Idea: Game vault

Hi there.

I just had a crazy idea that I think can work pretty well with blinks.

Is more like a chain of concepts:

I have a Phone > My phone has IR > Blinks send a full game using IR

How about having an App in your Phone with the code of all your games and use your phone to sync them with your blinks? (In case you don’t have IR, there are USBC adapters for 10$)

Example: I have 24 blinks, but maybe I want to go with some friends and take with me a 6pack, but I want to take with me all my 24 games!
Example 2: I have 6 blanks, but I already have them with games, this way you can have more games with you!

I know nothing about communication, but, if you send via IR the exact same code Blinks send while sharing a game, can it work and start a blue chain of code sharing?

Maybe some kind of app that let you “read” the code and save it, and can replicate that message, that way, you can only do it if you genuinely have the original blink with that game?

Just a crazy idea! What do you think?

1 Like

I like the idea but I think the blinks handshake when they transmit game code. I don’t think you could just capture a stream of IR pulses. If you could figure that part out then you’re golden. BlinksBIOS is closed source IIRC. Not sure if that’s where the learning code lives.

The idea is nice, but the implementation will not be trivial:

@Confus3d, If a phone could communicate with the Blinks and vice versa, that would open them up to much more than just downloading code. They would now potentially have access to network, bluetooth, audio, GPS, etc… So although this is something I don’t really see happening, the advantages would stretch way past the examples you gave.

@Dudepants Actual phones, as detailed in the link @BGA posted, have a transmiting IR LED capable of use it to act as a remote, but not a receiver.

Old phones have indeed this kind of sender-receiver (i remember that days sending pictures via IR to other phones).

Of course the advantages are huge, but i’m thinking on just a Game Vault to store your games, cause i think involving the phone for scores or sounds is too much. For me blinks are meant to be a game designed to leave the phones for a moment and play with fiends!

2 Likes

Right, but I know Jon at one point was looking at solutions for expanding to have sound and network access. Communicating with a phone could solve that, and everyone has one…unfortunately, the fragmentation of types of phones people have would be an issue. I’m thinking there would have to be a middle man blink that connects to a phone via USB-C or something and then that middle man blink could connect to the others. It could upload to leaderboards, play game sounds, download games from your phone, etc.

if I were to guess, I would say that the approach they will end up using is a special Blink that network/audio/whatever support. Personally I think network support is a must (mostly for the app store model) and audio support is a nice to have thing. But considering current games without any of that are already reaching current-gen Blinks limits, more storage and more ram takes priority I guess.

But now this is getting off-topic for this thread. :slight_smile:

2 Likes

This is something we talk about actively and it almost certainly will happen - probably soon.

The gateway blink and the phone will likely use BLE to communicate since it is low power and almost all phones support it.

4 Likes

That would work. I’ve done a lot with BLE, and the only issue I’ve come across is REALLY old phones having a hard limit on the number of BT devices they can have saved and once you hit the limit, it bricks the phone basically. I guess initially, they never thought it would take off like it has. Anything bought within the last 6 or 7 years should be fine, though.

I didn’t really put much thought into it before this thread, but a phone would be able to take so much heavy lifting off of the gateway Blink and open up options for a very easy and nice UI for the user. A GUI isn’t something we’ve needed, and part of what makes Blinks unique and fun, but if these other features come into play, you’d almost assuredly need something visual.

1 Like

@Confus3d Anyway, sorry. Kind of hijacked the thread. It’s a good idea Confus3d. I just kind of ran off on a tangent of what a phone could add for capabilities. Excited to see what they’re working on.

:sweat_smile: Is a different aproach, I think we all agree the phone can be a benefit!
Obviously same can be done with BLE, selecting games on the phone and sharing them with the “BLE-Blink”.

I just thinked on IR because is something some phones already have :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

Edit:
Talking about sounds and music, how about an official Spotify list of songs with a song for every game? That can be awesome!!

4 Likes

Oh man, am so on this for the soundtracks!

2 Likes

That sounds like a great approach. The current Dev blink is a pointer in that direction.

Another approach would be a “special” Blink with much more on-board storage, and a way to cycle through games and send them to other Blinks.

However, pairing to a phone does solve a lot of issues with memory and a display, as well as access to an “app store”.