The Entertaible

I should start a category here called "I totally thought of that!" The Entertaible, Philips new social gameboard, would be the first entry.

From the product description:

Entertaible comprises a 32-inch horizontal LCD, sophisticated touch screen-based multi-object position detection, and all supporting control electronics. It allows the players to engage in a new class of electronic games which combines the features of computer gaming, such as dynamic playing fields and gaming levels, with the social interaction and tangible playing pieces, such as pawns and dies, of traditional board games.

This very idea was frequently discussed in the sweltering heat of our old Birks Building offices two years ago. There were two components: the OLED gameboard and little pieces that could store data about the game and communicate that data and their position with the gameboard .

If you've hung around our office at all you'd know why we wanted this device: to play better Dungeons and Dragons. For example, the game pieces could be little figurines (painstakingly hand painted, natch) that would store all character information so you could move from game to game seamlessly. And you wouldn't have eraser holes in your character sheet.

We even had a plan to prototype something using a tablet computer. At that point I think we realized that the idea was so obvious that someone had to be working on it.

We thought a games company like Hasbro would be the first to develop an interactive gameboard. It's just a natural extension of their business. But it's interesting to see a technology company like Philips bring the product to market. (There's a lesson in their somewhere.)

(On reflection, the original idea was probably Jess's. Still... I totally thought of that.)