This Application claims priority of Taiwan Patent Application No. 100102458, filed on Jan. 24, 2011, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference herein.
1. Field of the Invention
The disclosure relates generally to game systems and related methods for updating game interfaces thereof, and, more particularly to electronic-paper game systems capable of changing multiple chess game interfaces and related methods for updating game interfaces thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
The chess game is one kind of popular games which belongs to a leisure-longan game. Today, various kinds of playing rules and props to play chess games have been proposed and widely used around the world. Generally, a chess game may comprise a chessboard and a number of chessmen, and users or players may control the movement of the chessmen on the chessboard according to the game playing rule of each game to play the chess game. There are a certain amount of chessmen for a conventional chessboard and losing any one of them may affect the integrity of its game rule such that the game may not be continued and the lost chessman must be re-purchased. In this case, originally uncompleted set of chessmen may be discarded, both were a pity, and will waste money. In addition, one conventional chessboard may only support one specific game function. When adding multiple game functions to a single chessboard, the volume and the weight of entire chessboard will be relatively increased, thus not only occupying more spaces but also making it hard to be stored. Another way to play chess game is using an electronic chessboard to substitute for the conventional physical chessboard and all of the chessmen to play the chess game. The so-called electronic chessboard is a chessboard using a touch-sensitive screen to replace the conventional physical chessboard and all of the chessmen and utilizes the changing of the backgrounds of the program interfaces to play multiple chess games so as to generate variety entertainment chess functions on a single display interface for quickly used by users. Generally, one electronic chessboard is only suitable for one kind of game rules and the electronic chessboard only helps to record some data during playing the chess game, such as automatic time counting, automatic musical recording, automatic decision making, synchronized real-time broadcasting and so on. However, the users are not allowed to change the game content. Yet another way to play chess game is using an electronic device with a display function (e.g. the iPad). Although this method may allow the users to change the game content by software, because it has to continually supply power to the electronic device for displaying data in use, more power may be wasted. Current chessboard and chessmen typically have been manufactured by natural physical way so that the display content can not be manually changed. Moreover, the market-sold electronic chessboard is also not allowed the user to manually change the chess modes and contents.
It is therefore a desire to have a game system for supporting multiple chess games and can quickly switch the game content among all of supported chess games.
Electronic-paper (E-paper) game systems and related methods for updating game interfaces for use in E-paper game systems are provided.
An embodiment of an E-paper game system comprises a chessboard and a plurality of chessmen. The chessboard at least comprises a first E-paper display unit for displaying a graphical data of a first chessboard for a first game interface. Each of the chessmen comprises a second E-paper display unit for displaying a graphical data of a first chessman which corresponds to the graphical data of the first chessboard, wherein the chessboard and the chessmen respectively updates the graphical data of the first chessboard displayed by the first E-paper display unit and the graphical data of the first chessman displayed by the second E-paper display unit to a graphical data of a second chessboard corresponding to a second game interface and a graphical data of a second chessman which corresponds to the graphical data of the second chessboard according to a switch signal.
In another embodiment of a method for updating game interfaces for use in an E-paper game system, at least a chessboard and a plurality of chessmen is provided to the E-paper game system, wherein the chessboard at least comprises a first E-paper display unit for displaying a graphical data of a first chessboard for a first game interface and a control unit, and wherein each of the chessmen comprises a second E-paper display unit for displaying a graphical data of a first chessman which corresponds to the graphical data of the first chessboard. When detecting a switch signal, a power is supplied to the chessboard and the chessmen and the graphical data of the first chessboard displayed by the first E-paper display unit and the graphical data of the first chessman displayed by the second E-paper display unit respectively updated to a graphical data of a second chessboard corresponding to a second game interface and a graphical data of a second chessman which corresponds to the graphical data of the second chessboard according to a switch signal. After the updating has been completed, the power supplying to the chessboard and the chessmen have been stopped.
Methods for updating game interfaces for use in an E-paper game system and related systems may take the form of a program code embodied in a tangible media. When the program code is loaded into and executed by a machine, the machine becomes an apparatus for practicing the disclosed method.
The invention will become more fully understood by referring to the following detailed description with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein:
The following description is of the best-contemplated mode of carrying out the invention. This description is made for the purpose of illustrating the general principles of the invention and should not be taken in a limiting sense. The scope of the invention is best determined by reference to the appended claims.
For example, if the first game interface represents a game interface of the Chinese chess, the graphical data of the first chessboard 114 displayed by the first E-paper display unit 112 is the chessboard graphical data of the Chinese chess while the graphical data of each of the first chessmen 124 displayed by the second E-paper display unit 122 is one of the chessmen graphical data corresponding to the Chinese chess, as shown in
For example, if the second game interface represents a game interface of the Chess, the first E-paper display unit 112 may change its display content from the graphical data of the first chessboard 114 representing the chessboard graphical data of the Chinese chess to the graphical data of the second chessboard 114′ representing the chessboard graphical data of the Chess according to a switch signal representing that it is to switch the game interface to the game interface of the Chess, such that each second E-paper display unit 112 may change its display content from the graphical data of the first chessman 114 representing the chessmen graphical data of the Chinese chess to the graphical data of the second chessman 124′ representing the chessmen graphical data of the Chess, respectively, as shown in
The E-paper game system 100 may further comprise a control system 130 which includes a control unit 132 and a memory 134, wherein the memory 134 stores graphical data of chessboards and graphical data of chessmen for a number of supportable game interfaces and the control unit 132 obtains the graphical data of the second chessboard 114′ and the graphical data of the second chessman 124′ from the graphical data of chessboards and the graphical data of chessmen for the stored game interfaces according to the switch signal, and updates the graphical data of the first chessboard 114 displayed by the first E-paper display unit 112 to the graphical data of the second chessboard 114′.
