jonahss wrote:
| That'd be cool! Talisman is an entertaining game.
|
| I think the reason I was able to buy these e-innk displays
| so cheap is that they're the exact size of grocery store
| shelf price tags.
| 5900nnmmmmm wrote:
| Frefire
| zethus wrote:
| Kind of perfect for a travel mahjong set where you don't have a
| table to shuffle a bunch of tiles on!
| zozbot234 wrote:
| If this was a fully hackable product, it could be used for so
| much more than just playing games. Think the stuff that e-ink
| price tags are already used for, e.g. in product retail, plus so
| many uses in the office; no need to awkwardly write things down
| on post-its or simple slips of paper, when they can instead be
| shown on a trading card with information being reliably drawn
| from a single source of truth.
| jonahss wrote:
| I'm down to make it fully hackable.
|
| The trick would be an easy interface for writing to them. They
| don't have batteries, so you need to send all the power to them
| along with information.
| __dundernull__ wrote:
| Maybe you could use a handheld scanner type device to load
| the next image and send power to each card, or an electronic
| Rolodex where you stack the cards and it flips through a set
| amount reconfiguring them. Both of those ideas would require
| some hardware development though.
|
| I forgot to add: very interesting project and amazing to see
| the fruition of your efforts!
| [deleted]
| dankwizard wrote:
| My first thought is card battler
|
| You could actually have a characters 'hitpoints' accurately
| reflected instead of having to keep track of, ala Hearthstone.
| jonahss wrote:
| yeah!
| cbreynoldson wrote:
| This is huge. Are you going to sell these as kits?
| jonahss wrote:
| Oh, that's not a bad idea. I could do a kickstarter, sell kits
| or fully-assembled ones that way. It would be about $300-$400
| for 3 cards and a base in this iteration and at low volumes.
|
| Think I should do it?
| nextaccountic wrote:
| This is too expensive though :( and more importantly, 3 cards
| is too few cards.
|
| How low you think the cost per card can go?
|
| edit: elsewhere you quoted $80 for the base and 3 cards so if
| that's your target it seems more reasonable. but 3 cards is
| also too little, maybe a kit with 5 cards is better
| bashmelek wrote:
| This is amazing! I've fantasized about doing something similar---
| what resources did you use to pick up all of those skills?
| jonahss wrote:
| I come from a web dev background, and spent the last 3 years
| running the cloud and embedded firmware teams for a 3D printer
| startup. I learned that hardware isn't so hard, once you get
| past all the mystery. My coworkers gave me tips on which tools
| to use, and helped me when I got stuck.
|
| The best advice I got was "Read the datasheet"
|
| The biggest step for me was deciding to spend money on
| experimenting. With a budget, suddenly it was fun to order
| stuff, buy tools, try things out.
|
| Rust Book was the best for learning Rust.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| I've got the same mindset with a hardware project I worked
| on. I gave myself more free rein to just buy equipment and
| tools all in the name of "the project".
| jonahss wrote:
| I spent about $5000 over two years. Not bad at all, really.
| A lot of that was registering an LLC and a Fusion360
| license.
| bckr wrote:
| I really like this and look forward to future iterations.
|
| For anyone curious, the symbol made by the contacts is the Tree
| of Life from the kabbalah
| jonahss wrote:
| Yeah, I'm going for an occult/mysticism/witchy vibe.
|
| Magic the Gathering has a monopoly on fantasy, and the
| cyberpunk genre is played out. Plus I want the inner-workings
| to be somewhat mysterious.
|
| I had a lot of fun thematically laying out the contacts. For
| example: Keter is VCC and Malchut is GND
| bckr wrote:
| > Keter is VCC and Malchut is GND
|
| Beautiful
| mdrzn wrote:
| This is insanely cool.
| riskycodes wrote:
| This is absolutely incredible. Love this technology.
| qup wrote:
| This is a really impressive project. That's an assload of new
| stuff to learn. Congrats on shipping.
| jonahss wrote:
| Thanks! Well, not "shipped" per se. Nobody's got one but me so
| far :P
| dllthomas wrote:
| More shipped than most projects!
