Physical Game Sand Table for Multi-Player Game Guidance and Automatic Scoring

The present disclosure relates to a physical game sand table for multi-player game guidance and automatic scoring.

OFC (Open Face Chinese Poker) is a popular poker game in the United States, with an estimated domestic player base of over 500,000. This game has even been included in professional tournaments. Compared to traditional poker games, OFC offers significant advantages in terms of entertainment and social interaction. However, the game primarily exists in the form of online apps, and the once-thriving offline scene has diminished. The reasons are as follows:

Difficulty in teaching new players the rules offline: when experienced players try to teach the rules, they usually need to use several photos and explain the relationship between the card placement area (13 cards) and the rules. Without on-site prompts, it is challenging to teach the rules effectively in one go. As a result, the gaming experience for new players is suboptimal, which affects the game's popularity.

This gameplay method is cumbersome and time-consuming for manual scoring: according to specific scoring rules, manual score statistics are conducted. Offline play generally uses chips, paper, and pens as scoring tools to record the score of each round. The scoring rules are relatively complex, and even for experienced players, it takes 10 to 30 seconds to calculate and record each round. The scoring at the end of each round disrupts the smoothness of the game experience. New players need to understand the game process while also managing the scoring, which brings many inconveniences to the game experience.

Playing online through the app, with screen interaction guidance and automatic scoring, can effectively avoid the above issues. If there is a solution to avoid these problems offline, the offline market for this gameplay is considerable, with dissemination attributes and great growth potential.

The present disclosure includes a physical game sand table for multi-player game guidance and automatic scoring. The sand table includes a housing, which is equipped with an identification area, indicator lights, touchable or pressable buttons, and a display screen. A built-in chip MCU, a power supply, a speaker, and a communication module are arranged inside the housing

The present disclosure further includes a practical operation system based on a physical game sand table and OFC gameplay. The system includes an input module, an identification module, an algorithm module, a transmission module, an interaction module, and a power supply module. The interaction module includes a display module, a light interaction module, and a sound interaction module.

Step 1, guiding card drawing (the sand table provides prompts for card drawing to guide players in card drawing behavior, including the order of drawing and the number of cards to draw): Step 2, scoring step; Step 3, credit comparison; Step 4, adding Fantasy rules; Step 5, repeating with Fantasy rules again; and Step 6, a single round ending, displaying and verifying scoring results, settling chips, and proceeding to a next round. The present disclosure further includes a multi-player game guidance and automatic scoring method, which includes the following steps:

By designing the above technical means, the present disclosure can achieve the reduction of the entry difficulty for new players to participate in card games through the technical methods of built-in card game rules and auxiliary calculations, and also greatly reduces the existing problems of complex gameplay scoring being troublesome and time-consuming, thereby enhancing the entertainment value of card games.

The technical solution in the embodiment of the present disclosure will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the drawings. Obviously, the described embodiment is part of, rather than all of the embodiments of the present disclosure. The following description of at least one exemplary embodiment is illustrative in nature and is in no way intended to limit the present disclosure, its application or uses. Based on the embodiments in the present disclosure, all other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art without creative work belong to the scope of protection of the present disclosure.

It should be noted that the terminology used here is only for describing specific embodiments, and is not intended to limit exemplary embodiments according to the present application. As used herein, the singular form is also intended to include the plural form unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. Furthermore, it should be appreciated that when the terms “comprising” and/or “including” are used in this specification, they specify the presence of features, steps, operations, devices, components and/or combinations thereof.

Unless otherwise specified, the relative arrangement of components and steps, numerical expressions and numerical values set forth in these embodiments do not limit the scope of the present disclosure. At the same time, it should be appreciated that for the convenience of description, the dimensions of various parts shown in the drawings are not drawn according to the actual scale relationship. Techniques, methods and equipment known to those skilled in the art may not be discussed in detail, but in appropriate cases, they should be regarded as part of the authorization specification. In all the examples shown and discussed herein, any specific values should be interpreted as illustrative, and not as limiting. Therefore, other examples of exemplary embodiments may have different values. It should be noted that similar numbers and letters indicate similar items in the following drawings, therefore once an item is defined in one drawing, it does not need to be further discussed in subsequent drawings.

