Real-Time Chaos and Machine Vision

We have talked about 🚀 Light Speed Arena in the past. Back then we had an older prototype deck to try the game, but since then the game has evolved a lot. Like a LOT! 😮 Light Speed Arena is a lighthearted super-quick game, in which you place down spaceship cards on the table in real-time to shoot at each others’ ships. 💥 Matches can be over in mere minutes. This is all achieved through machine vision! After every card is played and the timer is up, you can take a photo of the game state and it will be evaluated by an algorithm. You get to see a breakdown of every turn, highlighting which ship hits which ship, how and when, and seeing scores updated. Now normally I am not a fan of apps in board games, but this is a very unique and brilliant implementation for sure. 🤩

Since we last played, the most evident change is how the cards are now square shaped. You have ships numbered 1 to 8, which is their initiative value. This is a quintessential detail, as smaller numbers will act first, so some ships might be obliterated before they get to act. 🙀 This is the thing you should be most wary of as you are placing down cards.

Every ship shows some kinds of laser beam: you have to cleverly aim these at your enemies or the central asteroids for points. Beware, there is friendly fire, which is very hard to avoid! 😅 Ships often also have shields that defend against incoming laser beams from specific directions. Every degree and millimeter counts here. 📐 There are special weapons that either deal more damage or go through multiple ships, so you have to parse a lot of information in the lightning quick placement rounds.

To add oil to this hectic fire you can choose to play with asymmetric faction powers with 4 available factions, and each game will have a special sponsor too that awards extra points for certain feats. My favourite is the one that shoots in a random direction every time it is hit. 😅

Light Speed Arena provides you with a one of a kind frantic fun that's perfect for any game night. Laughs are guaranteed. The game is actually launching tomorrow on Kickstarter so make sure to give it a look! 🙃