Board games have been enjoying a surge in popularity in recent years. From age-old favourite Monopoly to more recent classics such as Settlers of Catan, sitting around a table to play games is back in vogue. And for lovers of games like Jenga, there’s a new kid on the block, and he’s sportingBluetooth® technology.

Fabulous Beasts is a tablet-based puzzle game made real, where small animal figures are scanned into the game via a base unit and then balanced precariously on top of each other. We caught up with Chris Shaw, lead engineer atSensible Object, the company behind Fabulous Beasts, to tell us how Bluetooth and gaming go hand in hand.

How exactly is Bluetooth used in your product?

“Our game involves a mixture of physical and digital gameplay. We have custom physical hardware that uses Bluetooth to connect to an app running on a tablet or smartphone, which enables the digital element of the game. The Bluetooth connection is used to provide a real-time data stream between the app and the hardware. It transfers information from the NFC reader and weighing scales to the app in real-time, allowing the app to issue commands to the hardware based on what’s happening in-game.”

Why did you choose to use Bluetooth?

“Bluetooth provides a really simple and reliable mechanism for users to connect the app and the custom hardware. We can even make this happen automatically and completely seamlessly with a little more development. This is a major advantage over other wireless options which inevitably put more effort onto the user. It provides a very reliable, low-latency connection with enough data throughput for an Internet of Things gaming product such as ours, with minimum hardware and firmware design work and set-up.”

What are your thoughts are about the rise of IoT technologies in the toys and games space?

“Fabulous Beasts sits within a specific segment of products where IoT and gaming collide known as ‘toys to life.’ The existence of this category is a direct result of the increased availability of a few key technologies; namely NFC and Bluetooth in our case. As benefits and user-flows for these technologies become more widely understood, and as prices drop, their reach into more cost and simplicity-sensitive applications like gaming inevitably grows. We can already see this in effect as trailblazing products like Skylanders are joined by offerings from bigger companies such as Disney’s Infinity and Nintendo’s Amiibo.”

“Further democratization of technologies like Bluetooth, along with SME-friendly silicon manufacturers and prototyping tools like Arduino, means that the idea of a hardware-focused indie games company, like ours, is now a reality. Bluetooth is clearly a key technology of the IoT and its focus on simplicity and reliability for the user really shines through in toys and gaming.”

You can read more about Fabulous Beasts on their Kickstarter page.

(Credit: Russell Lindsey)