Well, this is awesome.

Sony just announced a plethora of new projects that its new mobile studio ForwardWorks is currently working on. One of those projects is entitled Project FIELD. Project FIELD is a platform that allows players to use physical cards on (what I’ll call) a FIELD pad. Players can put their cards on this white pad, and it will then translate them onto a digital playing field seen via smartphone, or tablet. This allows multiple players to share a screen, or use their own for online matches. The first series being developed for Project FIELD is Yokai Watch.

Translated from Sony’s Japanese website:

“Project FIELD” is a platform that consists of smart phones and tablets, dedicated pads developed by Sony, cards with integrated IC chips, game applications, and a combination of trading card games and smartphone applications. Various functions such as position detection sensor, IC reading device, LED, Bluetooth®, etc. are packed in the special pad, and when putting a card on the pad, it detects the direction and movement quickly and exchanges data with the smartphone game application through Bluetooth®… Not only the position and orientation where the card is placed, but also movements such as vertical slide, slide to sideways, change direction, for example, can also be detected, and games such as “attack”, “avoidance” and it is reflected in play… The first piece of content produced by Forward Works for “Project FIELD” is the ‘Yokai Watch’ series.”

The FIELD pad reads various functions, such as repositioning of cards, attacks, removals, and can even store data for particular cards. For example, if you have a card that has gained multiple levels, your pad will recognize this the moment the card is in play.

While not a true necessity (Digital CCG’s are awfully convenient), this is still an interesting way to marry the physical, and digital worlds of collectible card games. It will be really interesting to see what other franchises will be developed for Project FIELD.

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