Blinks: An Interactive Hexagonal Tile Board Game

After first attempting to build this game as a one week project at MIT in 2014, Jonathan Bobrow has just exceeded his funding goal on Kickstarter for Blinks, “a board game with a mind of its own.”

Perhaps “minds” would be more descriptive, as this game takes the form of six or more hexagonal tiles, which can attach to each other via magnets, and light up in different patterns using RGB LEDs. These enchanted pieces can respond to your touch and react to one another, allowing a variety of user interactions.

Games for this system include “Mortals,” where each puck has a limited amount of life and must attach to other colored hexagons to stay alive. There is also a turn-based strategy game called “Fracture,” which is played with 12 blinks between three or more players. Each hexagon tile is responsible for knowing how to play a single game, and several more are planned for development.

In addition, Blinks act as an open source platform, and they can be programmed with an ISP programmer. This means that you can create your own game or adjust the onboard software to your liking. It certainly looks interesting, and you can see an early revision of Fracture being played in 2016 below.