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2 years ago during summertime, I had gotten into programming and electronics. In the shower, I suddenly got an idea for a game. I quickly wrote down everything that ran through my head.

Though, until recently this idea was still just an idea. Up until a few weeks ago, I hadn’t actually started on it. I had only thought of starting on it.

The idea I had is a hologram card game, inspired by Wizard’s Chess from Harry Potter and Hearthstone. Hearthstone is a card game where you spawn minions, apply spells, enchantments etc, and take down the other player’s minions to eventually win. This is the kind of game I’m making as well. The two major differences are that my game is a physical game and that the action is played out in hologram pyramids.

In this post, I’ll be explaining what I’m going to do, and also show you what I’ve got so far.

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How does it work?

First off, the holograms. How will they work? There are actual volumetric displays but they wouldn’t work for what I’m making. They’re expensive and not very developed yet. Therefore I’m going with the good ol’ hologram pyramid.

The hologram pyramid uses plastic or glass to form a pyramid. Then a display is placed under or above it closest to the tip. The light from the display is reflected on the glass and into your eyes. Since the plastic/glass is transparent it looks as if it’s actually there.

Then we have the cards. The game has to somehow know what cards are on the board, and for that I’ll be using NFC card readers. The cards will have an NFC sticker on them and the readers will be hidden. This way you won’t really notice any of that stuff.

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In that image you can also see the electronics platform I’ll be using: Arduino. I’ll have Arduinos control the sensors and then communicate to my computer that runs Unity.

Today

Recently I got a very basic demo up (card reading and show something on the hologram pyramid). This is just a prototype, so I will be using an external display when I have one.

The problem, as you probably noticed is that it is way too blurry. That’s because the plexiglass is too thick so that it shows a double reflection. In a future version I’ll have to solve this. Either way, it feels cool to put down a card and a character spawns in the pyramid.

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The hologram pyramid looks way better than I expected, so I’m even more excited to continue working on this. I’m also going to have to get a bigger display for a better hologram pyramid, so I’m hoping this post will help fund that. What I’ll be working on now is some actual gameplay and possibly get a test board.

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