[HN Gopher] Trading cards with e-ink displays (2023)
___________________________________________________________________
Trading cards with e-ink displays (2023)
Author : edye
Score : 315 points
Date : 2024-06-17 13:04 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (howtoware.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (howtoware.co)
| neilv wrote:
| Neat project. As an aside, the following is a great creative
| starting point insight:
|
| > _At one point, I grabbed a stack of iPhones and splayed them
| out like a hand of cards. I had the idea that, if each phone
| displayed the image of a card, you could shuffle the deck just by
| pressing a button, no physical movement necessary._
|
| But it could also lead to funny "tech thinking". For example:
| "Imagine we could take the messy hassle out of human conception,
| and monetize it as an app!"
| germinalphrase wrote:
| $5 to best all your friends in this hand! $20 to win all night
| long!
| asicsp wrote:
| See also:
|
| Show HN: Trading cards made with e-ink displays
| https://www.wyldcard.io/blog/introducing-wyldcard
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33795296 _(1149 points | Nov
| 30, 2022 | 291 comments)_
| agentultra wrote:
| Is that the tree of life printed on the PCBs?
| edye wrote:
| I should have asked if he was influenced by Evangelion, because
| I'm a fan of the show.
| metadaemon wrote:
| I'd imagine this is a direct Kabbalah reference since they
| goes on to talk about implementing Tarot.
| M4rkJW wrote:
| Definitely looks like one and now I really want to know why.
| lagniappe wrote:
| I don't have much business being in this thread but I wanted to
| add that I appreciate the inclusion of lesser-seen details like
| the sacred geometry in the board.
| toyg wrote:
| I personally find it creepy and offputting. I guess to each its
| own.
| parthianshotgun wrote:
| Why? Is it because it's esoteric, not meant for all?
| toyg wrote:
| It doesn't really matter why, does it?
| 93po wrote:
| i mean you're publicly stating your opinion in a comments
| section, which is designed for conversation. it's sort of
| weird to state something so strongly and then not want to
| elaborate more on why.
| parthianshotgun wrote:
| It matters for me to understand you, the other. I'm
| trying :p
| 93po wrote:
| i would guess it's probably an annoyance with people
| assigning significance to the insignificant and the belief
| they've discovered something profound when it's
| intellectually pretty shallow. i can understand an eye roll
| at people who try to answer really complex questions about
| life and existence with something like pretty patterns, but
| i personally choose to be fine with people finding the
| things that help them understand the world in their own
| way. we're not all meant to be Aristotle.
| parthianshotgun wrote:
| Yes, I'm more in the continental mindset myself. To
| paraphrase Gene Wolfe, the meaning of life is life
| itself, not as a means to an end, but an end unto itself.
| Which is why I was originally curious about the why,
| assuming OP didn't take my curiosity as bad faith
| cjameskeller wrote:
| I am reminded of Paul Kingsnorth's _The Basilisk_:
| https://emergencemagazine.org/fiction/the-basilisk/ (Quick
| read, styled after the Screwtape Letters, but about the
| internet)
|
| Some quotes:
|
| >"Something else is happening. It is as if these screens are
| a portal to something. As if something is using them to get
| to us: to change, to remake, to control us."
|
| ...
|
| >"There is a reason they call it "the web," Bridget; a reason
| they call it "the net." It is a trap. We have built the means
| of our own enslavement, at their suggestion. Now we are all
| carrying a portal to the underworld in our back pockets and
| handbags, and we are entirely unguarded against whoever
| chooses to step through it."
|
| ...
|
| >"It's not demons messing with our minds, Uncle. It's
| fairies. ... They steal children, Uncle! That was what
| grabbed me. ... The fairies would steal babies and leave
| fairies in their places, and there would always be something
| strange, something lost about them."
|
| ...
|
| >"That's the thing, you see, Uncle. Fairies aren't like
| demons. They're not evil. They mind their own business, and
| they usually leave people alone unless they're offended. But
| we've gone and cut down their thorns on a global scale. So
| what if they're driving us mad on the same scale?"
|
| ...
|
| >"If this is the revenge of the nature spirits, Uncle, maybe
| they're winning--and maybe they should be. We've got power
| way beyond our ability to control it. We can't even control
| ourselves. Maybe it's better this way."
| j0hnyl wrote:
| This is so cool and potentially has a nice overlap with badge
| life enthusiasts.
|
| For the uninitiated:
|
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/vbne9a/a-history-of-badgelif...
| Zelphyr wrote:
| I really hope the Bay Area keeps this attitude, and that other
| places adopt it if they haven't already:
|
| "I live in the Bay Area. I'm biased, but this place is full of
| awesome engineers building things and you can just walk up to
| them and ask them to explain everything about their project and
| they will."
|
| Edit to add: It reminds me of Jobs calling up Bill Hewlett at his
| home as a teen and asking him questions, and Hewlett not only
| answered them but gave him a summer job.
| vermarish wrote:
| I don't know. I think the younger 20-somethings all have this
| same kind of dream, but the older people get, the more
| comfortable they seem hiding behind NDAs at FAANGs or staying
| in "stealth mode." They really don't owe anyone anything.
|
| Disclaimer: I'm one of the younger 20-somethings.
| bpiche wrote:
| I live here too. I'm biased, but 1) this place is not full of
| awesome engineers, it's mostly full of overworked contractors
| and newbies with eighth grader syndrome. And 2) you can't just
| walk up to them and ask them to explain everything about their
| project. That's a huge security issue and if it were true it
| would be a lot easier to social engineer places today. Not to
| say that it isn't possible, but this comment paints an
| unproductive, idealized, and inaccurate view of the bay.
|
| edit: it is a very cool e-ink project, and there are some cool
| communities like the maker faire. Reflexively reacting against
| the generalization
| jonahss wrote:
| I didn't mean people who work at Uber explaining how their
| load-balancing works.
|
| I meant walking up to a super cool music visualization at an
| outdoor art festival and they guy there happily explaining to
| me their entire system built out of a node flow diagram
| implemented on Max but adapted to visual graphics using a
| plugin called Vsynth.
|
| Or going over to a friend's house and seeing their modular
| synth system and they happily explain to you how it works for
| an hour.
|
| Just this weekend I met an amazing engineer with a street-
| legal steam-powered motorcycle which he patiently explained
| for an hour.
| bpiche wrote:
| Yeah that makes sense. Got me wondering to what extent it's
| possible with something like load balancing too. Maybe
| meetups don't have to corner the market on that kind of
| info sharing
| doubloon wrote:
| Whay do u mean i called Elon he said sure cmon over we smoked
| weed and made a cool double decker car and drove it to Tim
| Apples house and he hired me to work on m5 chip. its still
| like that.
| fortran77 wrote:
| What is "eighth grader syndrome?"
| xipho wrote:
| Nice. I've thought of various similar applications (probably
| because I saw such somewhere). For example conferences require
| lanyards with passes attached. Most contract with some company to
| handle all their creation, then also require you (more or less)
| to use their app to get a schedule, etc. Why not create a
| generic, re-usable pass (like OP) that attaches to your lanyard,
| has some basic features at a glance (schedule, your favorite
| emoji), and could of course be used to track or facilitate flash-
| gatherings as needed. IIRC defcom did something like this, I'm
| thinking more generic.
|
| I think scientists I know would snap something like this up so
| they didn't add to their kilograms of plastic pass/lanyard waste
| (if conferences can be roped in to adopting them). Level them up
| with rare editions (conference awardees could be given titanium
| frames to swap over), etc. and you have a playing-card-esque
| market for professionals who go to 3-5 conferences a year, and a
| flashy feature that conferences would like to offer, etc.
|
| Another use- digital cards that can help care practitioners
| communicate with their audience: "can you hand me the cards the
| tell me how you feel?" (cards that describe your symptoms).
| Customize those pictures, icons, graphics on the card as needed,
| on the fly, per patient type, etc. Think everything from kids
| bullied at school to medical and law offices where communication
| can be a barrier.
| bluGill wrote:
| Is this really better than physical cards? There are
| electronics here, and electronics tend to go obsolete fast. If
| the old one is obsolete in a year or two there was so little
| reuse that everyone is better off with old fashioned
| paper/plastic. You would have to commit to not coming up with a
| better model every year - but if you do that someone else will
| compete by coming out with the better model instead. Which is
| to say you can't win.
| xipho wrote:
| I completely agree. Thinking more along the lines of- whether
| or not something is better may not drive a market, people
| loved Tamagotchi but vanilla stuffed animals last
| generations... but Tamagotchi still work for many.
|
| Something that has dirt simple utility (you have a visual que
| that can be rotated that indicates to staff processing
| thousands of people an hour that you're payed) without
| requiring a phone that can do all that and more maybe be
| generically useful.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| If you try to sell something on the basis of "so they
| didn't add to their kilograms of plastic pass/lanyard
| waste", the question of whether it actually saves anything
| is clearly relevant.
|
| I'm also confused why you think receipt that can be rotated
| is somehow a difference maker, have you ever encountered on
| that can't be?
