Cryptopoly

Inspiration

Cryptopoly was inspired by the real life nature of cryptocurrencies and their absurdity. The popular board game Monopoly was desgined to show that monopolies are bad but failed at it. Instead, Cryptopoly aims to show to the world how crazy the idea of blockchains is.

What it does

Cryptopoly is like any other multi-player board game, but not quite. The gameboard is CV controlled, so you don't have to log any moves, allowing for instataneous gameplay and some shaking ramifications.

As players progress around the board, they can buy cryptocurrencies, get caught up in massive losses, answer to the SEC, stand in front of the IRS for their tax frauds and risk losing their investments, because this is crypto. So, why not?

Players also get the chance to get action cards that can be played on their turn. Just put them in the scanning zone and watch your assets tumble as the stock-market-y LED Matrix Panel goes down from green to red (or maybe vice versa, but we assure that rarely happens).

If you think this is too much to calculate, get braced for some elementary prime factorization. Every transaction is verified by a calculation that you have to enter in the wireless keypad. Race your brains to find out which two prime number multiply to get 899. If you can't, well you don't get your crypto.

Phew. That's a lot. Are you sweating? While playing, you most definetly will be. Just like fossil fuels have to be kept burning for mining occur, the cryptopoly-verse has to be powered by a candle. If the flame goes out, the game ends and your assets are in the ashes.

How we built it

We used TypeScript for the backend, Svelte for the front end, microcontrollers powered the wireless elements: keyboard, Power Plant and keypad with OpenCV tracking the entire gameplay.

The board is made out of laser-etched wood with 4 ArUco markers placed on it for plane detection and perspective correction. The player tokens are wooden cubes with ArUco markers made of black acrylic.

Challenges we ran into

Beacause of the multiple wireless components, fabricating and designing them was a challenge. We wanted them to be aesthetic and practical. After several prototypes we were able tp incorporate the ArUco markers in the design.

The LED Matrix Panel was behaving weirdly.