[nicoles]

This is nearly bang on correct. The pieces don't contain any electronics or sensors, they have a conductive pattern built into the surface using specialized materials and a manufacturing technique we developed in house. Our custom software stack processes the raw data from the device's touch sensor using embedded ML on the NPU, which detects and tracks the pieces in real time.

That said, the device can detect the pieces whether you touch them or not. Touching them absolutely does change the response, and we pass that along as a parameter to the SDK.

Your coin exploration is seriously cool, please hit me up when you're next in NYC!

[pstuart]

> they have a conductive pattern built into the surface using specialized materials and a manufacturing technique we developed in house.

Would this be something a home 3D printer could do? I'm not a maker but I could see the value of others being able to quickly build a universe of playing pieces if that was possible.

[nicoles]

It's possible to make your own pieces with a multi-material 3d printer (our early prototypes have been made with Bambu X1C & H2D printers), though it's pretty finicky to do so, and requires some rather expensive filament. Happy to help anyone along though!

[moring]

It would sound more logical to me to buy a stack of pre-made patterns (e.g. coin or cube form-factor) and glue them into a like-shaped slot in a 3d-printed playing piece. Assuming that is possible, and you'd still have to make a conductive path to the person touching the piece, but this would be much easier than printing the pattern yourself.

[doctorpangloss]

Have you played the zAPPed games?

Should Mars After Midnight be released on Steam?