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Love the Sefirot detail.
|
| Is that what that's supposed to be?
| jonahss wrote:
| Yup, going for a witchy occult mysticism vibe
| JetAlone wrote:
| Why are the ports for the card bays Sephirot shaped? Does this
| game's lore have some Talmudic angelology inspiration?
| jonahss wrote:
| Yes! Going for a mysterious witchy/occult vibe.
| mrtweetyhack wrote:
| cwkoss wrote:
| Super cool. Taking a crack at rules for a game using this.
|
| ---
|
| Sample game idea: CAKE DECORATION game - players have to try to
| decorate as many cakes as possible. Requires 10 cards.
|
| One card is the 'design recipe' card and never leaves the base
| station. It shows an amount of ingredients, ex. "1 cup of
| buttercream, 3 shakes of sprinkles, 4 squirts of whipped cream".
|
| Players start with either 3 blank cards or 3 random low-amount
| ingredient cards.
|
| On a players turn, they select from three cards: each card is an
| ingredient, an amount, and a modifier. So cards could be "1 shake
| of sprinkles (2x)" "2 squirts of whipped cream (+1)" "1/4 cup of
| buttercream (+1/4)" (could make variations or add other kinds of
| things that might go on a cake)
|
| The player draws a card, base station detects which card is
| missing, and the other two ingredient cards increase in amount
| based on the modifier value displayed on the card. ex. "1 shake
| of sprinkles with a 2x" will fully complete the recipe if not
| drawn for two turns (because 1 x2 x2 = 4 shakes, which is enough
| for the recipe)
|
| With 4 cards in their hand, if the player can pay for the whole
| recipe, they win the round and get a point. On win, new recipe
| appears and all cards in the winning players hand and on the base
| station get rerolled to new low-amount ingredient cards. Score
| could be displayed on the margins of the recipe card.
|
| If they cannot pay for the recipe, the player places a card back
| on the base station. And their turn is over. (Should ingredients
| be re-randomized when replaced on base station? Should that be a
| player decision whether to reroll it?)
|
| First player to decorate N cakes wins the game.
|
| ---
|
| I think something like this could make for a viable game with a
| low number of cards, but could be more fun with a greater number
| (17 ideally?) which would allow for 3 active recipe targets (+2),
| using the 4th slot for another ingredient and displaying recipe
| as a disconnected piece(s) (+1), and larger hand sizes (5 -> +4)
| to allow for more complex recipes
|
| An interesting game design question is how random you want the
| cards to be? Fair random would probably be viable, but since the
| 'deck' can know and make decisions based on the state of cards
| not connected to the base station, you could deal unfairly if
| less randomness would make the game more interesting or fun.
| jonahss wrote:
| oh my gosh, I love it! Thanks!
|
| I'm glad you kept the total card count low, that's a limiting
| factor because of their price and size.
|
| I'll try it out!
| cwkoss wrote:
| Very cool!
|
| In terms of making a game with them, I think a design where the
| pins are on the face of the card may be useful. I want to be able
| to 'draw' a card without knowing what is on it.
|
| Certainly can be useful with pins on the back (and I totally get
| how this orientation is probably more size-efficient), but I
| think front pins would be more 'playable'. Maybe a design could
| be achieved with holes that pass through all the way so it can be
| written with either orientation?
|
| Being able to 'power up' an existing card in the upwards
| orientation could be really cool for situations where you kind of
| want 'counters' applied to a portable card. Could have a base-
| station that allows you to 'add' the qualities of one card to
| another target card, or 'evolve' a pokemon, etc.
| eru wrote:
| > In terms of making a game with them, I think a design where
| the pins are on the face of the card may be useful. I want to
| be able to 'draw' a card without knowing what is on it.
|
| That would work. But you can also make that work with current
| hardware (I think): you just need a delay between pressing the
| button and the screen changing? So that the player can press
| the button, pick up the card, and five seconds later, it's
| revealed.
| jonahss wrote:
| Oh hey, that'd totally work. I wouldn't even need a timer, I
| could detect when a card is placed back onto that spot.
|
| So in a way, you could "leave" traps or powerups on spots on
| the base, and your character activates them when it lands
| there.
|
| (obligatory: 'you've activated my trap card')
| jonahss wrote:
| Ah yeah, originally I wanted the contacts to wrap around the
| edges of the card, so then you can stack them and address
| whichever one in the stack you want.
|
| Maybe I should raise the priority on that.
|
| Definitely I'm into the idea of evolving, or breeding cards
| like pokemon. Powerup or 'combine' would be cool too.