1 5 FIG.- As shown in, the present disclosure provides a physical game sand table for multi-player game guidance and automatic scoring, which includes a board game sand table device. The board game sand table device includes a housing. The housing is provided with an identification area, indicator lights, touchable or clickable buttons, and a display screen. Inside the housing, there are a built-in chip MCU, a power supply, a speaker, and a communication module.

3 FIG. 1 Refer to, the special card is equipped with a chip. The sand table can batch read the chip data of a plurality of cards after the button is clicked. The interactive device can read the sand table data, summarize and calculate the sand table data, and is configured for inputting, reading, calculation, and feedback (Arepresents: identifying and transmitting card information, calculating game scores according to the game rules, and then sending them back to each device).

The identification slot includes at least one card slot, and the position of each identification slot is equipped with a magnetic fitting component.

Through the above technical means, when players place cards, the magnetic force cooperates and triggers the lighting (sound) effect/recognition action. Slots without cards do not perform the above actions, providing strong interactivity and superior energy-saving effects.

The speaker can achieve voice broadcast function. The buttons include a power on/off button, a device connection button, and an operation confirmation button.

The present disclosure further includes; a practical operation system based on a physical game sand table and OFC gameplay, which includes an input module, a recognition module, an algorithm module, a transmission module, an interaction module, and a power supply module.

The interaction module includes a display module, a lighting interaction module, and a sound interaction module.

4 FIG. 2 Refer to, with this setup, the effects include providing screen text and graphic interactions for powering on, networking, and prompting players to take and place cards in the recognition area, as well as light interactions for placing and removing cards in the recognition area (indicating whether the card is properly placed and can be recognized normally), and light and sound feedback for the reading, calculating, and scoring processes and their completion (Arepresents: feeding back the scoring results of the game to each player's game sand table device, which displays the score data and next-step guidance information from their respective perspectives).

The input module includes a data receiving module and a manual input module.

With this setup, the effects include providing screen text and graphic interactions for powering on, networking, and prompting players to take and place cards in the recognition area, as well as light interactions for placing and removing cards from the recognition area (indicating whether the card is properly placed and can be recognized normally), and light and sound feedback for the reading, calculating, scoring process, and their completion.

The interaction module includes a light interaction module, a text interaction module, and a sound interaction module.

Light: when a card is placed in the recognition area (the corresponding indicator light turns on, with different light effects for normal recognition and failed recognition), and when a card is removed from the recognition area (the corresponding indicator light turns off), during the sand table reading and scoring process (a plurality of indicator lights in the read area and the overall indicator lights have different lighting effects). Text interaction (screen display): With this setup, the following technical effects are achieved:

Sound interaction: Power-on interaction, network matching status prompt, prompt to guide card drawing, reading process, scoring process, scoring result display.

Power-on interaction, network matching status prompt, prompt to guide card drawing, reading process, scoring process, scoring result display.

The input module includes a data receiving module and a manual input module.

The interaction module includes a light interaction module, a text interaction module, and a sound interaction module.

The recognition module includes a plurality of NFC recognition modules.

