CES 2012 - ePawn Arena - Digital board game tabletop

[harmor]

ePawn Arena Ushers in a New Era of Board Gaming.

YouTube Video - Rep talking in-person

YouTube Video - trailer

YouTube Video - tracking game pieces on a board

YouTube Video - interview with developers at show

Too bad these guys couldn't come up with an overlay onto existing screen stead of creating their own screen. The screen though is small for gaming, but if you don't mind putting down $400 for a 26-inch LCD gaming board then this is an interesting consumer solution.

I like the idea that they made this a peripheral instead of a full-featured device. You run the software on another device (phone, pc, etc...), and then use this to interact with.

I hope apps like MapTools and the like provide support using their Open SDK.

[sozin]

Pretty cool. 26-inch lcd is going to be tough to use a digital table top - it is simply too small. The tech looks very cool though, a logical extension of what everyone (d20 pro, CMU surfacescape project, etc) have been hacking on.

if the lcd was bigger than 26 inches (say, 52, or 76), and the system is either PF-aware or the API their offering is useful enough to import HeroLab files, then I'll definitely be buying one to play with :-)

[harmor]

I could see a 52-inch version coming easily in two years. If this products takes off the economies of scale will drive down the price.

I like that they are making an Open SDK for this peripheral and that means developers will create software products for it. If someone like Matel or Milton Bradley were to create digital version of their flagship products then the price of this device will be driven down.

Imagine a larger version of this that you play Monopoly on?

[Frogboy]

I just saw this on The Verge. Looks pretty sweet. Can't wait to see what the open source community does with this.

[Dorje Sylas]

Here were lots of touch things at CES. Don't forget the ExoDesk.

It's close, very close. We are at that point where stuff is starting to come to market at actually buy-able prices. Two more years with touch and soon optics based systems and we should see things that "gamers" can actually buy and use for "games" without breaking the bank.

[mearrin69]

I was at the show...sorry I missed seeing this.
M

[harmor]

65-inch multi-touch display for the low low price of $17,450

[Dorje Sylas]

Not new but something to throw into the ring. The Disney AppMates Cars 2 toys which use rather creative methods for dealing with models on capacative screens.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaNzbCtxtcY

[harmor]

I wonder if you could strap several of these ePawn's together to have them seamlessly work together?

[Xendor]

Some more new about this here:

http://boardgamegeek.com/article/11532026#11532026

It seems they were listening when some people were complaining that 26inches was too small!
They increased the size to 32 inch. Yay!!

[Antimelios]

Hello,

For those who might be looking for updates regarding this technology, here is their ongoing kickstarter campaign: ePawn Arena, the first connected gaming board

Their pledged RPG application could look like this.

I know this is only a screenless version, and not already at the level of what has been unveiled in this other video from 2014/01, but would you think it might be worthy to push this kind of technology further, feel free to spread the word ;)

Cheers,
Antimelios