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Hi, Wyldcard creator here, thanks to HowToWare for the interview :)

The cards can store data, and I imagine that things which happen to the card during a game leave a lasting impact, which is carried from game to game. The cards grow and change over time, and so when you trade one, you're trading an entire legacy :D

nerdjon 729 days ago

That sounds more like a legacy style board game than an actual trading card game.

Which seems to me like the better implementation of this technology, anything else due to its digital nature just feels like it is going to be exploited making any value disappear completely.

I think this would be an amazing idea for a legacy style game, especially since it opens up the possibility of resetting the game and it really simplifies picking up and playing later.

But I really don't think it will work as a TCG.

Ah yeah. TCG is just a quick way to explain it to people so they get what I'm going for. I personally dislike the whole "rarity" aspect of TCGs, though it was fun when I was a kid. Living Card Games like Netrunner are more fun to play IMO.

My elevator pitch usually goes something like: MTG meets Yu-gi-oh meets Pokemon (the RPG) meets Tamagotchi.

shagie 729 days ago

Consider Button Men ( https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/226312/button-men-beat-p... and the original https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17/button-men https://web.archive.org/web/20050205124221/http://beatpeople... )

These were originally implemented as buttons that you could pin on your shirt. There was a game convention long ago where sometimes you'd find two random people wearing them have a "hey! Let's play a game" moment since it also advertised playing the game. Break out the dice that you've already got, sit down and play in a minute or two (with no weird rules you everything ran real fast).

Likewise, you could have the "this is the game" clipped on one's shirt and then playing a digital game with your selected character.

sdenton4 729 days ago

Just replace the visible buttons with low-power bluetooth beacons...

ramses0 729 days ago

Tamagotchi is the best metaphor. Take a look at this old school BBS game "The Pit" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK69uCBtI18

Could you do a janky version of "Street Fighter" where your dude (and assistant/second character) both had permanent stats + inventory + needing to "rest" or "heal over time" to recover after the battle? Same, but it's more of an RPG "character card + inventory card" vs. "opponent character + opponent inventory"?

The concept of 1x$100 base, and 4x$15 playing cards seems approachable (vis: MTG booster packs).

Definitely look to have some sort of replaceable / lay-in play mat (see the little cards on this toy: https://www.amazon.com/VTech-80-178200-Drill-Learn-Toolbox/d... ). You could have a "Street Fighter" 2v2 playmat, or "Texas Hold-em" flop/turn/river mat. "Scan the QR Code, bluetooth connect to the base, load the 'game' into the device's memory", and then you're phone-free (forever) to negotiate between the base and the cards.

You're "missing" some sort of cover/door on the cards themselves (eg: configure the base station for texas hold'em, and how do you "shuffle" the two player cards w/o revealing their values to others?

Actually, what you should do is to put some sort of pin-pattern on the top that can be accessed from the front or the back (eg: four pins "as rivets" on left and right sides, two pins on top/bottom), so you could "load" or "shuffle" the card face up or face down.

Face-Up + buttons 1/2/3 => the display changes, you take your action, etc.

Face-Down + buttons 1/2/3 => the display changes, but the result is "hidden until revealed".

Another useful tool would be to allow some sort of spinners/selectors on the "cards" themselves (vis: el-grande's spinners: https://boardgamegeek.com/image/105293/el-grande ).

Being able to have some sort of dumb switches or a rotating selector on the cards themselves that are then "read" by the base station will let people do their thinking and take their turns "in their own hand" is super powerful (eg: let people select punch/kick/block on the cards in their hands vs. having to "dock" the card and only then being able to select punch/kick/block) is super-important to enable a smooth-flowing game instead of a novelty toy.

Overall, there's tons of cool options with it!

sircastor 729 days ago

> Tamagotchi is the best metaphor.

One of the ideas I’ve been chasing for a decade as a personal project is a set of figures, not unlike SkyLanders or the Disney Infinity figures. They would operate in a Pokémon-like game but retain memories of their interactions I haven’t ever quite gotten it done, but it remains one of my favorite projects to tackle.

fragmede 729 days ago

No Sabacc?

Timwi 729 days ago

Leave it to the capitalists to insinuate that something that doesn't make you money has no value, no matter how much fun and entertainment it provides to people.

nerdjon 729 days ago

I never made that insinuation.

But "value" is critical to a TCG when the first word is "trading". Otherwise what are you trading?

Otherwise, you just have a board game with cards (which exists). Which is fine! But that isn't a TCG.

dllthomas 729 days ago

IIUC (and I haven't RTFA but from my recollection of my conversations with Jonah around that same time frame) there is not really a game yet, it's more of a platform, with "trading" intended to be a possible feature of some games.

:wave:

Yes, still no game, I spent the last year delivering the crowdfunded devkits.

tomrod 729 days ago

This is a fantastic idea, Jonah, and I hope you see it gain widespread adoption!

Have you connected with folks like board game geek or other groups that might be a way to shift towards a large platform?

I've done a little bit of that, but not as much as I should. I took it to a boardgame convention and a GDC event, but not much came from it. If anyone has introductions or advice there, I'd appreciate it.

I'm aware that mentioning this tends to get you crucified on HN, but making something like this fun is a good use for blockchain technology.

Blockchains create digital scarcity, and in fact, are the only decentralized way to have digital scarcity. So having the "cards" represent tokens on e.g. Ethereum would be a clever way to do that, I'm sure the processors can provide a secp256k1 signature, and the rest is read-only. I'd suggest not keeping your playing cards on the same wallet as other valuable stuff though.

