N-edge / Boardgame for blind and sighted people

prusaprinters

<h3><strong>N-edge</strong></h3><p>A long time ago, I worked with blind and low vision people. A common hindrance, for them, in enjoying boardgame was that they were designed for sighted people.<br>Nedge is a game that was explicitly designed to include blind and low vision players, and let them play with sighted players. The game should have the same difficulty level for everybody.</p><h4><strong>Why this game?</strong></h4><p>N-edge is a boardgame for two players where you need to stack tiles, while following geometric rules. The first player who can't play her turn lose the game!<br>Great care has been taken to allow blind and low vision players to play it, while taking into account their specificities.<br>Usually, blind people are left outside the world of 'common' boardgames, because the game aren't designed to be accessible for those with that kind of handicap.<br>In this game, the key to differentiate playing parts is not colors or picture, as usual, but geometric patterns that can be felt when touched with the finger.<br>Each pattern has a distinct tactile feedback, helping the distinguishing between the tiles. The geometric patterns has been choosen to be relatively easy to print across a whole range of (FDM) printers.<br>The game can then been printed monocolor, but heavy accent is made on the printed ‘lines/edges’ that can be felt under the fingers.<br>The title is a play on word between english and french: in french, <i>snow </i>is called '<i>neige</i>' (pronounced close to '<i>naje</i>'). My first filament was <i>snow white colored</i>, and the edges of the geometric patterns are an integral part of the game. So the name was born: '<strong>Neige/N-Edge</strong>'.</p><p><strong>The game</strong><br>Nedge is a boardgame for two players: both players can be sighted, blind, low-vision, or any combination in between.</p><p>The core of the game consist of <strong>4 distinct geometric patterns</strong> (<i>'circular grooves</i>', <i>'triangular grooves</i>', '<i>lake hole</i>', and '<i>square holes</i>'). Those patterns are printed on both sides of square tiles. Every combination is represented through the game, so you have access to 16 tiles in total (4 patterns possibles on both sides of a tile).</p><p><strong>A second set of tiles</strong> is available, also with <strong>4 distinct geometrics patterns</strong> ('<i>circular rectangular grooves</i>', '<i>triangular grooves</i>', '<i>lake hole</i>' and '<i>two depressed squares</i>'). Those patterns are different from the first set, and can be used instead if the first one isn't printing properly on your 3D printer.</p><p>The picture displayed on top of the page are showcasing the 1st set, the renders are done with the second set.</p><p>The board isn't necessary to play, but it helps to stack the tiles, and avoid them falling eventually.<br>A the beginning of the game, no tile is present on the board. Every player takes turn, and can do one of the following moves:</p><ol><li>stack a tile on an empty hole. The player can choose whichever geometric pattern of the choosen tile will stay on top.</li><li>stack a tile(s) on another tile(s):<br>- if the player takes a tile, he must take the whole column on which this tile is staying (if there is one)<br>- the tile and its eventual stack underneath can be placed on another tile (with an eventual stack underneath this one also) if, and only if, both geometric pattern at the top of both stacks are the same before stacking those two stacks</li><li>reverse a whole stack by taking the stack with her hand and fingers, and apply a whole 180° flip to the whole stack. The tile at the bottom will be now at the top, and the tile at the top will be at the bottom</li><li>You can't flip stacks more than 3 turn in a row, and you can't flip back the stack that have just been flipped by the other player on the previous turn.</li></ol><p>If you can't play without breaking one of the those rules, then your opponent is the winner!</p><p>When playing with blind players, or people with vision impairments, the active player must tell out loud what he is doing. This helps both players to keep an active 'view' of the game in their head, and prevent the need to check every part of the pieces on each turn. For example: '<i>I'm taking a single, with triangular grooves on top, and putting it on a stack of 3 tiles, with triangular grooves on top</i>'.</p><p>On its turn, a player can lift up a little a stack to feel with its finger the pattern at the bottom, but he can't verify with his eyes.</p><p>The game can be played without the board, directly on a flat surface, but the stacks can be a bit flimsy. In either case, if one player breaks a stack involuntarily, he loses the game!</p><p>'<i>Annular</i>' helper can be printed and used to help stacks stay straight. They have been designed to be reversed easily when flipping the stacks.</p><p>Sometimes, two tiles on top of each other could interlock because of their geometric patterns in contact. To prevent that, don't hesitate to rotate horizontally one the stack 90° clockwise or counter clockwise, to prevent symetric parts interlocking each other.</p><p>More than two player can play together if another set of tiles is printed.</p><p><strong>The prints</strong><br>The 3D model has been designed with OpenScad. The STL are in mm, and can be scaled to fit the printing volume of the 3D printer.<br>Each annular helper is 3 cm x 3 cm x 1.5 cm. The board game holes are recessed 0.5 cm deep.<br>By default, the pieces are 3 centimeter wide, the patterns are 0.5 cm of height on each side. The bit of plastic between both geometric pattern is also 0.5 cm height. The whole tile is then 1.5 cm height. The tiles are designed to be slighty less wide than 3 cm, to take into account the printer tolerance and widening/flattening of the filament when layed down.<br>Layer height is 0.2 mm, and infill is 20%. The test prints were made with white PLA. Both sides of the tiles could be printed in different colors, but that would break the symmetry of the game: a sighted player would gain some advantage by seeing colors.</p><p><strong>Files</strong></p><ul><li>0_boardgame_centimeters.stl :<i> the boardgame, with depressed holes to fit the tiles into them</i></li><li>1_pawns_centimeters.stl : <i>first set of tiles, with finer features</i></li><li>1_pawns_1.1_centimeters.stl : <i>the second set of tiles, with features easier to print on 'entry level' printers</i></li><li>2_pawns_borders_centimeters.stl : <i>the helpers to keep stacks straight</i></li></ul><h5>Volume</h5><p>Everybody should be able to print the game, even 'simpler' 3D printers.&nbsp;<br>Special care was taken to have the game printable in a 12 cm x 12 cm volume. You can scale the various parts of the game to make it bigger.</p>