| xipho wrote:
| > question of whether it actually saves anything is
| clearly relevant
|
| Agreed. Just like re-usable plastic bags are now possibly
| worse than 1-time use unless they themselves are used
| many times.
|
| > A receipt that can be rotated is somehow a difference
| maker
|
| This is the concept behind metro bus services in many
| places I've experienced, the driver glances at the color
| of your ticket and knows it's nature and whether you can
| keep riding or not. Don't know if that's a difference
| maker for conferences.
|
| Looking for "badgers", or a syncronized icon instead of
| time/date etc., possibly coming at you in many different
| forms (phone, paper forms, etc) seems like it might be
| quicker. It might also cut down on people losing their
| badges (they are more valuable to them) and requiring re-
| prints ... which happens a lot, this is grasping.
| oopsallmagic wrote:
| Don't forget the e-waste aspect... You can recycle paper
| easily, but several rare earth metals and e-ink all mashed
| together are much more difficult, and require a lot more
| energy to produce.
|
| Honestly, this is exactly the kind of overconsumption that
| got us to where we are. I don't care what someone's favorite
| emoji is, quite frankly, and I don't think it's worth strip
| mining the Congo just to do a Neat Thing. Use a printer, do
| it for the sake of your grandchildren's future.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| And then place a few crayons at the venue if you care about
| the smiley.
| xipho wrote:
| It's not just paper, perhaps at least run the numbers?
| Though I completely agree it's likely more
| environmentally costly.
|
| My initial thought process evolved from coming back from
| yet another conference, and tossing yet another lanyard
| (colorful plastic, metal clips) and plastic covering into
| the garbage. I have done this probably around 50 times.
| So think replacing 100-200 of these for an academic, far,
| far more for con staff, sales vendors, etc.
| foobarchu wrote:
| One of the hurdles you would have to overcome is
| convincing all of the conferences to go with these
| reusable e-ink badges.
|
| Let's say all the organizers are convinced...why not use
| a common, non-electronic badge instead, since you have
| everyone agreeing to a common standard anyway? Perhaps
| something simple where the conference organizers can
| print out a paper slip (recycled paper even!) that you
| insert so they get some customization.
| xipho wrote:
| > One of the hurdles you would have to overcome is
| convincing all of the conferences to go with these
| reusable e-ink badges.
|
| This is the only thing that matters buisiness-wise, its
| what I'd expect people who frequent HN do routinely,
| pitch. It doesn't have to be logical, fun,
| environmentally friendly, it just has to make it to their
| level of control. I've seen very illogical things become
| "standard" with little or no questioning for why it is
| now this way for no other reason than someone was very
| good at expressing "this is the way it is and should be"
| (i.e. they where very good at BS).
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| There is still the main purpose of those things:
| Verifying people are allowed to enter.
|
| That is (aside from sponsors, who want their logo there)
| a reason why it looks as it looks and having it somewhat
| different from event to event.
|
| A shared programmable batch would require scanning them
| while entering each room, which creates bottlenecks at
| doors and more effort as each door needs staff and tech
| (and as soon as you have staff and tech at each door you
| can also provide all information there, thus the gain of
| being able to share information into the badge is gone)
| and you get to privacy issues.
|
| And then half the badges people bring are broken and most
| participanta didn't ever have one/lost it/forgot it.
| foobarchu wrote:
| I feel like the paper slips solve those problems already,
| in the same way they are solved today with single-use
| plastic badges.
|
| The plastic ones can already be forged, switching to
| paper wouldnt make it any easier as long as you don't
| publicize what it will look like in advance.
| xipho wrote:
| I'm not putting steaming poo on my badge, it's the
| concept of customization that's easily shared- "For the
| social let's all use our lab's logo, and tonight we can
| use our student org's logo, and tomorrow for the society
| meetup we could put a picture of the organism we study".
| Conversation starters (perhaps I _do_ want to put poo on
| my badge) in what is a social event with many rapidly-
| changing sub-contexts. Sticker and pin collecting is fun
| though, so maybe not such a compelling use-case.
|
| Smaller meetings provide markers for name-tags all the
| time, that's different from the conference-provided ID
| I'm _required_ to wear in a conference of 6k+ people.
| ziggy_star wrote:
| Can you really put a price on fun? No fun allowed? Why do we
| even need playing cards in the first place that's a waste of
| good paper.
|
| I get the argument here but you really should keep things in
| perspective. E-waste is a real and massive problem. This is a
| tiny tiny project it is neither here nor there.
|
| Say it blows up and becomes extremely popular (it won't)?
| Like any other piece of electronics solutions will be
| available. Cross that bridge when you get there.
