A modular electronic board game platform with smart tiles, player control screens, physical pieces, and a Raspberry Pi authority server.
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Smart tile PCB. ESP32-S3, display, RFID, RS485, 24 V power distribution, current sensing, and edge contacts in one rearrangeable grid module. |
Player control screen. Round 480x480 player terminal for turn actions, cash, assets, dice, trade, and game prompts. |
Physical tile module. A real smart tile assembly with screen, USB-C, side contacts, LEDs, and board-level bring-up hardware. |
Raspberry Pi authority. The central game server for rules, accounts, board state, web UI, player synchronization, and persistence. |
Gridopoly explores what a physical board game can become when the board itself is programmable. Instead of a fixed printed board, the system is built from independent smart tiles that can display their own state, detect pieces, animate LEDs, and communicate with a central authority.
The goal is not to copy the brand, map, art, cards, or product appearance of any existing commercial board game. Gridopoly keeps the social feeling of moving pieces around a real table, while replacing paper money, manual rent calculation, and fixed board content with software-controlled rules, assets, player screens, and dynamic maps.
Updated October 15, 2026. The current milestone is a 16-space trial board (12 long tiles and four corners), with up to four player consoles. This is an integrated prototype; complete physical-game acceptance and manufacturing approval remain open.
- All 16 planned tiles have been flashed, verified and run in batches on V0.34. The release fixes WS2812B-B-V6 LED timing; 13 tiles have user-confirmed normal lighting, three await visual confirmation. RFID and a powered full ring still need testing with the 24 V supply.
- The deployed Raspberry Pi server maps complete 16/24/32/40-space ORDER rings only when every online tile belongs to the same ring, the count matches the active map, and the physical corner roles match. Consistent manual anchors rotate the assignment; open-chain testing remains available. RS485 stays disabled.
- Four player consoles have been discovered online. New games freeze 1–4 eligible human consoles and fill the remaining seats with bots. Sequential fresh-tag pairing precedes avatar/name setup; single-reader and open-chain setups are supported. A newly connected console waits for the next game instead of taking an existing seat.
- Input batching, stale-hold protection and focused-row redraws are implemented. COM27/28 passed the waiting-page visual check. COM29 needed a separate 12 MHz diagnostic build, which passed the static waiting-page check; the normal 12 MHz candidate is built but not yet installed. COM7 retains the preceding normal build. Exact rotary detents, Avatar/game display and the Retarget frame-time limit remain to be verified.
- The latest frozen local package is trial16-2026-10-15-v4: V0.34 long/corner images, normal player
dfc4b7e5…, and Piea6e1f51…. It is separate from the older September batch32-v4 package. Battery telemetry remains disabled and undeployed. - Tile hardware uses direct regulated 24 V input. The current player power-board design candidate is R1 RC6-TP, adding eight test points to the corrected battery-board design. Three in-use power boards were reported repaired by the user; charging, cutoff, thermal and manufacturing acceptance remain open.
- The mechanical work includes an R2 one-piece three-tile fixture with geometry checks passed and printing/fit tests pending. The older CW47.5 console stand has user-confirmed fit; its successor remains in development.
See the current handoff, device registry, 16-space release and acceptance record, and mechanical progress. Host tests, flashing and user confirmation of one page do not certify full-board gameplay, wireless capacity or electrical behavior.
flowchart TB
Pi["Raspberry Pi 5 authority<br/>rules, turns, accounts, persistence"]
Web["Web board / test UI"]
Console["Player round screens<br/>Wi-Fi/UDP actions + snapshots"]
Bus["24 V + ORDER; RS485 reserved"]
TileA["Smart tile A<br/>ESP32-S3 / LCD / LED / RFID"]
TileB["Smart tile B"]
TileN["Smart tile N"]
Piece["Physical pieces<br/>125 kHz RFID tags"]
Pi <--> Web
Pi <-->|"WPA2 / HMAC UDP / HTTP assets"| Console
Power["24 V DC input"] --> Bus
Pi <-->|"Wi-Fi / HTTP"| TileA
Bus --> TileA
TileA --> TileB
TileB --> TileN
Piece -. placed on .-> TileA
- Rearrangeable smart tiles: each grid module can be manufactured, tested, replaced, and rearranged independently.
- Physical-piece sensing: each tile is designed around 125 kHz RFID detection for tagged game pieces.