Step 1, guiding card drawing: Step 1.1, first, guiding each player to take 5 cards, and the player taking turns to place all 5 cards (once placed, they cannot be changed later); Step 1.2, guiding each player to draw 3 cards, the player selecting 2 cards to place, and discarding 1 card; Step 1.3, guiding each player to draw 3 cards, the player selecting 2 cards to place, and discarding 1 card; Step 1.4, guiding each player to draw 3 cards, the player selecting 2 cards to place, and discarding 1 card; Step 1.5, guiding each player to draw 3 cards, the player selecting 2 cards to place, and discarding 1 card, at which point the cards are fully placed. Step 2, scoring step; the Step 2 further comprises: Step 2.1, flop round: calculating a corresponding score for each card type (less than pair six is zero score); Step 2.2, middle round card group scoring, which is consistent with the hand strength in Texas Hold'em; Step 2.3, final round scoring, which is consistent with the hand strength in Texas Hold'em; Step 2.4, bust detection, calculating basic scores for Player 1, Player 2, and Player 3 (if any) based on the above scores. There is a fundamental rule: Final round>Middle round>flop round. If this condition is not met, the player directly scores 0, referred to as a burst. Step 3, credit comparison; the Step 3 further comprises: Step 3.1, in addition to the basic scores, users competing in pairs for extra scores, for example Player 1 competes against Player 2; Step 3.2, if Player 1's flop round>Player 2's flop round, then Player 1 scoring 1 point (the two parties score 0 for a tie); Step 3.3, if Player 1's middle round>Player 2's middle round, then Player 1 scoring 1 point; Step 3.4, if Player 1's final round>Player 2's final round, then Player 1 scoring 1 point; Step 3.5, if all three rounds of a player are greater than the opponents, then an additionally scoring 3 points, known as a “shoot”; Step 3.6, Player 1 completing against Player 2, Player 2 completing against Player 3, Player 3 completing against Player 1, wherein the basic score+scores obtained by completion is the player's final score for this round. Step 4, adding Fantasy rules (this rule is executed after player settlement, provided there is no bust); Step 4.1, if the flop round satisfies>three, which is called Trips Fantasy, directly dealing 17 cards to the player at once in a next round, instead of dealing cards one round by one round; if the flop round satisfies AA, which is called AA Fantasy, directly dealing 16 cards to the player at once in a next round; Step 4.2, if the flop round satisfies KK, which is called KK Fantasy, directly dealing 15 cards to the player at once in a next round; Step 4.3, if the flop round satisfies QQ, which is called QQ Fantasy, directly dealing 14 cards to the player at once in a next round. Step 5, repeating Still Fantasy (Yi Ran Fantasy or Lian Fan) rules (when a player meets the conditions of Trips Fantasy, AA Fantasy, KK Fantasy, or QQ Fantasy, these scenarios are collectively classified as Fantasy). Step 6, a single round ending, displaying and verifying scoring results, settling chips, and proceeding to a next round. After the flop round ends, all cards are dealt to the players at once in the next round. The present disclosure further includes; a multi-player game guidance and automatic scoring method, including the following steps:

After the flop round ends, all cards are dealt to the players at once in the next round.

The algorithm module includes a data processing module, a communication protocol module, and a data broadcast and comparison processing unit.

From the above description, it can be seen that the aforementioned embodiments of the present disclosure achieve the following technical effects: the present disclosure can reduce the entry difficulty for new players to participate in card games by technical means of built-in card game rules and assistance the calculation through built-in systems and matching card gameplay rules, and it also significantly reduces the existing problems of complex gameplay scoring being troublesome and time-consuming, thereby enhancing the entertainment value of card games.

In the description of the present disclosure, it should be appreciated that directional terms such as “front, rear, up, down, left, right”, “horizontal, vertical, perpendicular, horizontal” and “top, bottom” etc. indicate the orientation or positional relationship based on the orientation or positional relationship shown in the drawings, and are only for the convenience of describing the present disclosure and simplifying the description. In the absence of a contrary explanation, these directional terms do not indicate or imply that the device or element referred to must have a specific orientation or be constructed and operated in a specific orientation, and therefore should not be understood as limiting the scope of protection of the present disclosure; the directional terms “inside, outside” refer to the inside and outside relative to the contour of each component itself.

For the convenience of description, spatial relative terms such as “on . . . ”, “above . . . ”, “on the upper surface of . . . ”, “upper” etc. may be used here to describe the spatial positional relationship of a device or feature with other devices or features as shown in the drawings. It should be appreciated that spatial relative terms are intended to encompass different orientations of the device in use or operation other than the orientation described in the drawings. For example, if the device in the drawing is inverted, the device described as “above other devices or structures” or “on other devices or structures” will subsequently be positioned as “below other devices or structures” or “under other devices or structures”. Thus, the exemplary term “above” can include both “above” and “below” orientations. The device can also be positioned in other different ways (rotated 90 degrees or in other orientations), and the spatial relative descriptions used here should be interpreted accordingly.

In addition, it should be noted that the use of terms such as “first”, “second” etc. to define components is for the convenience of distinguishing the corresponding components. Unless otherwise stated, the above terms have no special meaning, and therefore should not be understood as limiting the scope of protection of the present disclosure.

The above description is only a preferred embodiment of the present disclosure and is not intended to limit the present disclosure. For those skilled in the art, the present disclosure can have various modifications and changes. Any modifications, equivalent replacements, improvements etc. made within the spirit and principles of the present disclosure should be included within the scope of protection of the present disclosure.