| aardvark179 wrote:
| Did you ever see a game called Drop Mix? It didn't have
| displays in the cards but did sense their position on a mat
| and react accordingly, and I think that might be a better
| interaction model. It would require that everything is really
| low power so you only need to supply power when changing the
| display.
| jonahss wrote:
| Ooh thanks, I'll check it out!
| Folcon wrote:
| This is really interesting jonahss, well done for completing it!
| Have you looked at the physical games and convention spaces?
|
| Things like DnD roleplaying games or Megagames could both use
| something like this.
|
| I'd personally be interested in both those applications, what
| kind of wireless communication can they do?
| jonahss wrote:
| Oh for sure, I'm hoping to inspire the game developer
| community. I know a lot of things using electronics have been
| tried in the past and it usually comes out as a gimmick, but I
| tried to design these to hide their electronic nature, hoping
| to enter the same spot that dice and counters inhabit.
|
| I was going to post about it on some game dev forums next, any
| suggestions of where I should post?
|
| They don't do wireless as of now, they have to sit on the
| plinth to get an update. There are options for how to add some
| form of wireless connectivity.
|
| I'd be interested in continuing the conversation, I'll send you
| an email, or email me: jonah@wyldcard.io
| metaloha wrote:
| Trading or collectible card games that have cards that modify
| themselves with play would be great here. SolForge is the example
| I'm thinking of, but I'm sure other games do it too.
| SamBam wrote:
| I was thinking trading cards too, but thinking of specifically
| trading them.
|
| I wasn't really watching the images in the demo video, so at
| first I though he was transferring one image to another. This
| made me think it would be really cool if there were exactly one
| way to get a new image on your card: put it on a device that
| swaps two cards. You'd get a new image, but they'd lose theirs.
| So you'd actually have to commit to trading.
|
| I guess that sounds a little like NFTs, but hopefully without
| the douchey scamminess.
| TylerE wrote:
| I mean CCG is kinda the original MFT scam. Look at how MtGox
| got started.
| jonahss wrote:
| And baseball cards predate that
| TylerE wrote:
| I don't see that as quite the same since they actually
| had some value when the only way to get stats was a
| newspaper
| SamBam wrote:
| How did the value of seeing those stats make a first
| edition Babe Ruth card worth hundreds of thousands of
| dollars?
|
| I mean, yes, everything has value. I can write a memo in
| an NFT that I don't want to forget. Obviously we're
| talking about the value as compared to the price.
| jonahss wrote:
| That't a neat idea. I was thinking of genetic algorithms for
| 'breeding' cards, and maybe AI image synthesis for the
| pictures?
|
| I thought it'd be so cool if all the cards from one town look
| one way, and they're different the next state over. So when
| you go on a school trip, you can pick up cards not available
| in your area.
| Semaphor wrote:
| RIP Solforge. That was my favorite digital card game before it
| crashed and burned, then resurrected and finally fizzled out.
| 8note wrote:
| It would let you make a real version of Inscryption under any
| of the different game varieties
| jonahss wrote:
| Yeah! I'm thinking a mixture of Magic the Gathering and
| Tamagotchi. Where the cards can level and grow like an RPG.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| I'm imagining someone casting a spell on another player and
| the cards in their hand change without them realizing right
| away. That would really add to the magical feeling of the
| game.
| jonahss wrote:
| So cool! I love it!
| eru wrote:
| Have a look at
| https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/194607/mystic-vale where
| cards grow during the game. It's implemented physically.
|
| > Mystic Vale uses the innovative "Card Crafting System",
| which lets you not only build your deck, but build the
| individual cards in your deck, customizing each card's
| abilities to exactly the strategy you want to follow.
|
| You would probably want to go with fewer cards. But something
| like a deck builder could work.
| jonahss wrote:
| I've got the starter set sitting at home :D Haven't played
| it yet, but wanted to check it out.
| eru wrote:
| https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/23451/space-dealer
| also has some interesting mechanic idea (with the timers)
| that you could steal for something with your setup.
| Assuming the cards or at least base station themselves
| have enough logic for a timer.
|
| That's something that goes tastefully beyond what pure
| normal playing cards can do.
| jonahss wrote:
| Thanks, I'll check that one out too.
|
| Timers are totally doable.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Out of curiosity what connectors did you use between the card and
| the plinth?
|
| Are they some sort of pogo pins?
| jonahss wrote:
| Pogo pins were too expensive, I'm (totally mis)using spring
| fingers.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Resourceful, I like it.
