Fiducial Frontiers - Hybrid Board Game with Vision-Based Object Tracking

Board games remain popular because they are tactile, you can see the game state laid out in front of you, and because they

bring people together. On the other hand, video games allow much more complex mechanics and gameplay styles to be

explored. Just imagine trying to replicate the fast paced and immersive nature of a first person shooter with a board game. Or

trying to track all of the different mechanics and value in a game like Civilisation VI by hand. These complex mechanics are only

realisable because the computer can track them.

Naturally, this begs the question: can we reach a middle ground - a game that is tactile and social like a board game, but has

digitally enhanced features outside of what a normal board game could achieve? This is what Fiducial Frontiers achieves.

Fiducial markers are QR-code-like patterns (as seen on our token cubes) that can be easily tracked by computers. These

markers allow us to use a camera to accurately track the 3D position and orientation of all cubes. This instantly has application

in a board game, as now the computer can track the pieces and enforce the rules, leaving the players free to strategise and

enjoy the game.

To showcase the computer tracking, we developed an original board game where players take turns placing markers to form

corners of polygons. Once they have enough markers to form a polygon, the computer calculates its area, and this becomes

the player’s score. To give the game depth, there are obstacles, which block line of sight between connecting tokens and do

not count towards area. Players can also choose to use their turn to attack by placing their marker on top of one of their

opponent’s tokens. The attack only has a 50% chance of succeeding, but with risk comes reward - a poorly constructed area

may have one pivotal corner token where attacking it removes a players entire area!