In the yugioh manga, there are some board game with computers behind that hold information or do some computations. Do you think that today, or in a near future, we could expect to make computer assisted board games? The computer is there only for the info and the complex calculation, there is no rule game validation.
For example, in a D&D game, you could have a small device that remembers your HP and which spell you have cast. In monopoly, you could record your money and what property you have. Another example, for a CCG that I first wanted to make as a video game, you would have been able to record the HP, MP, and rage points of your character plus the HP of one monster. And when you click new turn, you would recover automaticaly some MP.
Do you think that it will take too much time to synchronise the information between the game and the computer since it must be done by the user?
Do you think that it will end up anyway in a video game since board game element will be underused?
Do you think people will be interested in buying a game where you must buy in extra an electronic device, even if this device is reusable for many game?
Do you think that computer assited game is just a lazy way to make a game without making proper simplification to make sure it runs as a complete board game?
Here is what I tough what the device could be if it was done today. It would look moke like a pocket PC or an electronic wizard. There would be a small LCD screen, text mode only ( probably cheaper than graphic mode) with around 40x5 characters. About a dozen of buttons to nativate through the information. Around 1 Meg of flash rom to hold the applets, and 256K to 512K of memory. With maybe a save chip inside the device like the PS to save your game. You will transfer the applets with a USB cable, and when you boot the device, there would be a browser to select which game you want to play/assist.
An idea that passed into my mind make the interface easier is by using barcode on cards. ( I remember that there was an electronic game that worked like this.
For example, let say you are playing a yugioh style game where the monster stats are far more complex with non deterministic outcome. The electronic device could manage the battle. When there is a battle between 2 monsters, each player slide they monster card into the barcode reader of their device and it calculate who wins.
OR in my example from the previous post, If I cast a fire ball spell, I slide my card into the device, it automatically decrease my mana according to the casting cost and it reduce the opponent's life points.