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The Virtual Board Game

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Thu, 08/15/2013 - 04:47
Nuhaine
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We all know popular board games/card games often come out with video game versions, such as Scrabble, Monopoly or Magic: The Gathering. But what I am here to talk about is that fascination people have clung to from a by-gone era.

Virtual Reality.

A little while ago, I found a very promising project on Kickstarter. The project looks like it will fail, but I am hoping they will try to get funded again with more visibility to the market.

This project is called Atlas: Virtual Reality Made Real. It uses a visual headset with an I-Phone and some room-mapping flags to keep it affordable. You can find it here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/62367895/atlas-virtual-reality-made-...

Why I brought this subject up, however, is the potential applications it brings to board gaming. You could play your favorite board game, such as Monopoly, as if you were the piece! You could also bring a virtual copy of your games with you everywhere you go, being able to simply place a marker, look at the ground and play the loaded program. Card games could expand and actually summon the cards you play, much like the anime version of Yu-Gi-Oh.

It has a lot of potential, and i'm hoping to see this product shine. Some thoughts on what you would do with this technology, or your opinions on it are helpful. What would you use the virtual applications for in your board game?

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Thu, 08/15/2013 - 07:55
#1
Corsaire
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Looks like a lame

Looks like a lame implementation of the concept. Strap your iPhone on, map the room, place markers, buy a separate display system? Google glasses and Augmented Reality (AR) codes are more intriguing. Most people aren't going to have the space to make use of a fully immeresed mapped environs to play anything interesting safely. But even AR requires the cost of threed modelling and animation. However, if Google glasses work and get market, I could see board games releasing augmented versions.

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Thu, 08/15/2013 - 08:01
#2
laperen
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Joined: 04/30/2013
IMO Augmented Reality would

IMO Augmented Reality would be more fitting than that, which seems more fitting, and blatantly marketed, for video games than board games. it will be important to distinguish Augmented Reality(AR) from Virtual Reality(VR)
http://allyouneedislists.com/gaming/mobile/7-kick-ass-augmented-reality-...

IMO VR for a boardgame has a narrow area of usage. as of now, it may not be cheap enough, or seem cheap enough, to purchase the device due to the lack of alternate uses. and if used to improve presentation, it leans towards the casual audience which most likely will not be able to part with the money

AR most likely will not come in the form of goggles though, if you have a smart phone with a camera, the game can publish an app which makes use of AR to improve presentation when looked through your phone. arcade card games sort of use AR representations already.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en-GB&v=mLVhVdtZnlw&gl=SG

although, when AR is applied to highly visual boardgames, namely tabletop games like warhammer, it takes out the fun of making your own miniatures, so even AR is restricted to the casual market still.

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Thu, 08/15/2013 - 09:45
#3
Corsaire
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For a miniatures game, the

For a miniatures game, the overlay effect that Google Glasses is going for might be cool for digitally tracking stats on individual pieces when you look at them. Almost the flip-flop of the first instinct. In fact, completely turning it upside down was Microsoft's bloated idea for a touchscreen tabletop computer. It would detect things placed on it and visually interact; so you could physically move a piece on say a Monopoly board, and it would prompt if you want to buy Reading Railroad and then track your money virtually, etc.

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Thu, 08/15/2013 - 10:20
#4
laperen
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Corsaire wrote:For a

Corsaire wrote:
For a miniatures game, the overlay effect that Google Glasses is going for might be cool for digitally tracking stats on individual pieces when you look at them. Almost the flip-flop of the first instinct. In fact, completely turning it upside down was Microsoft's bloated idea for a touchscreen tabletop computer. It would detect things placed on it and visually interact; so you could physically move a piece on say a Monopoly board, and it would prompt if you want to buy Reading Railroad and then track your money virtually, etc.

ah didn't think of that, although i imagine you'd have to buy special bases for the units which would increase the price of play much higher than it already is as a crafting hobby.

using the touchscreen as a tabletop is cool though, keeping track of hard to manage statistics. but my argument for how AR would not change anything of game design but merely its presentation still stands.

the game will still remain the same, it only gives conveniences to the player. you could argue that giving conveniences improves the player experience, its almost a segway from boardgames to video games in that regard, with video games representing the extreme of obscuring rules behind interface.

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Thu, 08/15/2013 - 11:38
#5
Corsaire
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Ideally game design and

Ideally game design and specifically playtesting is aiming for a totality of experience. A player may dislike a mechanic of a game because of the bookkeeping to support it, even though they'd prefer the experience of it. So, with AR, you may make different design decisions like drop a tile board because the AR will show potential range of motion for a piece. Camera recognition is improving so that special pieces will soon not be needed. You might do a brief training where you place a piece in front of the parallax camera system, then select what type of unit it is.

Forcing an unmodified game into AR for technology sake is unlikely to be too successful because it was optimized for a different experience. When my son forces me to play Monopoly, I find it marginally more fun if I count each square when I move versus jumping right to where I know the count ends.

Another angle for AR is that an AI could use it to signal it's next move or you could be physically playing the game and have another player across the world also physically playing and AR communicates the moves, the game state changes, and eventually the other player direct to where you are.

It's a fun thought area to explore.

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Mon, 08/19/2013 - 11:44
#6
Nuhaine
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Joined: 07/10/2013
Thanks everyone for your

Thanks everyone for your input! Sorry for my late reply.

I expected mixed opinions on the subject.

Corsaire, I imagined the pieces themselves being virtual, but you could still physically pick them up in the virtual-space and move them around if you so wished. Having an option for using physical miniatures, VR or AR, which represent data depending on what the object you are using is, or what game you are playing, is also entirely possible. The potential for this technology lies in the possibility of multi-user functionality!

Also, for those put off by the iPhone, I am too. But you can't have everything you want in your product's first version. I plan to ask the creator if he is going to move away from the iPhone in the future, or perhaps partner with the I-Phone to make the product more standalone.

Also, as for cost. It can be reasonably priced. Games go for 60$ new at the moment, with new consoles 2-4x that. The entire rig is about the cost of one of the new consoles. Not entirely unreasonable, considering what you get. Also, the Oculus Rift is going high-definition soon.

I also thought of running a gaming center, where you pay for membership to use the Oculus Rift, and any other supporting technologies on a walk-in basis.

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