I made a deck of cards with rewriteable e-ink displays…thoughs?
Hello everyone!
I'm a board game player from Italy with a tech background. Over the past few years I've been playing more and more different games (with Dominion rocking the charts! ), and this turnover of boxes gave me an idea for a project I've been prototyping. I would really love some honest feedback from the community.
The concept:
It's a set of cards, each built with a thin e-ink display that shows the card’s content. Since the display can be updated, each card can become any card, and a full deck can become any game.
How to use it:
You place the deck in a docking station, pick a game from the app, and upload it to the cards. Then you take them out, deal them, and play as normal. It's time for a different game ? just repeat. The e-ink holds the image without a battery, and the cards are about 1mm thick (or about 0.04in or about the thickness of 2 sleeved cards), flexible, and can be rewritten for years.
My thought is that this could let players use a single deck to play many different games, and give designers/publishers a platform to distribute their games digitally without the cost or financial risk of producing physical copies; while still keeping the original “cards in your hands” experience.
The hardware prototype and the platform are coming along well, but before I lose any more sleep and sanity over it, I’d love to understand whether this idea makes sense to other people who actually play games regularly.
I’d really appreciate your feedback on these points (please be honest, even harsh if needed):
- Would this be useful or interesting to you?
- Is the concept and workflow clear?
- What weaknesses or concerns do you see?
- If you are a designer or aspiring creator, would you consider this as a publishing option?
Here are some pictures of the physical mockup of the deck + few cards (not functional nor final, but close enough, the actual displays will arrive in the next weeks):
A big thank you to everyone for your time and feedback. 🙏 Feel free to ask any question!
Posted Dec 2, 2025, 2:58 PM UTC