|
| The fun and education aspect is in fact better than physical
| cards and worthwhile.
|
| Also if we really think deeply about it this project may end
| up being _better_ for the environment not worse.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Make it hackable and they'll probably be around forever.
| edye wrote:
| I know of CyberBadge from Poland, which is making a very
| primitive version of what you're describing. They don't have a
| screen, just an array of programmable led lights. People use
| them at events. https://cyberbadge.net/
| xipho wrote:
| Cool. Badges, commemorative pins, small tradable items are
| mainstays at cons, conferences etc., their market doesn't
| need to be created, it's their to be fed.
|
| So make this type of thing work across time and you have
| created value to someone, which means a marketable product,
| at least in the Slashdot sense of ?, ?, 3... profit!.
| toyg wrote:
| Have you heard of our lord and saviour the Pimoroni Badger?
| https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/badger-2040?variant=39752...
| I have one and it's awesome. They upgraded it recently with
| wifi:
| https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/badger-2040-w?variant=405...
|
| They have similarly-shaped stuff in color too, like the Tufty
| https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/tufty-2040?variant=400369...
| and the Inky https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/inky-
| frame-5-7?variant=40...
| xipho wrote:
| This! Now make them required at conferences (easily done
| because professional societies), someone sell the service. We
| have to pay $600 just to go to present our papers, make it
| cost less by $50 if you come with your own.
|
| I for one welcome our new badger overlords.
| gknoy wrote:
| This looks really neat. Now I'm tempted to see if I can get
| one and have a way to render a conference schedule on it. :D
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| That's very cool. Love seeing these types of things.
|
| If they were thinner and wider, I suspect that an almost
| unlimited number of uses could open up for them.
| edye wrote:
| Konstantin Schubert has created a wider E-Ink Smart Screen:
| https://www.invisible-computers.com/
|
| Also see his HN post: Feedback Welcome: I am developing an
| e-paper calendar as a consumer product (2021)
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26216357
| konschubert wrote:
| Hi, that's me!
|
| It is an eink smart screen. The calendar app supports Google
| calendar and anything that can provide an .ics event feed. I
| just added a new "Picture Frame" app, though admittedly
| enjoying your photos on black-and-white eink is a niche taste
| :D
|
| https://shop.invisible-computers.com/products/invisible-
| cale...
| jonahss wrote:
| Wyldcard creator here, thanks to HowToWare for the interview.
|
| Since the intention is a children's toy, I'm trying to get the
| price as low as possible. This display size is cheap because
| it's intended for grocery store price tags ;)
|
| Flat Flex e-paper displays are available but much more
| expensive. Plus, the magnets in the cards which let them mate
| to the base take up most of the thickness. I'd have to rethink
| that physical interface entirely if they needed to be much
| thinner. My next step will be to design an actual game and then
| I can come back to size for a v2.
| DonnyV wrote:
| I was wondering where you found some place to do custom
| screen sizes. Nice use of an existing product shape.
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| This is really cool. Sorry to change the topic a bit, but I have
| been thinking about adapting something like this for a screen
| that you can place on your desk or work bench to use it as a
| physical "away message" so that people know where you are when
| you are not at your desk (i.e. @lunch, @meeting, @microscope,
| etc..) Ideally, it would connect to wifi so that you can update
| it remotely.
| edye wrote:
| You may be interested in this E-Ink Smart Screen:
| https://www.invisible-computers.com/
| oopsallmagic wrote:
| Can't you just put it on your calendar? Or use a sticky note?
| Bonus: a sticky note doesn't need a battery. Alternatively,
| your coworkers are adults, and can simply wait an hour for you
| to eat lunch. They won't go into hysterics if they can't find
| you.
| konschubert wrote:
| I make this eink smart screen: https://shop.invisible-
| computers.com/products/invisible-cale...
|
| If you build a small website that shows your status message,
| you could then point the smart screen to it and it will display
| your away message.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Show HN: from the dev
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33795296
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Just curious, is there really a "trading" aspect or is it more
| for deck-building type games?
|
| Trading card games usually have a notion of rarity, collection,
| and, well, trading. It is a controversial aspect so I understand
| that you want to stay away from that as much as possible. But if
| you embrace this aspect, how would it be implemented?
| edye wrote:
| I imagine:
|
| Hardware side: custom card frames and boards.
|
| Software side: cards with custom images and games.
| dllthomas wrote:
| IIUC (and I haven't RTFA but from my recollection of my
| conversations with Jonah around that same time frame) there is
| not really a game yet, it's more of a platform, with "trading"
| intended to be a possible feature of some games.
| jonahss wrote:
| :wave:
|
| Yes, still no game, I spent the last year delivering the
| crowdfunded devkits.