| O__________O wrote:
| Easily see game being game of something like these -- or
| drumroll, NFTs.
| Benjamin_Dobell wrote:
| This is absolutely awesome! I've had (terrible quality) 3-color
| e-ink displays and some associated electronics sitting in my
| office cupboard for a few years because I wanted to prototype
| this project, but I never did. I'm so glad you did this!
|
| Since I just want this to come to fruition, I'll explain what my
| intended launch strategy was. I'm a developer (just a contractor,
| not owner) of Tabletop Simulator and do some stuff in that
| community where there's an overlap between physical tabletop and
| digital. My plan was to launch a card game (largely designed) and
| the e-ink cards simultaneously via Kickstarter. However, before
| that, a digital implementation of the game on TTS. Basically as
| much as I love this idea, I couldn't see it being monetisable on
| its own unless you can bring the cost down significantly. It also
| didn't seem like a defensible business on its own. But if the
| product is a game that uses said functionality, well, that'd be
| just swell.
|
| Anyway, congrats, this is awesome!
| jonahss wrote:
| Thanks! And thanks for the tip! I may reach out to continue the
| conversation and shoot ideas back and forth if that's okay :)
| Benjamin_Dobell wrote:
| Sure. Go for it. Can grab my contact a variety of ways,
| otherwise. hn@b.dobell.email
| Garlef wrote:
| Maybe make it an NFT based CCG and hardcode a transaction fee
| of 5% to make money on the secondary market.
| Perez418 wrote:
| Great work, this is awesome. I'd love to connect and hear about
| your journey. I've always wanted to make a board game.
| jonahss wrote:
| Love to! Email me? jonah@wyldcard.io
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| Off topic, but where are you getting e-ink display from. I could
| think of lot of usage for them if they don't require any refresh
| or power and is available for $10.
| jonahss wrote:
| Oh, the screen alone is less than $10.
|
| Bought off Alibaba, I think they're so cheap because they're
| designed for grocery store shelf price tags.
|
| Good Display GDEW029T5D
| jlpom wrote:
| This may be useful to generate random charactersistics / powers /
| hit's health cost (in case of a character card) or text for event
| based cards.
| junon wrote:
| Damn, impressive OP. This looks really nice. The design of
| everything is awesome.
| jonahss wrote:
| Thanks!
| isthisthingon99 wrote:
| Why not just use the phone as a virtual hand of cards?
| ihappentobe wrote:
| There are so many wonderful applications of this! I am always
| interested in tabletop card games, but I don't want to manage
| running calculations for things like my hp, or current stat
| buffs. Something like this could open up complex interactions and
| game state, without burdening the player.
| blindseer wrote:
| If you could put even a single button on the "card" itself, then
| it'll open up a whole layer of game design.
|
| This isn't an actual game, but I'm thinking it would be great to
| pick a card face up that's "red" and be able to make a decision
| to turn it into "cyan". Others could pick "green" and "blue" face
| up, but can click a button to turn it to something else, and then
| the game resolves itself when everyone reveals it. Like if
| everyone can discuss and if everyone reveals the primary colors
| everyone wins.
|
| I'm sure there's interesting game mechanics you can come up with
| when you give a decision to the player.
|
| Additionally, I think this could make an interesting programmable
| suite of games. You don't have to sell just one game.
| jonahss wrote:
| Agree on the suite of games, just like a deck of cards :)
|
| Ah, the cards have buttons next to them on the base. I figured
| they could display icons on the card next to each button (each
| spot on the base has 3 right now). I call it the 'ATM' style
| UX.
| bee_rider wrote:
| A little switch on the card might be useful though.
| Especially if it can be set/unset by the base station (might
| be getting mechanically complicated).
|
| For example, perhaps a game that has a general flow of:
| players have their cards, there's a central base station, but
| most play is not digital. Maybe they somehow battle their
| cards, they can go around and battle people as much as they
| want, but their "moves" are tied to the switches and when
| they use a move, they flick the switch off (wonder if it
| could be made to actually get stuck in position, to provide
| physical feedback indicating that the moves are "used up.")
|
| Then, when they want, they go back to the Pokecenter -- I
| mean, oops, base station. It recharges their abilities
| (unflips the switches), maybe runs some "level up" logic, etc
| etc.
