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Show HN: Digital player board for Terraforming Mars (terraforming-mars-player-board.netlify.app)

72 points by sakerbos ↗ HN
My cousin and I love the Terraforming Mars board game. But we'd often get overly excited and knock our pieces off of our boards, losing track of our progress. So I digitised it. It comes with a few cool features like resource conversions (e.g. converting plants to greenery), production phase, offline, mobile-friendly and keeps track of the history using the browser history itself. Sharing this here in case there are any other TM fans that could also find some use in this :)

47 comments

[ 6.5 ms ] story [ 95.1 ms ] thread
can16358p
I can't figure out how to play. I'm on a screen where there are - + buttons for various properties with a "Production Phase" button.

Whatever I do, nothing happens when I tap that button.

eigenket
It looks like you have to hold down the production phase button for a bit
acomjean
I don’t think this is a standalone version. It’s a helper tool to replace all the pieces of the board game.
pimlottc
It's not obvious, but you have to hold down the button, even after the "progress bar" fills up.
chromatin
Beware: takes over the browser history rather than refreshing in-place
sakerbos
Yip! Should just be for the current tab though so that we can forward/back through our score history. If that's not the case, please let me know :)
Vilkku
Yes, but it still produces a bunch of entries in the actual browser history
sakerbos
Ah right, my bad, that's super annoying. I'll remove that functionality for now.
throwaway89201
Please take user feedback with a grain of salt. Being able to navigate through board versions is a very useful feature. An alternative for the browser history API is not immediately obvious. Many other web apps work in this way.
sakerbos
Yeah fair enough. I actually found the massive navigation history annoying too, I'd just forgotten about it until now. I think I have a solution to replace the navigation history with local state so we should still be able to navigate between board versions, will see. Appreciate the feedback :)
neuah
Neat idea! However one issue with everyone using a digital tracker is that you can't then easily see what other player resource stockpiles and production levels are. Perhaps at the very top of the screen you could have a compact summary view that people can leave their screen at when not making adjustments, allowing other players to see the stats at a glance.
fifilura
That is actually a good pet project. Find the most suitable hardware for a boardgame setting.

Screen technology/form factor.

Maybe there is even a market for hybrid kind of games?

(Right, I guess monopoly with the calculator flopped. But never give up!)

sakerbos
I'd be very interested in exploring this idea! Do you know of any board games that it could work for? This also just gave me an idea to justify my board game budget to my wife as a R&D business expense so thank you ;)
sakerbos
Thank you! Yes this had actually become a problem for us but it weirdly ended up adding an interesting new dynamic to the game. So much so that we'd actively try and hide our resources from each other and had to try to keep track of each other's resources in our heads (the irony in adding a digital calculator only to increase cognitive load is very real). But yeah, I can imagine not everyone would want to play like this and a compact summary could solve that issue. I shall see what I can do :)
collinmcnulty
Mobile version seems to have odd scrolling behavior where I reach the bottom of the “page” too early.

Cool idea

sakerbos
Are you on Android by any chance? if so, I think that would be Android's weird browser bar hiding behaviour when you get to the bottom of the page, or just something weird I overlooked. Could probs add some padding to avoid that which I shall do, thanks!
stevage
"android's weird browser behaviour?"

Android is the dominant platform. Whatever it does isn't weird, it's standard.

Also, do you mean Chrome? There are other browsers.

sakerbos
Yeah I've always found the browser bar hiding when you scroll to the bottom of a page a bit weird. But yeah you're right, it looks like a Chrome-only thing my bad.
sbarre
I would consider including some context on the homepage that this supports a board game and isn't a standalone game..

Great work too!

PeterisP
Knocking the trackers off is a real issue, however, a great non-digital solution to that is the wooden laser-cut boards with physical notches for the cube slots - e.g. https://github.com/cophus/terraforming-mars-board and the many other options if you google or search etsy.
failrate
I tried to convince the publisher to add cutouts for pieces when they went to reprint an even more deluxe version, but they were unconvinced.
timvdalen
The Ares Expedition version of the game does have double-layered player boards, works really well!

(I'm not sure how different the player board is to the main game, maybe you could use that?)

erikerikson
My cat sees your notches and raises a paw.
RangerScience
Neat! Also, I'mma just gonna leave this here...

https://terraforming-mars.herokuapp.com/

(no, not something I've made)

sakerbos
Thanks! Looks like they've recreated the entire game, it even has decent docs. Will defs give it a go!
aloisdg
I contributed a bit to this projet. Fun maintainer. I stopped when I learned that Terraforming Mars author's was transphobic and racist.

If you like TM, try Wingspan and Ark Nova!

RangerScience
I also recommend Wyrmspan (wingspan “sequel”, this time with dragons).
themoonisachees
Very nice! This could easily be adapted to the Ares Expedition expansion/other game thing:

Remove production of titanium and steel, remove energy entirely. Players start at 5 TL and 0 production everywhere. They can also produce cards, maybe add a pop-up like "draw x cards now!" Whenever production happens?

sakerbos
Thanks! Yeah totally, it should be fairly easy to do. Could select the game variant after selecting a new game. I'll see what I can do :)
szundi
How much does it cost to be hot on HN?
sakerbos
Apparently just a side project that was used by only two people in the world :)
hhshhhhjjjd
If you press a plus button four times, then you have to press back four times to leave the site.
fsnowdin
I thought this was like that one Twilight Struggle companion digital board that was pretty much the physical board but digital (which allows you to play with just the cards) since this covers just the resources mat. Still neato though.
Narishma
It's not that mobile-friendly with the battery-draining background animation.
sakerbos
Ooh fair enough. I'll add an option to disable that, thanks!
empiko
You could add logs with timestamps. It is common that players forgot what actions they did, e.g. "Did I forgot to add a TR for this ocean?"
sakerbos
Yes this is a problem and a great idea thanks! Adding to my TODO list :)
neals
Love this game! Anybody know of / have experience with any expansions?
mirashii
Before going to expansions, I’d strongly suggest playing Ares Expedition, the card game. It keeps 90% of the feel of the board game but speeds the game up substantially and gives a lot more opportunity to make it through the deck.
bayangan
Very nice!

Might consider this for our next game.

Would you consider adding a +-10 button to the megacredits (and maybe heat)?

It would be a good timesaver for large purchases