| tomrod wrote:
| This is a fantastic idea, Jonah, and I hope you see it gain
| widespread adoption!
|
| Have you connected with folks like board game geek or other
| groups that might be a way to shift towards a large
| platform?
| jonahss wrote:
| I've done a little bit of that, but not as much as I
| should. I took it to a boardgame convention and a GDC
| event, but not much came from it. If anyone has
| introductions or advice there, I'd appreciate it.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Yes, all cards will be like this soon. So if you wish to keep
| your rare baseball card collection, you'll have to continue to
| pay your subscription price. If you miss a payment, you might
| be temporarily locked out of the collection, but repeated
| missed payments risk the collection being deleted entirely.
| r00fus wrote:
| Great. the DIVX(tm) of collectible cards. I don't foresee a
| large uptake of this.
| jonahss wrote:
| I'm hoping to monetize the Shadow Realm
| jonahss wrote:
| Hi, Wyldcard creator here, thanks to HowToWare for the
| interview :)
|
| The cards can store data, and I imagine that things which
| happen to the card during a game leave a lasting impact, which
| is carried from game to game. The cards grow and change over
| time, and so when you trade one, you're trading an entire
| legacy :D
| nerdjon wrote:
| That sounds more like a legacy style board game than an
| actual trading card game.
|
| Which seems to me like the better implementation of this
| technology, anything else due to its digital nature just
| feels like it is going to be exploited making any value
| disappear completely.
|
| I think this would be an amazing idea for a legacy style
| game, especially since it opens up the possibility of
| resetting the game and it really simplifies picking up and
| playing later.
|
| But I really don't think it will work as a TCG.
| jonahss wrote:
| Ah yeah. TCG is just a quick way to explain it to people so
| they get what I'm going for. I personally dislike the whole
| "rarity" aspect of TCGs, though it was fun when I was a
| kid. Living Card Games like Netrunner are more fun to play
| IMO.
|
| My elevator pitch usually goes something like: MTG meets
| Yu-gi-oh meets Pokemon (the RPG) meets Tamagotchi.
| fragmede wrote:
| No Sabacc?
| ramses0 wrote:
| Tamagotchi is the best metaphor. Take a look at this old
| school BBS game "The Pit" -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK69uCBtI18
|
| Could you do a janky version of "Street Fighter" where
| your dude (and assistant/second character) both had
| permanent stats + inventory + needing to "rest" or "heal
| over time" to recover after the battle? Same, but it's
| more of an RPG "character card + inventory card" vs.
| "opponent character + opponent inventory"?
|
| The concept of 1x$100 base, and 4x$15 playing cards seems
| approachable (vis: MTG booster packs).
|
| Definitely look to have some sort of replaceable / lay-in
| play mat (see the little cards on this toy:
| https://www.amazon.com/VTech-80-178200-Drill-Learn-
| Toolbox/d... ). You could have a "Street Fighter" 2v2
| playmat, or "Texas Hold-em" flop/turn/river mat. "Scan
| the QR Code, bluetooth connect to the base, load the
| 'game' into the device's memory", and then you're phone-
| free (forever) to negotiate between the base and the
| cards.
|
| You're "missing" some sort of cover/door on the cards
| themselves (eg: configure the base station for texas
| hold'em, and how do you "shuffle" the two player cards
| w/o revealing their values to others?
|
| Actually, what you should do is to put some sort of pin-
| pattern on the top that can be accessed from the front or
| the back (eg: four pins "as rivets" on left and right
| sides, two pins on top/bottom), so you could "load" or
| "shuffle" the card face up or face down.
|
| Face-Up + buttons 1/2/3 => the display changes, you take
| your action, etc.
|
| Face-Down + buttons 1/2/3 => the display changes, but the
| result is "hidden until revealed".
|
| Another useful tool would be to allow some sort of
| spinners/selectors on the "cards" themselves (vis: el-
| grande's spinners:
| https://boardgamegeek.com/image/105293/el-grande ).
|
| Being able to have some sort of dumb switches or a
| rotating selector on the cards themselves that are then
| "read" by the base station will let people do their
| thinking and take their turns "in their own hand" is
| super powerful (eg: let people select punch/kick/block on
| the cards in their hands vs. having to "dock" the card
| and only then being able to select punch/kick/block) is
| super-important to enable a smooth-flowing game instead
| of a novelty toy.
|
| Overall, there's tons of cool options with it!
| shagie wrote:
| Consider Button Men (
| https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/226312/button-men-
| beat-p... and the original
| https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17/button-men https:/
| /web.archive.org/web/20050205124221/http://beatpeople...
