Card game battle station

Card recognizing device to support physical card games.

For: How to make almost anything

Project team: Quincy Kuang, Lingdong Huang

Introduction

In an era increasingly dominated by digital entertainment, card-based games stand out as some of the few remaining popular physical games, though their appeal is gradually diminishing in the face of the online shift. The inherent casualness and portability of card games render them particularly enjoyable in a physical setting. However, there's an untapped potential for these games to embrace modern technology, thereby elevating the gaming experience to new, dynamic heights. The Card Game Battle Station is a system designed to infuse digital elements into traditional card games. This integration aims to revitalize the card gaming experience, making it as dynamic and engaging as video games, and thus bridging the gap between the tactile charm of physical games and the interactive excitement of digital platforms. Inspired by childhood card games like Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon, we aim to create the experience story telling experience in the anime.

Popular card games (Yugioh, Pokemon)

Creating our own card game

My friend Lingdong and I often engaged in Yugioh battles during our leisure time as a way to unwind from long hours of work and continuous computer screen exposure. However, we found that games like Yugioh, while entertaining, can be quite complex and mentally demanding. Motivated by this, we set out to design our own card game, aiming to streamline the experience. Despite our enthusiasm, when we play-tested our creation with friends, many found it challenging to keep track of the various effects and stat changes. This feedback inspired us to conceptualize a device akin to the ones used in Yugioh, designed to assist players in calculating stats and remembering card effects. Looking forward, we envision enhancing our game with additional innovative features, making it not only more user-friendly but also more dynamic and engaging. Below are some images of our game, we added simple card effects and states to each character to make game less complex.

Technology approach

For the card reader device, we wanted to use a expansive yet simple way to detect which card is being inserted. We ended up going with a color detection setup where photo transistors would read the colors of the four corners of each card. We design and milled our custom PCB. We used a Attiny3216 as the main control for each module and made a total of 4 modules for a 2 vs 2. Here are some initial prototyping we did: