I built a minimalist, high-contrast Gomoku (Five in a Row) web app for my daughter's E-ink tablet
My young daughter has been using an old E-ink tablet for audiobooks and doodling. Recently I taught her Gomoku (Five in a Row), but every app I tried downloading was a disaster on E-ink:
- Fake wood-grain boards and 3D shadows that turn into muddy gray ghosting
- Huge decorative borders that squeeze the actual board into a tiny rectangle with impossible touch targets
So I spent the weekend vibe-coding a clean, static, single-page web app tailored specifically for E-paper screens:
- 100% Contrast: Pure black and white. No gradients, zero textures, instant refresh. Looks like a physical printed board.
- Full-Screen Canvas: Large touch targets that scale to the display. Tested cleanly on my MatePad Paper and Dasung 13K.
- Kid-Friendly AI (1–9 Levels): Stock minimax bots are way too brutal for kids. Level 1 starts with a friendly "beginner bot" that lets her win, and the game automatically bumps the difficulty up by 1 tier after consecutive wins so she doesn't get frustrated and quit.
Now, she's hooked again. Yesterday she ran up to me proudly: "Dad, I'm definitely beating Level 3 today!"
It’s completely free, ad-free, runs locally in the browser, and requires zero installation.
Link:https://www.einkhub.org/games/gomoku/?from=reddit-eink
If you have an idle E-ink device or e-reader with a web browser, give it a spin. Would love to hear how it renders on devices like Boox, Kindle, or Supernote
Posted Sep 8, 2026, 11:46 AM UTC
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