Whenever there’s a cool electronics project, there’s usually a Raspberry Pi somewhere within it. Such is the case with some remixes of classic board games, which add a new electronic twist to some of the most well-known games known to man.
At least, I hope you will
I got inspiration for this article after I covered EmoGo, a cool little twist on the ancient game of Go. Instead of a traditional board and stones, the entire thing has been given a digital makeover; yes, even the stones are now small electronic devices.
There’s a good reason for that: all of the stones can now represent what they’re “feeling” via emotions. Stones under no threat look happy, stones that are one away from being captured look concerned, and captured ones have a KOed expression to inform the players that they require removing.
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Play against others or the computer with a digital chessboard
And you can make one yourself
Digital chess games and websites are a fantastic way to learn the game, regardless of whether it’s your first game or your thousandth. However, physical chess pieces and boards have that certain something about them that a digital version can’t replicate. So, how do you combine the convenience and helpfulness of a digital chessboard with the elegance of a physical one?
Enter this amazing Raspberry Pi-powered interactive chessboard. This board registers where you’ve placed the pieces on the board and will automatically update itself as you move them. If you try to perform an illegal move, the board will let you know that you can’t do that. And if you’re stuck, you can hit a handy “hint” button, and the board will automatically show you what the ideal mode is.
You can either play against someone over the internet who made the same board, or see if you can beat your own Raspberry Pi at chess in solo mode. Unfortunately, the board cannot move the pieces by itself, but it does show you the move your opponent made so you can perform it yourself.
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The Automated Chess Board is like playing against a ghost
But way less spooky
If you’d prefer your chess pieces to actually move by themselves, then check out the Automated Chess Board. This uses some really smart tricks to make a chess board that seemingly “comes alive” and plays against you:
The Pi Board is an advanced automated chess system powered by a Raspberry Pi, utilizing an XY stepper motor mechanism and magnets to move chess pieces seamlessly across the board. The development process involved several stages, including precise calibration of stepper motor coordinates, calculating the weight of each piece for accurate handling, integrating a robust chess engine, and optimizing piece-grabbing strategies and movement detection.
Under the hood, the Raspberry Pi calculates what moves it wants to do, depending on the difficulty you set, and moves the piece to where it needs to go. It’s a really cool way to learn how to play chess while also making use of physical pieces.
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This Raspberry Pi-powered version of Battleship adds a spin to the classic game
Finally, we have this awesome version of Battleship designed by two people as a final project for Louisiana Tech. It’s a single unit with a screen, speaker, joystick, rotate button, and select button on each side, which is all you need to get playing with a friend. While the pair didn’t detail how they created this amazing game, they did upload everything they used to GitHub, including all of the game assets, the bill of materials, and related files for making the case.
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No longer bored with board games
If you’re tired of the same-old games, why not give them a Raspberry Pi twist? Hopefully, this piece has inspired you to find new ways to explore the tried and tested with a cool project.