|
| I mean, this quickly started to stretch credibility as far as
| the mechanism goes, but the idea of giving the players/game
| designers a couple bits of state that they can toggle away
| from the base station might allow more asynchronous type
| games.
| jonahss wrote:
| Whoah, interesting. I might noodle on that idea a bit.
| Cerium wrote:
| Those are commonly called "soft keys" [0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_key
| jonahss wrote:
| Ah! Finally, I have a word for it!
| spoils19 wrote:
| I have a few qualms with this project:
|
| 1. For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself
| quite trivially by getting a 3D printer, designing and printing
| your own cards, and making your own circuit boards. From Windows
| or Mac, you can then just use whatever you made on Linux.
|
| 2. It doesn't actually replace physical cards. Most people I know
| e-mail cards to themselves or host them somewhere online to be
| able to play games, but they still carry physical cards in case
| there are connectivity problems. This does not solve the
| connectivity issue.
|
| 3. It does not seem very "viral" or income-generating. I know
| this is premature at this point, but without charging users for
| the service (not buying, but also playing with the cards), is it
| reasonable to expect to make money off of this?
| muhehe wrote:
| Can someone recommend some cheap ESL (as mentioned by other
| comments), that's easily hackable (as in a push an image to it
| without much troubles)? Many need proprietary base stations, some
| use NFC, but I'm looking for something with Bluetooth or ZigBee
| (or similar). Basically I want simple frame that would update
| with calendar events (or something), so NFC is not suitable and I
| don't want to buy expensive base station with lots of extra cruft
| (especially for one tag)
| jtolmar wrote:
| This is very neat!
|
| I don't think traditional board games would be interested unless
| you got the price down very very low ($2/unit or less).
|
| I think you could make something happen if you marketed and
| packaged it as a "board game console" though. Like a fixed number
| of cards and larger boards, plus some sort of base station or
| phone app that'll flash everything to the starting state of a
| game of your choice. Then people buy new games digitally from
| you, same as a modern video game console.
|
| (I'd be interested in the game dev facing API and writing some
| games for such a thing, so let me know if you're pursuing it and
| we can swap contact info.)
| jonahss wrote:
| Yes please! Email me? jonah@wyldcard.io
| jonwest wrote:
| That's a great idea! Rather than selling it as a single game,
| sell it as a platform that people can build on top of. There's
| a pile of potential in that.
| chasebank wrote:
| Sweet product! I always thought pet name tags would be a
| fantastic application for this!
| nixpulvis wrote:
| Can I make a pet tag for my NTF charizard?
| TylerE wrote:
| I'm confused. Do you rename your dog every week?
| chasebank wrote:
| Ha! No, but you can imagine people like to personalize
| everything. MLB season, perhaps you'd like to have a Dodgers
| themed tag, NFL switch to the... Raiders? Change of address?
| Phone number changes? People are creative. I'm sure they'd
| use it in ways you can't imagine.
| kurisufag wrote:
| perhaps he has a high turnover rate?
| dllthomas wrote:
| I have to go cry now.
| Tworthers wrote:
| Seems like a bit of a solution waiting for a problem.
|
| Given the current limitations in the system I would go with a
| monster battler game with a starter set of just 2 cards which
| would be yours and your opponents monster and then add a
| selection of power-ups/abilities these could be much cheaper
| components that could be played on the base station for an
| effect. These could be swipe cards or even just resistors
| basically anything that can be measured by the base station. With
| this hybrid system you could get the cool evolving over time
| monsters as well as lots of pieces to play with. Lots of scope
| for cool and hidden interactions. (Ideas taken from digimon
| tamers)
| jonahss wrote:
| Ooh yes!!
| redorb wrote:
| Honestly 2 of these per person and 5 for the turn,flop,river -
| and we have a texas holdem game without cards and shuffling -
| just chips...
|
| so a 6 person game, 12 of these + 5 ~ 17 of these ~ $450 ~ about
| the cost of real nice chips and cards...
| eru wrote:
| Well, you could also 'just' put an iPad in the middle of the
| table for public game state (like turn, flop river in Poker),
| and everyone has their smartphone for private game state (like
| your hand in Poker) and you can play most boardgames quite
| nicely.
|
| Instead of the iPad in the middle you could use a TV screen,
| too, but then you can't directly interact with that via touch
| screen.
| jonahss wrote:
| hey, yeah! The commenter about the iPad is also right, but,
| there's something satisfying about the physicality.