| )
|
| These were originally implemented as buttons that you
| could pin on your shirt. There was a game convention
| _long_ ago where sometimes you 'd find two random people
| wearing them have a "hey! Let's play a game" moment since
| it also advertised playing the game. Break out the dice
| that you've already got, sit down and play in a minute or
| two (with no weird rules you everything ran real fast).
|
| Likewise, you could have the "this is the game" clipped
| on one's shirt and then playing a digital game with your
| selected character.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Just replace the visible buttons with low-power bluetooth
| beacons...
| Timwi wrote:
| Leave it to the capitalists to insinuate that something
| that doesn't make you money has no value, no matter how
| much fun and entertainment it provides to people.
| nerdjon wrote:
| I never made that insinuation.
|
| But "value" is critical to a TCG when the first word is
| "trading". Otherwise what are you trading?
|
| Otherwise, you just have a board game with cards (which
| exists). Which is fine! But that isn't a TCG.
| samatman wrote:
| I'm aware that mentioning this tends to get you crucified on
| HN, but making something like this fun is a good use for
| blockchain technology.
|
| Blockchains create digital scarcity, and in fact, are the only
| decentralized way to have digital scarcity. So having the
| "cards" represent tokens on e.g. Ethereum would be a clever way
| to do that, I'm sure the processors can provide a secp256k1
| signature, and the rest is read-only. I'd suggest not keeping
| your playing cards on the same wallet as other valuable stuff
| though.
|
| I think some of the deep antipathy which certain commenters on
| this site exhibit towards the blockchain, is a hangover from
| the proof of work days. Sure, Bitcoin still uses it, but
| Ethereum doesn't. So it's decentralized digital scarcity, which
| is a _useful property_ , at a reasonable environmental price.
|
| There's plenty left to criticize about some _uses_ of Ethereum,
| sure, but this wouldn 't be one of those uses.
| itishappy wrote:
| Why choose this approach over a traditional centralized
| database?
| samatman wrote:
| Because you have to pay to keep a traditional centralized
| database running, you have to trust the people running it,
| and when those people don't want to run it anymore, it's
| gone.
|
| With a blockchain, you pay to modify it, so moving stuff
| around costs cybercoins, but even if no one wants to mint
| blocks anymore, you can still read your copy, which has
| your cards in it. And in that event, if you want to move
| stuff around, you still can, because anyone can set up a
| validator, even if they're the only one interested in
| keeping it going.
|
| But I think this is reasonably unlikely to happen to any of
| the top blockchains on a reasonable timeframe. Whereas a
| game company shutting off its servers is virtually assured.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| > decentralized digital scarcity, which is a useful property
|
| Complete loss of control over your game's ecosystem is, in
| fact, not a useful property.
| samatman wrote:
| I don't see how you're deriving that quality from the
| suggestion. Losing complete control over your game's
| ecosystem is not an essential property of the technology
| I'm suggesting.
|
| Perhaps if you explain what you mean, I'll understand the
| point you're attempting to make.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| See adjacent reply
| inhumantsar wrote:
| in what way would that loss of control be complete?
|
| the contract developer would still have knobs and levers
| for adjusting rarity, issuing new cards, etc.
|
| they wouldn't control the secondary market, but that's no
| different from Magic The Gathering or Pokemon or good old
| fashioned baseball cards.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| If you, exclusively, can control the rarity and issue new
| cards then it's hardly a decentralized market and there's
| no reason not do just make it a centralized system.
| matsz wrote:
| Since nobody in this or the original thread has asked this and I
| can't find any reference to it in the post - why is there a cable
| that connects the device to itself?
| jonahss wrote:
| Wyldcard creator here, thanks to HowToWare for the interview.
|
| It's a link cable to connect your base to your friend's when
| you play against them. I link it into itself just to keep it
| tidy and it doubles as a strap to carry it by.
| matsz wrote:
| Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you!
|
| What a great low-cost idea for multiplayer games.
| Izkata wrote:
| People sometimes mock how in Star Trek they'd occasionally have a
| bunch of PADDs splayed out on a table, almost using the
| futuristic tablets as if they were clipboards instead of how
| someone might use a real computer or tablet.
|
| Then we get projects like this, which I see as a step towards
| that future.
