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Nice job! Very slick demo video. As a dev, a couple of things immediately stand out to me. 1. Launching at $500 means it is going to be a "relatively" boutique

Nice job! Very slick demo video. As a dev, a couple of things immediately stand out to me. 1. Launching at $500 means it is going to be a "relatively" boutique product. At around the same price as an iPad Air, you're definitely going to want to focus on how the included games simply would not be playable on a more conventional touchscreen interface without the corresponding physical components. Which leads to my second question: 2. Are the included physical pieces modular / generic enough such that prospective game developers could leverage them in future apps, or would they essentially need to design, 3D print, or contract out to your team to create their own props?

nicoles 1y ago
1. This is absolutely the case for the launch portfolio. These games are super unique experiences that are really only possible from mixing the physical and digital in this way. Does the site not make that clear to you? Super useful feedback! 2. The piece sets can be used as is for new games/apps, especially for prototyping! However if it’s super promising and you want to bring it into our (future) store, we’d love to work with you to make a bespoke set of pieces to go with the game. Whether the launch sets are modular enough as-is is really dependent on the ergonomics and aesthetics of the game you want to make. We’re excited to make ourselves available to devs who want to explore this though, and happy to work with folks to figure out ways forward.
- gedy 1y ago
  Looks really cool though did not see what the SDK is or languages it requires? I've built game tables before with flat panel TVs and web tech, but have wanted to integrate miniatures, position, etc into the apps.
  - nicoles 1y ago
    Currently the sdk is built for Unity, we’re working on Unreal/Godot though!
- pstuart 1y ago
  How are the pieces sensed?
  - vitovito 1y ago
    Not the OP, but in the TechCrunch Disrupt launch, founder Brynn Putnam says, "capacitive material manufactured into the pieces." If you put capacitive material in a unique pattern on the footprint of each piece, and the rest of the piece material was conductive enough to carry your body's charge to register a touch, the shape of that touch could be unique per-piece. There's no mention of syncing pieces, charging pieces, keeping pieces in view of a wide-angle camera, anything like that, so that's my bet. (This would also mean moving a piece using a non-conductive material would be a way to cheat by having it not get registered!) I just shared this on LI this morning, linking back to a video showing showing related touchscreen explorations I did for a colleague in early 2013, sensing different coins by their radii as you touch them: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vmiliano_a-vertical-triptych-of-a-material-exploration-activity-7389283619472584705-KB2o?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAABml38BAKQqatbQswcbQR7PB2BQtPNb1EQ https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vmiliano_a-vertical-triptych-...
    - nicoles 1y ago
      This is nearly bang on correct. The pieces don't contain any electronics or sensors, they have a conductive pattern built into the surface using specialized materials and a manufacturing technique we developed in house. Our custom software stack processes the raw data from the device's touch sensor using embedded ML on the NPU, which detects and tracks the pieces in real time. That said, the device can detect the pieces whether you touch them or not. Touching them absolutely does change the response, and we pass that along as a parameter to the SDK. Your coin exploration is seriously cool, please hit me up when you're next in NYC!
      - doctorpangloss 1y ago
        Have you played the zAPPed games? Should Mars After Midnight be released on Steam?
- Karliss 1y ago
  > 1. super unique experiences that are really only possible from mixing the physical and digital in this way. Does the site not make that clear to you? Yes most of those game don't look like they significantly add anything to the experience over similar already existing games that have or easily could have tablet versions. Even if they are doing a bit more website makes them look like cheap versions of well established computer games. Bloogs -> that's just lemmings Spycraft -> doesn't look like something you couldn't design touchscreen controls with little effect on puzzles Omakase -> you are selecting positions + direction within grid, don't see why press and swipe on touchscreen wouldn't work Mushka -> the tamagochi style game. All that the special pieces achieve is select an action which could easily be done with touchscreen menu and afterwords positioning it with finger Cosmic crush -> again one more game where all you do is move single game piece per player on a grid Space rocks -> asteroid like spaceship shooter Snek -> just point the finger directly on touchscreen without special game pieces Out of all them maybe 2 look like they are trying to consider unique strengths of the physical game pieces. The cooking game and 3d block game. And even for those it feels questionable whether it provides sufficient improvement compared to existing games. By it's nature product like this means that you get worst parts of niche gaming console and a physical board game. Niche console means that the set of available games will be very limited with many of them either being ports from other platforms using generic pieces (meaning you can just play them on those other more popular platforms) or the gameplay isn't as good due too limited budget. Hardly any developer is going to spend years to design unique game for niche platform with very limited player base. And like with physical board games you need to buy the pieces in physical store or have them delivered. Tilt-5 also tried to fill the gap between digital and physical board games. They had much more interesting value add but that wasn't enough.
nkrisc 1y ago
> At around the same price as an iPad Air, you're definitely going to want to focus on how the included games simply would not be playable on a more conventional touchscreen interface without the corresponding physical components. And why that’s worth $500. I can’t think of any game(s) that are so fun or unique I’d pay $500 to be able to play them, even with my family.