|
| That said, you can play poker with a deck of cards and a pile
| of beans.
|
| But yeah, I'm looking for something somewhere between Poker and
| an iPad.
|
| See my other comment, a lot of interesting mechanics are
| available.
|
| I'd sell you a poker set if you want to impress your friends :D
| Email me: jonah@wyldcard.io
| dalbasal wrote:
| One card pp might be adequate for the hold cards. It's easy
| enough to represent two cards on one little screen. Feels
| tidier to me.
|
| For holdem, you ideally need a plinth that can "deal" cards
| upside down. Maybe it's more general to have a plinth that can
| update cards in either orientation.
|
| Congrants jonahss on your art. Thanks for sharing.
| _osorin_ wrote:
| Love it! I suppose it's possible to display animations right? If
| so it'd be very cool to play Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magic with animated
| cards. Endless possibilities.
| schwartzworld wrote:
| Update speeds are going to be too slow for meaningful
| animations. Also, the lifecycle of the display is measured in
| screen refreshes, so having to flash through the animation
| frames would shorten the life for sure.
| jonahss wrote:
| Animations seem to be a tricky prospect for e-ink displays.
| Definitely possible, but may require more expensive hardware?
| I've seen pebble watches and remarkable tablets which can do it
| amazingly well, maybe I just need better firmware...
| culanuchachamim wrote:
| Very nice! Congratulations!
|
| From a long time ago I'm trying to build a e-ink magnet for the
| fridge with relevant updated relevant information about some
| school programs.
|
| But I haven't really found a cheap e-ink display.
|
| Edit: I see that you answered it:
|
| >Bought off Alibaba, I think they're so cheap because they're
| designed for grocery store shelf price tags. Good Display
| GDEW029T5D Where do you get yours for $20?
| realslimjd wrote:
| You can get displays from Adafruit for $22 [0] or from
| Waveshare [1] even cheaper if you're willing to do a little
| more work. I've used both and they're both pretty nice.
|
| [0] https://www.adafruit.com/product/4777
|
| [1] https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper.htm
| jonahss wrote:
| Oh the display is only like $4-6 on Alibaba. After you add the
| resin and my custom PCB it's like $20 at the low scale I'm
| purchasing.
| jonahss wrote:
| Actually, the cards already have magnets in em, so these would
| work on your fridge already.
|
| But you need a base station to update them, and a way to
| connect to your network to upload images/text.....
|
| If you email me your address, I'd be happy to send you one for
| your fridge :D
| xrd wrote:
| This is really cool.
|
| When the pandemic started, it seemed like there was an
| opportunity to build games where you still are participating in
| physical space, but certain aspects of the game are shared across
| a network and then transform back into something that occupies
| physical space. I thought that could be something like AR but
| your cards open up other doors.
|
| It would be fascinating to have a deck that shares cards in
| multiple distant places, with people playing the game from far
| away but connected through your cards.
|
| Adding an element of time delay to the synchronization of the
| deck would be fun too.
|
| Please provide a way to follow along on your progress, like a
| mailing list! Such a great project.
| 8note wrote:
| My friends and I did that with gloomhaven.
|
| You have your local deck and player, and then the actual board
| is on TTS
| jonahss wrote:
| Oh! I've got a mailing list signup on wyldcard.io !
|
| Should have added that call-to-action to my post; *facepalm
|
| Your idea is kind of like the hologram chess that Ed plays in
| Cowboy Bebop
| jonahss wrote:
| added mailing list signup to the bottom of that post, thanks.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| I applaud that you made a thing, and it's cool that you learned
| Rust, wrote a driver, did CAD, 3D printed... the works! It's far
| more than I can do.
|
| But let's say all trading cards in the world were like the e-ink
| ones you invented, and then somebody came along and said, "I
| printed 52 trading cards on glossy card paper, in vibrant color.
| They are 1 millimeter thick, weigh practically nothing, and cost
| about a penny each to produce. The drawback is you have to
| shuffle them in your hands".
|
| The paper version would be a massive upgrade in almost every
| sense.
| voiper1 wrote:
| The e-ink screen changes much more than that:
|
| >The cards also contain a memory chip, so they can store stats,
| moves, and keep changes and status effects from one game to the
| next. ... >I think these cards have the potential to unlock a
| new paradigm of tabletop gaming. They are rooted in the
| physical world, but can implement complex game mechanics run by
| a computer.