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| Couldn't you make the same argument that any of us on this
| forum using more than 1 monitor at our desk, doesn't really
| understand the benefits of our technology and are using our
| monitors like 19th century chalk boards?
| samatman wrote:
| I don't know why someone would mock that in the first place.
| Surely a starship with a built in matter replicator would use
| as many tablets as they found convenient.
|
| Owning like six iPads wouldn't be a good use of the resources
| that would represent for me, personally. But I could do useful
| things with them, and if I could politely request a magic box
| to give me one, I'd have at least six around already.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Nice layout of the connection pins, though I question your number
| assignments. :)
| jonahss wrote:
| Haha, guilty. But! The actual wires assigned to each pin
| correspond to the Sephirot. Keter is VCC and Malkhut is GND,
| etc etc :P
| egypturnash wrote:
| Awrite that makes up for that then. :)
| bobsmooth wrote:
| This is cool. I hope the cost of eink plummets so this is
| actually viable.
| jtwaleson wrote:
| 4.2" three color modules are 12 USD on AliExpress without
| volume discounts. How much cheaper does it have to become to
| make it viable?
| bobsmooth wrote:
| Cheaper than that.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| So what's the plan for this hardware when it's no longer
| considered useful or operable?
|
| It's awful when your mom tosses your baseball cards collection
| but at least it will be recyclable given fairly trivial and
| widely-implemented processes. Not so for computer components.
| bena wrote:
| It just seems like a bit much for not enough.
|
| You are asking each player to carry around this "plinth" and
| however many cards would be necessary to play the game in
| question. Do the cards start on the plinth, then go to a common
| area? Are games played with connected plinths?
|
| You say "MTG meets Yu-gi-oh meets Pokemon meets Tamagotchi" but I
| don't really see that here. You're putting pictures on plastic
| cards.
|
| And with no actual game in the two years this has popped up here,
| you have a real problem. Because it looks like you have a toy
| rather than a game. And not a great toy either, to be honest. I'd
| focus less on marketing and articles and more on coming up with
| at least one proof-of-concept game.
|
| Because the game is what's going to sell the hardware. There's no
| way you're going to push many units with only the promise of
| game(s) in the future.
| edye wrote:
| To set the record straight, I was the one that reached out to
| the creator to get his story, because I thought the cards were
| cool. He would not have spent the time doing this interview if
| I hadn't asked him to.
| bena wrote:
| And that's fair enough.
|
| The larger point of having a platform without a product still
| exists.
|
| And I think this is still something where the idea is cooler
| than the current reality. Mostly because you can vaguely
| imagine the coolest version of this and you aren't being
| asked to put anything on the line for it.
|
| Is there some version of this that's genuinely fun and
| engaging? Maybe so. The potential of non-destructive
| persistent changes to physical game pieces you own is pretty
| appealing.
|
| Would I spend $300 for it? Hard no. Especially since the
| plinth has four slots, but they only give you cards in sets
| of three. I'd add a fourth card to the base sets and sell the
| cards in single units and in sets of 4. Three is really
| weird. It's a hot dog/bun situation.
|
| But that doesn't even address the core issue. For the same
| price, I can get a game console. I can also get an Android
| tablet and a couple hundred NFC tags. The only thing you lose
| is the ability for the card itself to be a small pixelated
| image.
|
| They claim they've raised $7277, which comes out to 21 base
| sets at $299 ($6279) and 2 deluxe sets at $499 ($998). And
| then he spent the last year delivering those 23 units. He
| claims 25 units sold, but I can't make the math work for
| that. 25 units at $299 would be $7475, so I'm going to have
| to guess that the prices have changed over the course of
| time. Which is normally fine, but that means the cost of
| these things have already gone up.
|
| It just seems that from every angle I look at this thing, I
| see clear problems with bringing it to market as a viable
| product.
| jonahss wrote:
| So, the goal was to build a devkit so that I could use it
| to develop my own game. I wanted the physical things to
| exist, so that I could try it out with people and find out
| which interactions are fun, vs which aren't.
|
| Well the internet liked the idea, and saw some of the same
| promise in it that I did (plus HN is a sucker for e-ink).
| With all the interest, and people asking how they can get
| their hands on one, I ran a crowdfunding campaign to make
| devkits for everyone who wanted.
|
| Turns out making 25 of something is way more work than
| making 2 of a thing. The supplier changed the display
| firmware on me, I had to make things to more exact
| measurements so parts were interchangeable, I had to write
| docs and make videos, etc etc. Took a whole year.
|
| Now the pressure is off and I don't owe people products
| after they gave me money for them, so I can take a break to
| clear out my backlog of minor projects, then get onto
| designing my own game, using my own devkit :)
|
| Once I have an actually fun game, I could increase volume
| and bring down the costs. My goal is to make the game
| accessible for $80. I'll need the e-ink price to come down
| a little, and use injection molding instead of resin
| casting and wood. Plus the base won't need a Raspberry Pi,
| that's just for my quick iteration. Final product will need
| to be embedded.
|
| (Almost all the devkits sold were to friends and family,
| with only a few going to actual game designers. CrowdSupply
| itself puts in an order for more units along with the
| campaign, so that they can stock them after the campaign
| ends and initial delivery is over. Except they negotiate a
| different price for those because the margins work
| differently)
| jonahss wrote:
| >> It just seems that from every angle I look at this
| thing, I see clear problems with bringing it to market as a
| viable product.
|
| Yeah, the goal is to make a cool thing, and then make a fun
| game.
| dejj wrote:
| What version of the 10 Sefirot is the pin pattern?