I think some of the deep antipathy which certain commenters on this site exhibit towards the blockchain, is a hangover from the proof of work days. Sure, Bitcoin still uses it, but Ethereum doesn't. So it's decentralized digital scarcity, which is a useful property, at a reasonable environmental price.

There's plenty left to criticize about some uses of Ethereum, sure, but this wouldn't be one of those uses.

spywaregorilla 729 days ago

> decentralized digital scarcity, which is a useful property

Complete loss of control over your game's ecosystem is, in fact, not a useful property.

I don't see how you're deriving that quality from the suggestion. Losing complete control over your game's ecosystem is not an essential property of the technology I'm suggesting.

Perhaps if you explain what you mean, I'll understand the point you're attempting to make.

spywaregorilla 729 days ago

See adjacent reply

inhumantsar 729 days ago

in what way would that loss of control be complete?

the contract developer would still have knobs and levers for adjusting rarity, issuing new cards, etc.

they wouldn't control the secondary market, but that's no different from Magic The Gathering or Pokemon or good old fashioned baseball cards.

spywaregorilla 729 days ago

If you, exclusively, can control the rarity and issue new cards then it's hardly a decentralized market and there's no reason not do just make it a centralized system.

It's still a decentralized market, it's one with a single issuer, as many buyers as want cards, and as many sellers as wish to sell. Much like, for instance, Magic the Gathering. Not a lot of point in selling rare playing cards when they aren't rare, so sure, you could set up a token contract where anyone can issue as many "cards" with whatever properties they'd like. But that wouldn't produce a fun game.

I've personally never been drawn to the rare collectible genre of game, but they're quite popular, one of the services offered is balancing rarity and power. People who like these games enjoy the lottery aspect of buying a sight-unseen pack, opening it, and hoping to score a rare card, they like participating in an aftermarket, and they like putting together decks which other people don't have. All of which can be auditably provided using a blockchain, without having to check for counterfeits, and with players able to confirm that a card is actually scarce just by examining the state of the contract.

There are two reasons not to just make it a centralized system. One I addressed in another comment, the other is that with a decentralized system, it's possible to get the same properties as a physical collectible playing card game.

Namely: the creators control the properties of cards, how many are issued, and enjoy the profits of the first sale. But after that sale, the cards/token belong to whomever purchased them, and that person can sell them to whomever they like.

It's also possible to attach royalties to additional sales, or even retain the right to destroy tokens, but I would advise against this on business grounds, since those decisions would be unpopular ones for customers and players.

Of course, a centralized system would allow the issuers to confiscate the assets at any time, or forbid their transfer, or change the arrangement so that people are lured in with the premise that they can freely resell their cards, and then impose some cut of the resale price ex post facto. Plus if the company goes out of business, and shuts down the database and servers, that's the end of all that, your supposedly scarce bits are now useless.

So if your definition of losing control involves not being able to abuse your customers in that way, I can see why a centralized database might be preferable.

If it doesn't, then a centralized database is clearly inferior in every way that matters, for this application. Of course, someone starting with a thesis that blockchains are useless by definition, is going to begin with the conclusion, and work their way backward looking for reasons that conclusion is true.

faeranne 729 days ago

Why is digital scarcity a good thing? Why is scarcity at all a good thing? Is there any reason for this, outside of trying to sell them at an ever higher price? And how does sharing a read-only e-ink card benefit over a regular card, or a card with an NFC tag in it?

I get the feeling people think because things are scarce already, scarcity is good. but... it really isn't. outside of a store-of-value, there is no real benefit to it, is there?

beefnugs 729 days ago

The guy who made magic the gathering made a game called Keyforge, every deck sold at retail has a unique selection of cards in it. You do not get to mix and match your own ingredients to play the game.

Very unique idea, very unique feeling, I still dont even know how it is mass produced actually... Kind of mediocre game to me, but thats just personal taste. It is special enough that any board gamer should give it a play at least a couple times to feel it

bitmasher9 729 days ago

Trading can be fun, but it’s pointless if you could just download anything onto your card. Pokémon with a GameShark is just a totally different experience.

itishappy 729 days ago

Why choose this approach over a traditional centralized database?

Because you have to pay to keep a traditional centralized database running, you have to trust the people running it, and when those people don't want to run it anymore, it's gone.

With a blockchain, you pay to modify it, so moving stuff around costs cybercoins, but even if no one wants to mint blocks anymore, you can still read your copy, which has your cards in it. And in that event, if you want to move stuff around, you still can, because anyone can set up a validator, even if they're the only one interested in keeping it going.

But I think this is reasonably unlikely to happen to any of the top blockchains on a reasonable timeframe. Whereas a game company shutting off its servers is virtually assured.

NoMoreNicksLeft 729 days ago

Yes, all cards will be like this soon. So if you wish to keep your rare baseball card collection, you'll have to continue to pay your subscription price. If you miss a payment, you might be temporarily locked out of the collection, but repeated missed payments risk the collection being deleted entirely.

I'm hoping to monetize the Shadow Realm

r00fus 729 days ago

Great. the DIVX(tm) of collectible cards. I don't foresee a large uptake of this.

edye 729 days ago

I imagine:

Hardware side: custom card frames and boards.

Software side: cards with custom images and games.