|
| e.g. Magic The Gathering has a TON of modifiers - +1/1
| counters, etc - and this could live-update and keep track of
| those in a physical/offline setting.
| stefanmichael wrote:
| I think this is a really good idea. Just imagine being able to
| open source rulesets and cards and being able to load them into
| your deck on a moments notice, and your friends being able to do
| the same. I hope that you make this work, I would easily pay 200$
| for a deck if there were a few games to choose from and a
| platform to build my own rulesets and cards and load them into
| the physical cards.
| knlje wrote:
| Really interesting idea and I can see many game mechanics that
| benefit. What do you think is the minimum thickness using any
| technology available?
| jonahss wrote:
| Oh, if you were willing to spend $50 a card, I think you can
| get them down to the thickness of a credit card.
|
| If you are willing to spend even more, you could bundle the
| card circuitry with the silicon embedded in the e-ink display
| already, and there are FPC e-ink displays. So it'd be about
| half the thickness of a credit card and flexible!
|
| (at that point, we'd need to change the plinth interface,
| probably go for NFC like people are mentioning in these
| comments)
| datene wrote:
| Could be a really cool way to play complex "choose your own
| adventure" games. Like "Hand of Fate" for example, you'd only
| need three or four cards. Could even do it with two. A game like
| "Reigns" you could even play with a single card
| Euphorbium wrote:
| This could actually replace mtg, which has run its course, jumped
| the shark and is on its deathbed.
| JetAlone wrote:
| I haven't played MTG in ages, and decided to check out their
| website to see what the new cards are like. Aoparently there's
| a new mechanic "More than meets the eye" letting you cast
| Optimus Prime for one less mana...? Apparently it's just, _part
| of the Brothers ' War set now_. It's like those fortnite ads I
| see for Naruto or Goku being in the game now. Games just aren't
| allowed to have their own aesthetic anymore because crossover
| deals are apparently too profitable. Totally felt off.
| jonahss wrote:
| I feel ya.
| jonahss wrote:
| I so agree! MTG is desperately scraping the bottom of barrel
| for new mechanics.
|
| That's why I wanted to get this concept out there, to inspire
| the next thing.
| pjerem wrote:
| e-Ink is the coolest tech, edition 789 237
|
| Btw that's a great project OP. I really love it.
| Scalene2 wrote:
| I think marketing this more like a console and less like a game
| might be the way to go.
| jonahss wrote:
| You may be right, a few other commenters said something
| similar.
| jrpt wrote:
| What would a board game made with these cost, $100?
| jonahss wrote:
| I'm trying to target $80 for a "starter set" of the base and 3
| cards. I think this is doable at real scale.
| squokko wrote:
| I know you probably have nothing besides the display in the card
| to keep it small, but that probably increases the number of Pogo
| pins you need if you need to run the entire display protocol over
| Pogo. If you had a demultiplexer in the card you could use only 3
| Pogo pins.
| jonahss wrote:
| I wish it were pogo pins, but they're so expensive. I'm using
| spring fingers and they're surprisingly reliably and durable
| (so far).
|
| I'll look into using a demultiplexer, because maybe then I
| could afford the pogo pins.
| squokko wrote:
| Look into Dallas Semiconductor 1-Wire. Could do it with 2
| pogos.
| amelius wrote:
| I bet magicians would love such cards.
| CrypticShift wrote:
| I love it ! you should make a color version [1] !
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31191850
| jonahss wrote:
| Ha! I'm really trying to keep the price down, these are the
| cheapest screens I could find and they're still ~$4.
|
| If they took off and were produced at scale, we could
| definitely do color, and make them thinner and flexible as
| well!
| ranting-moth wrote:
| Where do you get the screens from? Brand/type?
| jonahss wrote:
| Bought off Alibaba, I think they're so cheap because
| they're designed for grocery store shelf price tags.
|
| Good Display GDEW029T5D
| mmkos wrote:
| I can see this unlocking a new class of card games. Instead of
| buying a different set of cards, players would only need to buy
| one set of these e-ink cards, which could be used across a
| completely new marketplace of card games. They have the benefit
| of being more interactive and thus more immersive/engaging,
| albeit they seem a little unwieldy (the form factor could improve
| to make them thinner).
|
| Can you file a patent for something like this? If you can, then I
| would explore that option.