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sefirot
| jonathankoren wrote:
| It reminds me of the old West End Games / Legends description of
| the game sabacc in Star Wars. Instead of being played with normal
| paper cards as seen in Solo, the players received cards with
| screens on them At certain parts in the game, the cards would
| randomize. '
|
| A completely baroque way of playing, but fits with a world where
| actively powered antigravity technology has replaced wheels.
| awinter-py wrote:
| looks like there is still a pcb within the enclosure?
|
| not sure exactly how e-phoretic screens are driven, but I wonder
| if you could remove the controller entirely? have just a loose
| eink screen with a zif that you pass around
|
| like this thing is 0.25mm thick
| https://www.adafruit.com/product/4262#technical-details
| jonahss wrote:
| The pcb on the card is just a charge pump that the display
| demands in order to regulate its voltage. If I shipped that off
| the card and onto the base, I'd need more contacts.
|
| Those flat flex displays are awesome, though way pricier. Then
| I'd lose the nice stiff pcb board which allows all the contacts
| on the back to mate. I could go wireless, but then the power
| delivery needs to charge a capacitor and the delay between
| button press and display refresh will go to 30 seconds or
| beyond
| 1024core wrote:
| I have an idea for such an e-ink display. Are there pre-made
| e-ink displays out there with maybe a couple of buttons of input
| and maybe wifi for software update? I imagine it could be running
| something like Pico-W and have an e-ink display? Any ideas?
|
| Edit: turns out someone had already posted about this widget
| called a "Pimoroni Badger" and it fits the bill nicely:
| https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/badger-2040-w?variant=405...
| konschubert wrote:
| Hi, I make this display:
|
| https://shop.invisible-computers.com/products/invisible-cale...
|
| You can play your own content to it as an image, by serving it
| on an internet-accessible URL.
|
| It can also render any website you point it to. (The results
| vary, it's a black-and-white display!)
|
| And it has a built-in calendar app and picture frame app.
| 1024core wrote:
| It looks beautiful!!
| jtwaleson wrote:
| I've been tempted to buy this one more than once:
| https://shop.m5stack.com/products/m5paper-esp32-development-...
| javier_cardona wrote:
| For those interested in novel and quirky uses of e-ink displays,
| you might also want to see these:
| https://lightnote.cardonabits.com
|
| Disclaimer: I design and build these. And I'm also a big fan of
| jonahss work.
| jonahss wrote:
| The lightnote is so cool, and the design is perfection
| looping8 wrote:
| These look really good, I love the style. Don't know if I'm
| interested in them as trading cards but posters or "stickers"
| with this style actually seem like a very cool idea. Instead of
| traditional paper stuff you get a display thing which you can
| change and make better or fit your taste more.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| I've thought about this concept a lot.
|
| Cards are kind of tricky because you probably have a good number
| of them that will require many updates, and I suspect having a
| configurable board would actually unlock more cool stuff.
| Something like RFID cards that an EInk board could detect when
| placed and render game impacts would be nifty.
|
| Smart cards (and of course just plain old video games) let you do
| a bit of fun stuff like interact with piles without everyone
| seeing that you interacted with a specific pile.
|
| My real dream is to have it on dice to have on the fly
| configurable distributions of outcomes.
| lfkdev wrote:
| I know everyone who dares to say anthing about NFTs gets
| downvoted, but I'll do it. In this case, making the cards an NFT
| can make this really cool. Some sort of global immortal database
| where the rarity etc. is defined. Could also have nothing todo
| with crypto if the dev/publisher pays for the servers.
| DonnyV wrote:
| I really hope he patent this. This is a very unique way of using
| e-ink screens. I could totally see this blowing up in the games
| world.
| localfirst wrote:
| is there a way to make this thinner like an actual trading card?
| fortran77 wrote:
| Interesting choice for the layout of the contacts, the "10
| Sfirot"
|
| https://i.pinimg.com/474x/52/db/70/52db70262ac28239669a45d88...
|
| He doesn't mention it in TFA
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