nicoles 1y ago

1. This is absolutely the case for the launch portfolio. These games are super unique experiences that are really only possible from mixing the physical and digital in this way. Does the site not make that clear to you? Super useful feedback! 2. The piece sets can be used as is for new games/apps, especially for prototyping! However if it’s super promising and you want to bring it into our (future) store, we’d love to work with you to make a bespoke set of pieces to go with the game. Whether the launch sets are modular enough as-is is really dependent on the ergonomics and aesthetics of the game you want to make. We’re excited to make ourselves available to devs who want to explore this though, and happy to work with folks to figure out ways forward.

gedy 1y ago
Looks really cool though did not see what the SDK is or languages it requires? I've built game tables before with flat panel TVs and web tech, but have wanted to integrate miniatures, position, etc into the apps.
- nicoles 1y ago
  Currently the sdk is built for Unity, we’re working on Unreal/Godot though!
pstuart 1y ago
How are the pieces sensed?
- vitovito 1y ago
  Not the OP, but in the TechCrunch Disrupt launch, founder Brynn Putnam says, "capacitive material manufactured into the pieces." If you put capacitive material in a unique pattern on the footprint of each piece, and the rest of the piece material was conductive enough to carry your body's charge to register a touch, the shape of that touch could be unique per-piece. There's no mention of syncing pieces, charging pieces, keeping pieces in view of a wide-angle camera, anything like that, so that's my bet. (This would also mean moving a piece using a non-conductive material would be a way to cheat by having it not get registered!) I just shared this on LI this morning, linking back to a video showing showing related touchscreen explorations I did for a colleague in early 2013, sensing different coins by their radii as you touch them: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vmiliano_a-vertical-triptych-of-a-material-exploration-activity-7389283619472584705-KB2o?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAABml38BAKQqatbQswcbQR7PB2BQtPNb1EQ https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vmiliano_a-vertical-triptych-...
  - nicoles 1y ago
    This is nearly bang on correct. The pieces don't contain any electronics or sensors, they have a conductive pattern built into the surface using specialized materials and a manufacturing technique we developed in house. Our custom software stack processes the raw data from the device's touch sensor using embedded ML on the NPU, which detects and tracks the pieces in real time. That said, the device can detect the pieces whether you touch them or not. Touching them absolutely does change the response, and we pass that along as a parameter to the SDK. Your coin exploration is seriously cool, please hit me up when you're next in NYC!
    - doctorpangloss 1y ago
      Have you played the zAPPed games? Should Mars After Midnight be released on Steam?
Karliss 1y ago
> 1. super unique experiences that are really only possible from mixing the physical and digital in this way. Does the site not make that clear to you? Yes most of those game don't look like they significantly add anything to the experience over similar already existing games that have or easily could have tablet versions. Even if they are doing a bit more website makes them look like cheap versions of well established computer games. Bloogs -> that's just lemmings Spycraft -> doesn't look like something you couldn't design touchscreen controls with little effect on puzzles Omakase -> you are selecting positions + direction within grid, don't see why press and swipe on touchscreen wouldn't work Mushka -> the tamagochi style game. All that the special pieces achieve is select an action which could easily be done with touchscreen menu and afterwords positioning it with finger Cosmic crush -> again one more game where all you do is move single game piece per player on a grid Space rocks -> asteroid like spaceship shooter Snek -> just point the finger directly on touchscreen without special game pieces Out of all them maybe 2 look like they are trying to consider unique strengths of the physical game pieces. The cooking game and 3d block game. And even for those it feels questionable whether it provides sufficient improvement compared to existing games. By it's nature product like this means that you get worst parts of niche gaming console and a physical board game. Niche console means that the set of available games will be very limited with many of them either being ports from other platforms using generic pieces (meaning you can just play them on those other more popular platforms) or the gameplay isn't as good due too limited budget. Hardly any developer is going to spend years to design unique game for niche platform with very limited player base. And like with physical board games you need to buy the pieces in physical store or have them delivered. Tilt-5 also tried to fill the gap between digital and physical board games. They had much more interesting value add but that wasn't enough.

nkrisc 1y ago

> At around the same price as an iPad Air, you're definitely going to want to focus on how the included games simply would not be playable on a more conventional touchscreen interface without the corresponding physical components. And why that’s worth $500. I can’t think of any game(s) that are so fun or unique I’d pay $500 to be able to play them, even with my family.