| vegasje wrote:
| This is incredible! I'm so excited to see what you do with this
| in the future.
|
| May I ask what e-ink displays you're using?
| jonahss wrote:
| Bought off Alibaba, I think they're so cheap because they're
| designed for grocery store shelf price tags.
|
| Good Display GDEW029T5D
| netman21 wrote:
| Looks awesome. I just want to use it to play three card monte.
| jonahss wrote:
| Oh hey, I've been looking for small demo games to implement on
| it, before jumping into a massive RPG or something. I can try
| implementing that.
| heleninboodler wrote:
| Add an accelerometer to the card so it can wait until it's
| face down to swap the picture. :)
| jonahss wrote:
| Hm, that'd work with the other comment about putting
| contacts on both sides.
|
| The cards themselves are completely passive and unpowered.
| Base does everything.
| rychco wrote:
| This is incredibly cool & inspiring. How familiar were you with
| Rust before starting? Any resources you can share for programming
| the circuit boards you use? I've had some embedded Rust ideas
| myself but am not sure where to start!
| jonahss wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| I knew no Rust at all before starting. Yikes was it frustrating
| to learn a completely new language. I had to go through the
| whole rust book, not skipping any basics, in order to get
| there. I also assigned myself a homework assignment to get used
| to the concepts. See the other blog post on wyldcard.io/blog
|
| Honestly, by the time I got to the finished prototype, I could
| have just done the whole thing with Javascript. Although
| intending to use an SDM32F7 for the finished project, it was
| really convenient to use a raspberry pi for development. Using
| VS Code, I could program remotely on the pi from my Mac and
| iterate really quickly.
|
| the awesome-embedded-rust[1] repo was very helpful.
|
| TBH, embedded rust really feels like it's not ready for
| hobbysists who aren't embedded experts already.
|
| [1] https://github.com/rust-embedded/awesome-embedded-rust
| riatin wrote:
| Amazing project - I love the art on the "cards"! Who was your
| artist or where did you source it from?
| jonahss wrote:
| Ahh... I used Stable Diffusion!
| joshvm wrote:
| I think this is one of the most impressive parts to me. I
| would be comfortable approaching the embedded and mechanical
| aspects of this project, but I don't have the drawing skills.
| Being able to generate decent card designs for a demo deck is
| awesome.
| jonahss wrote:
| The whole game development community is embracing ai image
| synthesis, especially for prototyping.
| riskable wrote:
| I read a lot of these comments and people are thinking about
| _traditional_ card games and electronic games of the past that
| are kinda sorta similar (but not really). They 're missing the
| ONE HUGE ADVANTAGE of epaper displays: _They don 't need power_.
|
| It seems the big assumption everyone's making in the comments is
| that the displays will just _stay there_ on the electronics box.
| The reality is that you can refresh the display _and then take it
| back into your hand_. You could even trade it with other players
| _while disconnected_.
|
| Furthermore, these displays can be refreshed _hundreds of
| thousands of times_ (some can do millions) and therefore can last
| a _lot_ longer than regular cards. They 're also _stupidly cheap_
| in bulk! Example of a cheap NFC-powered one:
| https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256803070283516.html (not the
| best example since it's kinda thick but you can get much thinner
| ones around the same price).
|
| You just need to come up with some example games that take
| advantage of the trading dynamic. Also, if you're up to the
| engineering it would be neat if you could use one epaper "card"
| to modify another one. Much like how in many card games you can
| add an "enchantment" or "modifier" style card on top of another
| to give it additional capabilities.
|
| I also recommend adding a cover or shutter to the cards so that
| they can be refreshed without the other players seeing what it
| is. Once the card is back in your hand you can move the cover out
| of the way and see what you got. Alternatively, you could make it
| so that the cards refresh their displays upside down. That way
| you can refresh it without anyone seeing what's there.
| jonahss wrote:
| Yeah!
|
| A few comments have mentioned being able to refresh the cards
| while upside down, or covered by another. Maybe my next
| prototype can put the contacts on the edges and have them wrap
| around or pass through, so they work on both sides.
|
| That will be a bit more complexity for fabrication, but sounds
| like a fun project.
| gigaflop wrote:
| Would some kind of toaster-slot mechanism work? Contacts
| could be on the bottom edge, and with the right shape, you
| could have them extend a few millimeters onto the front and
| back, to get contacts on 3 sides.
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