Board: New game console recognizes physical pieces, with an open SDK
50 comments
·October 29, 2025kcon
MarsIronPI
To expand on the topic of the SDK: will the SDK be open-source? Will I need to register as a developer or pay a fee to get the SDK? If the SDK is open-source with no registration or fees required, then you have my attention.
nicoles
The SDK is open-source, no fees required. Coming in the next week or two. We're figuring out the specific details regarding registration, and would love feedback one way or the other if this is critical for you. If you want to be notified the moment it hits, email us: developers@board.fun
jkhdigital
I can tell this is much more than just “Tabletop Simulator on a tablet”, although at $500 you’re likely to get a lot of attention from the Twilight Imperium and Gloomhaven crowd. I know more than a few childless people in my local gaming circle who would drop a half-large on accessories that simplify game execution.
But clearly this product isn’t about making existing board games easier to set-up/play/clean-up. I think the marketing dept has a lot of heavy lifting to do, convincing buyers that this isn’t just Juicero for existing board games.
2muchcoffeeman
I play games like Gloomhaven and TI4. Not sure how this product would simplify anything. Far too small for any of the more complex board games. I guess I could scroll around but then what does physical piece detection give me? Then it’s $500USD. My game group and myself got Gloomhaven from Epic for free and played through the campaign together. BGA subscription is cheap. So many games have online implementations that are free. And I can buy a lot of boardgames for $500.
What’s the draw here?
Novosell
Exact same thoughts here. This should, imo, be marketed at boardgame nerds, who are adults, and not 3-7 year olds which it seems to currently be. Which toddler is asking for this for christmas? I suppose a boardgame nerd might buy it to use with their toddler, but that is a niche of a niche of a niche.
arjie
Cool product. Is the SDK open? Any time I play a complex board game like Ark Nova, Spirit Island, etc. game running consumes a lot of time. So this tool is to me better showcased with a complex game that needs game-running that computers handle better. Also I'm curious about the board pieces and how more could be made. Do they have stickers on the bottom I could just transpose onto existing pieces, etc
opminion
As a player: What's the lag? Does it depend on the game and the gesture?
As a developer: I'd like to implement a "game" which would be ideal for Dynamicland (tens of cards with ID stickers on the corners), but this might be a simpler platform to set up and use. Would that be possible with the board as sold?
fritzo
Also curious about latency. In the past I've worked around latency using video sensors for high-bandwidth high-latency features, then literally glued a contact mic to my interface to get low latency tap detection. How does the Board hide latency?
vintermann
Not quite the first such product, Microsoft's original "Surface" advertised similar boardgame potential. But if it worked well, I don't know of anyone who was rich enough to try it!
Hopefully the technology has matured since then.
escapecharacter
(Disclosure: I worked on both)
Detection technology on Board is much more robust. The MS Surface FTIR approach was lovely, but so over-featured no one could imagine a scoped-down (ie. cheaper) version of it.
vintermann
Aha, so there are ex-Surface developers working on this too! That's reassuring actually. Yeah, the boardgame demos of Surface were gorgeous, and I was definitively disappointed that this cool technology didn't "arrive" even as the years went by. Wishing you all good luck, and I may have to see how hard it is to get my hands on one of these...
null
vunderba
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
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.
Karliss
> 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.
pstuart
How are the pieces sensed?
vitovito
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-...
nkrisc
> 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.
acomjean
As someone who plays amount of “boardgame arena”, I appreciate this. Having software mediate rules helps bootstrap games.
But you still need physical pieces to loose and store.
Reminds me of a “digital roulette wheel” I saw in a casino.. which was wierd, untrustworthy yet somehow very cool.
somethoughts
Pretty cool!
My hot take is that there are seem to be really two markets here:
1.) Candy crush type board games targeting kids with well-off parents. Basically really focused on immersive and interactive visuals like effects and cutscenes.
2.) Serious board games targeting older teenagers and adults playing heavy games with BoardGameGeek weightings of above 3.5 with money to spend on their own hobby. Think games like 18XX, Brass Birmingham, Dune, Terraforming Mars or Gloomhaven. They would find the digital board game experience useful for accessing expansion maps (i.e. 18xx) or expansion campaigns (Gloomhaven). Additional features of interest might be solo play against automated players, game state/score tracking, game tutorials.
It almost feels like these two groups would have such different profiles that two separate marketing approaches should be attempted.
chrysoprace
It's cute but it's definitely niche, especially given the price. It's got some real potential for immersive D&D games though if the Board could use feedback from pieces people placed on the board.
snicky
Pretty cool! Did you think about a way to handle games that need some secret elements (e.g. cards with roles/resources) that should be kept away from other players?
nicoles
We've played around with detecting various hand and arm gestures to digitally reveal/hide hidden information, but none of our launch titles ended up needing it. If you've got an idea that requires it, happy to work with you to make it happen!
yellow_postit
Very cool. I love the tactical board game experience but automatic upkeep for rules is appealing.
As a parent I wish it had more details on the durability. I can just imagine spills, slams, non-game pieces being used and abused on this thing.
nicoles
We've done a bunch of testing with our manufacturer, and have found that it's really resilient against spills, but don't go setting it in a bathtub.
rcgy
Very very snazzy tech. Get Foundry VTT on it, and you'd do quite well with the TTRPG crowd.
chrysoprace
Does Foundry have any of the interactive features this product offers? I'd imagine the real killer feature would be to place your miniature (I'm sure somebody could make a killing selling Board-compatible minis) on the board and have its position update in the software.
I was looking for more info about developing for Board on https://board.fun/pages/developers and became confused because the page mentions an SDK that can be accessed but does not explain how or link to any other information. Poking around the website some more, I found https://board.fun/pages/support?hcUrl=%2Fen-US%23article-289... which clarifies:
> Can I add or create my own games?
> Soon. We’re building tools that will let anyone design their own Board games, starting with developers and expanding to players. The future of play is one you can help create. Learn more at board.fun/developers.
So I think I understand the SDK is not available yet. Can you clarify that developer tools are not yet available but are coming soon on https://board.fun/pages/developers to avoid confusion?