[HN Gopher] Show HN: Digital player board for Terraforming Mars
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Show HN: Digital player board for Terraforming Mars
My cousin and I love the Terraforming Mars board game. But we'd
often get overly excited and knock our pieces off of our boards,
losing track of our progress. So I digitised it. It comes with a
few cool features like resource conversions (e.g. converting plants
to greenery), production phase, offline, mobile-friendly and keeps
track of the history using the browser history itself. Sharing this
here in case there are any other TM fans that could also find some
use in this :)
Author : sakerbos
Score : 64 points
Date : 2024-05-19 12:00 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (terraforming-mars-player-board.netlify.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (terraforming-mars-player-board.netlify.app)
| thomascountz wrote:
| Thanks for making this! Have you considered open sourcing this?
| sakerbos wrote:
| Pleasure! Yes it is open source:
| https://github.com/shaunsaker/tm-player-board. I'll add a link
| to the home page too :)
| can16358p wrote:
| I can't figure out how to play. I'm on a screen where there are -
| + buttons for various properties with a "Production Phase"
| button.
|
| Whatever I do, nothing happens when I tap that button.
| eigenket wrote:
| It looks like you have to hold down the production phase button
| for a bit
| acomjean wrote:
| I don't think this is a standalone version. It's a helper tool
| to replace all the pieces of the board game.
| pimlottc wrote:
| It's not obvious, but you have to hold down the button, even
| after the "progress bar" fills up.
| chromatin wrote:
| Beware: takes over the browser history rather than refreshing in-
| place
| sakerbos wrote:
| Yip! Should just be for the current tab though so that we can
| forward/back through our score history. If that's not the case,
| please let me know :)
| Vilkku wrote:
| Yes, but it still produces a bunch of entries in the actual
| browser history
| sakerbos wrote:
| Ah right, my bad, that's super annoying. I'll remove that
| functionality for now.
| throwaway89201 wrote:
| Please take user feedback with a grain of salt. Being
| able to navigate through board versions is a very useful
| feature. An alternative for the browser history API is
| not immediately obvious. Many other web apps work in this
| way.
| neuah wrote:
| Neat idea! However one issue with everyone using a digital
| tracker is that you can't then easily see what other player
| resource stockpiles and production levels are. Perhaps at the
| very top of the screen you could have a compact summary view that
| people can leave their screen at when not making adjustments,
| allowing other players to see the stats at a glance.
| fifilura wrote:
| That is actually a good pet project. Find the most suitable
| hardware for a boardgame setting.
|
| Screen technology/form factor.
|
| Maybe there is even a market for hybrid kind of games?
|
| (Right, I guess monopoly with the calculator flopped. But never
| give up!)
| sakerbos wrote:
| Thank you! Yes this had actually become a problem for us but it
| weirdly ended up adding an interesting new dynamic to the game.
| So much so that we'd actively try and hide our resources from
| each other and had to try to keep track of each other's
| resources in our heads (the irony in adding a digital
| calculator only to increase cognitive load is very real). But
| yeah, I can imagine not everyone would want to play like this
| and a compact summary could solve that issue. I shall see what
| I can do :)
| collinmcnulty wrote:
| Mobile version seems to have odd scrolling behavior where I reach
| the bottom of the "page" too early.
|
| Cool idea
| sakerbos wrote:
| Are you on Android by any chance? if so, I think that would be
| Android's weird browser bar hiding behaviour when you get to
| the bottom of the page, or just something weird I overlooked.
| Could probs add some padding to avoid that which I shall do,
| thanks!
| stevage wrote:
| "android's weird browser behaviour?"
|
| Android is the dominant platform. Whatever it does isn't
| weird, it's standard.
|
| Also, do you mean Chrome? There are other browsers.
| sbarre wrote:
| I would consider including some context on the homepage that this
| supports a board game and isn't a standalone game..
|
| Great work too!
| sakerbos wrote:
| Good idea thanks!
| PeterisP wrote:
| Knocking the trackers off is a real issue, however, a great non-
| digital solution to that is the wooden laser-cut boards with
| physical notches for the cube slots - e.g.
| https://github.com/cophus/terraforming-mars-board and the many
| other options if you google or search etsy.
| failrate wrote:
| I tried to convince the publisher to add cutouts for pieces
| when they went to reprint an even more deluxe version, but they
| were unconvinced.
| timvdalen wrote:
| The Ares Expedition version of the game does have double-
| layered player boards, works really well!
|
| (I'm not sure how different the player board is to the main
| game, maybe you could use that?)
| ycombinete wrote:
| Probably because they sell them as luxury addons.
|
| https://fryxgames.se/product/tm-dual-layer-player-
| boards-5-p...
| erikerikson wrote:
| My cat sees your notches and raises a paw.
| RangerScience wrote:
| Neat! Also, I'mma just gonna leave this here...
|
| https://terraforming-mars.herokuapp.com/
|
| (no, not something I've made)
| sakerbos wrote:
| Thanks! Looks like they've recreated the entire game, it even
| has decent docs. Will defs give it a go!
| aloisdg wrote:
| I contributed a bit to this projet. Fun maintainer. I stopped
| when I learned that Terraforming Mars author's was transphobic
| and racist.
|
| If you like TM, try Wingspan and Ark Nova!
| themoonisachees wrote:
| Very nice! This could easily be adapted to the Ares Expedition
| expansion/other game thing:
|
| Remove production of titanium and steel, remove energy entirely.
| Players start at 5 TL and 0 production everywhere. They can also
| produce cards, maybe add a pop-up like "draw x cards now!"
| Whenever production happens?
| sakerbos wrote:
| Thanks! Yeah totally, it should be fairly easy to do. Could
| select the game variant after selecting a new game. I'll see
| what I can do :)
| szundi wrote:
| How much does it cost to be hot on HN?
| sakerbos wrote:
| Apparently just a side project that was used by only two people
| in the world :)
| fsiefken wrote:
| Nice, there's also a Vassal Terraforming Mars module. Vassal
| provides a client-server shared board game state for lots of
| boardgame modules you can also make yourself. It's java based.
| https://vassalengine.org/wiki/Module:Terraforming_Mars
| Vilkku wrote:
| Bottom of the page is hidden behind the production phase on
| Firefox on Android: https://ibb.co/6PYz5WB
| sakerbos wrote:
| Thanks for this, I'll fix it asap :)
| fsnowdin wrote:
| I thought this was like that one Twilight Struggle companion
| digital board that was pretty much the physical board but digital
| (which allows you to play with just the cards) since this covers
| just the resources mat. Still neato though.
| Narishma wrote:
| It's not that mobile-friendly with the battery-draining
| background animation.
| empiko wrote:
| You could add logs with timestamps. It is common that players
| forgot what actions they did, e.g. "Did I forgot to add a TR for
| this ocean?"
| neals wrote:
| Love this game! Anybody know of / have experience with any
| expansions?
| mirashii wrote:
| Before going to expansions, I'd strongly suggest playing Ares
| Expedition, the card game. It keeps 90% of the feel of the
| board game but speeds the game up substantially and gives a lot
| more opportunity to make it through the deck.
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(page generated 2024-05-19 23:01 UTC)