- Dynamic tile display: ST7789 screens and WS2812 LEDs show ownership, events, status, and feedback.
- Central game authority: a Raspberry Pi owns the rules, turns, cash, assets, trades, auctions, debts, and persistence.
- Player terminals: round screens give each player their own cash, assets, dice, trade, payment, and reconnect interface.
- Original Grid City content: the repo includes board maps, visual systems, tile assets, avatars, contracts, and game rules.
- Protocol-first design: C++ core, binary protocol, UDP envelope, HTTP assets, and generated contracts are tested as first-class artifacts.
| Layer | Technology | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Tile hardware | ESP32-S3, ST7789, WS2812, HTRC110, RS485, INA226 | Local display, lighting, RFID sensing, Wi-Fi/HTTP communication, reserved RS485, current monitoring. |
| Player console | ESP32-S3, 480x480 round LCD, LVGL-oriented UI specs, Wi-Fi/UDP | Per-player controls, snapshots, actions, reconnect, and UI workflows. |
| Authority server | Raspberry Pi 5, C++17, systemd | Rules, persistence, HTTP board UI, UDP player sessions, and deployment. |
| Game core | C++ libraries | Board catalog, game engine, protocol codec, state machine, trades, auctions, cards, and bots. |
| Assets/contracts | JSON schemas, generated docs, PNG/RGB565/GAVC assets | Stable game content, tile art, avatars, and protocol contracts. |
| Hardware design | EasyEDA snapshots; 6-layer tiles, 2-layer player battery board | Smart tile PCB design, BOM, power, bus, and connector documentation. |
Build and run the host-side C++ tests:
cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build
ctest --test-dir build --output-on-failureBuild and test the Raspberry Pi server using the native guard script:
GRIDOPOLY_NATIVE_BUILD_DIR=/tmp/gridopoly-build \
Server/RaspberryPi/tools/build-and-test-native.shDeploy on Raspberry Pi after building the server binary:
sudo sh Server/RaspberryPi/deploy/install.sh build-pi/gridopoly_server
sudoedit /etc/gridopoly/server.env
sudoedit /etc/gridopoly/ap.env
sudo systemctl enable --now gridopoly-ap gridopoly-dnsmasq gridopoly-ap-watchdog gridopolyThe last recorded management-network address is http://10.0.0.124/; it may change with the network. The AP endpoints below are a separate device network. Optional external-AP migration is documented here and has not been applied on site.
Player network endpoints after deployment:
- Web board on the player AP:
http://10.42.0.1/ - Player binary protocol: UDP
10.42.0.1:4242
Start here when working on a specific area:
- Docs center
- Product goals
- Hardware baseline
- ESP32-S3 pin map
- Module interconnect
- Firmware development guide
- Raspberry Pi authority server
- Wi-Fi/UDP player protocol
- Avatar components
- Player detail queries
- Trade protocol
- Player console UI spec
- Game rules
Gridopoly/
|-- Assets/ Grid City tile art, avatars, manifests, and generated assets
|-- Docs/ Product, hardware, firmware, game, player-console, and design docs
|-- Firmware/ ESP32 test server, shared core/protocol libraries, LVGL baseline
|-- GameData/ Schemas, generated contracts, and game data artifacts
|-- Mechanical/ Player console stand models, scripts, tests, and reports
|-- PCB Files/ EasyEDA project snapshots and PCB backups
|-- Server/RaspberryPi/ Formal authority server, deploy scripts, web/UDP services
|-- Tools/ Contract generation tools and tests
|-- tests/host/ Host C++ tests for core, protocol, authority, UDP, HTTP, avatars
`-- CMakeLists.txt
Gridopoly is an integrated prototype, not a manufacturing release. Before treating a board revision as production-ready, the project still needs final DRC, no-unrouted checks, component orientation review, switching-regulator layout review, current-path calculations, RFID tuning, and measured multi-module testing.
No open-source license has been selected yet. Public code and design files are available for inspection, but they are not automatically licensed for reuse, modification, or commercial use.
October 15 follow-up: the user has powered all 16 tiles with 24 V, but the onboard AP has only seven observed active associations. An ALFA AWUS036ACM has been purchased for portable local play; delivery, migration and 20/36-client validation are pending. See the selection and verification boundaries.