Electronic Board Game: Further discussion

Darke,

I don't want to kill your enthusiasm, but it seems to me first come up with a game then consider using the pen tablet.

Right now at least, I don't think any board game manufacturer will be interested in a hybrid-electronic board game. It seems to me it will cost too much.

If you want to do software for a pen tablet, I suggest starting with a board prototype and then putting it in the software.

--DarkDream

How about an RPG where the tablet acts as the game master?

Maybe create a story-based game like Lord of the Rings where it's the players act as a team against the tablet. The tablet can do a good job telling a story, complete video and it would branch depending on what the players do.

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It might help to look at it from the other direction.

What are the advantages of incorporating a board and cardboard/plastic bits into the computer game. Why not make it a purely computer game that supports multiple players across the network?

There's the obvious benefit that it's more fun to play a game with a group of friends over a table than have everyone stay home and sit at their computers.

Beyond that though, what in-game benefits are there?

Jason

Another thing that this kind of implementation could permit would be a lot more variety from game to game, which could permit a more "narrative" game structure, like an RPG-board game as others suggested.

What I'm thinking of more is something like this: There are 5 "lost artifacts", 3 of them are needed to complete the "amulet" of power (but you need to find out which 3), and those 3 are hidden in various locations. Now, a computer can shuffle the 3 "live artifacts" and their hidden locations trivially, making every game different, whereas doing this in a board and card game is workable but very challenging to implement.

Hidden info is the obvious benefit, but I see creating variation from game to game without needing cards as a game-state randomizer as another great benefit.

I agree with your approach -- don't worry about marketing, just make a fun game that you can play with your new "toy"! And as a practical matter, board/electronic hybrids are certainly coming; designing something that blends the two certainly will give you a feel for the capabilities of such a blend, which can only help.

Good luck,

Jeff

Jumping into this headfirst without a lot to add but hoping this will inspire me to think of something good to say...

The only electronic game I own is Ebay, although I almost got the electronic battleship (i think it would have interested me much more than the boring old one would, but still wasn't sold on it)

Without the electronics Ebay would not be a game, because it keeps the game moving and makes it a great experience. I don't know if this is the same for the other games since I haven't tried them.

So in my eyes, I think having the machine keep track of the tedius and secret things can make a much better experience. The machine in ebay makes it truly random instead of making a human shuffle cards or something else.

Another game I think about that has a machine in it that I just thought of but thought of before when I read this thread earlier is NFL Showdown. The idea behind that game was great (except the collectable part) but it was too tedius to scan the cards over and over again. After you were done with a game, you did feel like you just coached a real football game, somewhat because it lasted just as long as a football game. Another problem was when Hasbro sent out the first batches the machine didnt read right and it took a lot longer to play. That cause a lot of people to stop using it and pretty much spelled the doom of the product.

I realize this may be a little off subject, but I think the focus should be on how machines and computers make games simpler for the players to play the game, how they can shorten the set up and possibly the math in the game and how the machine can make the experience so much the better.

-Steve

My two cents...

Initially I think about two things, how an electronic device can be used as a game component and how it can me used to improve game mechanics.

From the mechanics standpoint, it is all about how the device can improve the players enjoyment of the game. Take away the tedious tasks as often as possible. Make the board randomize for me, keep track of my pawn, move my pawn, etc.

From the game component side, a ton of options arise. Maybe its the game board, maybe its just a fancy spinner, maybe its a fancy score keeper. Maybe it helps keep track of maps, items, pcs for an rpg.

One example/thought, maybe you can create a board game that requires 10 different game boards(or sections of a giant game board). First the tablet could easily contain the different boards, and maye it helps reduce overhead of swapping boards for the players. As a component it helps to enjoyment since players would not have to worry about 10 different boards, they can just enjoy the game play. It also allows you to work on maybe a "3-dimensional" board idea. Maybe the 10 boards are floors of a tower and players need to make their way to the top. This would allow players to be on different floors "seaching" for a key to unlock the next floor for them to move on. Might be hard to implement this in a straight printed media format. Cant even think how I would implement this, since it seems messy.

Along with the above idea, maybe there are game mechanics that you can introduce that are harder to do without a device like that. Say a mechanic called "secret movement". In this "secret movement" players would take the tablet in turn, moving their pawn in secret. So in the case of jwarrend's idea about the amulet, this would allow players to move in secret to different areas of the board to search for the amulet pieces. To add drama/tension maybe a sound is played when a player finds a piece of the amulet a sound is played so other players can be aware that that player found a piece of the amulet, but still have no clue where the player is on the board.

Anyways just a few thoughts....

That's exactly what a Nintendo Gamecube is. There's the large screen in the center (though vertical, not horizontal as you envisioned). Each player can use a Gameboy Advance as their controller and have private information, menus, etc on the small handheld screen.

The only real difference is the nature of the game we'd want to design for it.

Jason