The E-paper game system 100 may further comprise a chessman switching unit 150 for updating the graphical data of the first chessman 124 displayed by the second E-paper display unit 122 to the graphical data of the second chessman 124′ according to the switch signal.
In the structure of E-paper display unit shown in
Please refer to
First, in step S302, it is determined whether a switch signal has been detected. In one embodiment, the chessboard 110 may further comprise a number of keys, wherein at least one hotkey is used for generating the switch signal to represent which game interface is to be switched to. When a user attempts to switch the game interface, the hotkey will be pressed. Meanwhile, the E-paper game system 100 will detect a switch signal. If no switch signal has been detected, which means that the display contents of the chessboard and each chessman are kept without any updating required, the flow returns to step S302 to continually detect whether any switch signal is generated. In this case, the power of the control system 130 is still set in the power-off mode or the power-saving mode. If any switch signal has been detected, which means that the display contents of the chessboard and each chessman are to be updated, in step S304, a power is supplied to the chessboard 110 and the chessman 120, and the graphical data of the first chessboard displayed by the first E-paper display unit 112 and the graphical data of the first chessman displayed by the second E-paper display unit 122 are respectively updated according to the switch signal. Meanwhile, the operation state of the control system 130 will be switched from the power-saving mode to the normal power-up mode. In this step, it is assumed that the memory 134 of the E-paper game system 100 has stored a number of supportable chess game interfaces data, each of chess game interfaces data comprising the chessboard graphical data and corresponding chessmen graphical data thereof. In this case, the E-paper game system 100 may obtain a responsive chess game interface data from the memory 134 according to the switch signal and update the graphical data of chessboard and the graphical data of chessman displayed by the first E-paper display unit 112 and the second E-paper display unit 122, respectively.
For example, assume that a system arrangement of a E-paper game system as shown in
Therefore, the first E-paper display unit 112 and the second E-paper display unit 122 may respectively update their display content to the chessboard graphical data of the Chess and the chessmen graphical data of the Chess (as shown in
After the updating has been completed, in step S306, due to property of the E-paper, the power supplied to the chessboard and the chessmen can be stopped such that the power of the control system 130 is set in the power-off mode or the power-saving mode again. In this case, the first E-paper display unit 112 and the second E-paper display unit 122 can still keep displaying the updated graphical data of the chessboard and the updated graphical data of each chessman, respectively, even if the power supplied to the chessboard and the chessmen have been stopped.
In some embodiments, when the data displayed by the second E-paper display units of one or more chessmen are to be updated/switched, the updating/switching procedure can be performed on one of the chessmen at one time or on all of the chessmen at the same time. If only the data displayed by the second E-paper display unit(s) of one of or a portion of the chessmen 420 are to be updated/switched, the power can be supplied to only the chessmen 420 which is to be updated/switched. If the data displayed by the second E-paper display units of all of the chessmen 420 are to be updated/switched, all of the chessmen can be putted into responsive slots 510 on the bottom cover 500 to be changed at the same time. For example, after all of the chessmen 420 have been putted into the responsive slots 510 on the bottom cover 500, the surfaces of all of the chessman which display responsive graphical data can be jointly turned upward so that when the upper cover 400 is jointed, the control system within the upper cover 400 may control the movement of the display media within the microcapsules of the E-ink 422 to generate desired gray-level variation by controlling the polarity of the control electrode 423 and the ground electrode 425 to control the upper and bottom electrodes of the E-ink 422 of the chessman 420, so as to update the data displayed by each E-paper display unit.
In summary, according to the E-paper game system and related methods for up dating game interfaces of the invention, because display data of the chessboard and each chessman are both displayed by the E-paper display units, the power of the control system can be turned off or be set in the power-saving mode if the E-paper display unit thereof are not used, such that the control unit and the display units are powered off or set in the power-saving mode in most of the time, thereby efficiently saving power consumption and suitably utilizing in providing long time power supply with batteries. Additionally, an enhanced E-paper chessmen design is further provided to efficiently reduce the required production costs. Moreover, as both the chessboard and each chessman are displayed by using the E-paper display units, the responsive display content displayed by each E-paper display unit can be easily updated by supplying a certain power thereto and a hotkey is further provided to quickly assign the chess game interface to be updated such that the E-paper game system can easily switch from one chess game interface to another, conveniently replace/generate new chessman, and support multiple chess games, thereby providing a variety of ways to play chess games for users. Furthermore, as physical chessboard and chessmen are utilized to play certain chess game on the electronic chessboard without having to change behaviors of the traditional chess players, making a more realistic game for the user.
Methods and systems thereof, or certain aspects or portions thereof, may take the form of a program code (i.e., executable instructions) embodied in tangible media, such as floppy diskettes, CD-ROMS, hard drives, or any other machine-readable storage medium, wherein, when the program code is loaded into and executed by a machine, such as a computer, the machine thereby becomes an apparatus for practicing the methods. The methods may also be embodied in the form of a program code transmitted over some transmission medium, such as electrical wiring or cabling, through fiber optics, or via any other form of transmission, wherein, when the program code is received and loaded into and executed by a machine, such as a computer, the machine becomes an apparatus for practicing the disclosed methods. When implemented on a general-purpose processor, the program code combines with the processor to provide a unique apparatus that operates analogously to application specific logic circuits.
While the invention has been described by way of example and in terms of preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited thereto. Those who are skilled in this technology can still make various alterations and modifications without departing from the scope and spirit of this invention. Therefore, the scope of the present invention shall be defined and protected by the following claims and their equivalents.
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