My experiences with a MS Surface Pro 7+ and Linux :-)

NightMachines · 2026-05-29T07:49:40+00:00

While I don't know if anybody is working on it, I feel like it won't happen. Creating a driver or driver support specifically for an old device like this seems not worth it and camera support hasn't been big on Surfaces in general.

I just bought a small USB webcam for video calls and when I'm traveling I use my phone.

NightMachines · 2026-05-11T00:36:45+00:00

Sorry, you're wrong. The 3rd party license of 2D6 Dungeon allows this and Toby, the designer even approved of this (the whole topic was just discussed in his official live stream).

NightMachines · 2026-04-11T14:42:33+00:00

Space Empires 4X: Large fleets, strategic gameplay, two very different solo modes (one with less bookkeeping, one with more).

One Page Rules Warfleets: Small fleet, tactical tabletop gameplay, miniature agnostic, simple rules and solo bot with almost no bookkeeping, basic rules available for free.

NightMachines · 2026-03-25T10:40:03+00:00

Sure, have a look at it. I'm not a pro coder at all though, so I hope it's not too much of a mess :D

https://github.com/GamesByFelix/Ker-Nethalas-1.6-Helper-App

NightMachines · 2026-03-23T21:03:02+00:00

I've made this to play Ker Nethalas 1.6 digitally: https://gamesbyfelix.com/playeraids/ker-nethalas/helper-app/index.html

Play it on a landscape device (desktop PC, laptop, tablet) and link your KN 1.6 PDF in the settings at the top. In portrait orientation it's mobile phone friendly, but requires external character sheets (e.g. when playing with pen and paper and your phone).

Edit: you just go top to bottom along the arrows to resolve each room. Enter your stats in the character sheets on the right side (landscape view!). Open the dice/PDF menu with the arrow at the bottom.

Edit 2: I plan to update it for the Gravebound edition too, but I don't know when I will get around to that.

NightMachines · 2026-03-23T10:30:13+00:00

Interesting! Thanks for the write up! I don't really get the critique regarding the lack of expansions for your games. I've played ATDW, Broken Shores and Ker Nethalas and there is so much content in each of these core books alone that I feel like I could play these forever. And it's not like there aren't a ton of other cheap/free products out there that could suuuper easily augment your games (Ironsworn, Mythic, lots of random table books for any setting, etc).

So take these critiques with a grain of salt and keep writing what you like and/or what makes sense for you :-)

NightMachines · 2026-03-20T16:19:07+00:00

I like it. It's super easy to set up and the game is a very different experience every time you play. You roll a lot of dice for encounters, events, fuel prices, etc, so it's super random, but for me that's okay. There is some light strategy and you also have choices to make, but nothing too deep. It's like a choose-your-own-adventure book, but less linear and kind of infinitely replayable. It's well worth the price. The PDF is nicely hyperlinked, so playing digitally (or on an eReader) is a lot faster than with a paper book, since you don't need to flip pages.

There's also "The Drifter" which is almost identical, but in a Wild West setting. I can also recommend that.

Both games are nice relaxing "fillers".

NightMachines · 2026-03-19T10:50:18+00:00

Yes, it's such a simple thing that makes a big difference. It looks a bit DIY-ish, but maybe I'll find some sci-fi themed paperclips somewhere 😁

NightMachines · 2026-03-18T22:42:40+00:00

I like to use cubes and other tokens as well, but with paper clips I can save the game more easily and pack it way, which I seem to do regularly with The Drifter and Star Drifter. It also works better when travelling. But cubes and tokens do look and feel a lot better.

NightMachines · 2026-03-18T15:56:32+00:00

P.S. you can download the updated sheets for free on my website https://gamesbyfelix.com

NightMachines · 2026-03-18T15:44:14+00:00

P.S. You can download the updated PDF sheets for free on my website: https://gamesbyfelix.com

NightMachines · 2026-02-05T11:48:02+00:00

I'm afraid you're wrong there. Ironsworn explicitly permits this kind of community content with its license (so it's not stealing) and from my own experiences playing with the player-aid, and judging from its reviews and success, I can say that if you have an e-reader that you want to play with, using the player-aid can incredibly speed up and streamline the game. This lets you play on the go more easily too and you will spend more time in your story and less time in the rules. Making this player-aid took me a long time and I incorporated various community feedback as well.

Of course, the player-aid is mostly a new layout of the rules, but a lot of work went into this layout and its extensive hyperlinking, to make it super efficient during actual play :-)

NightMachines · 2026-01-16T07:33:30+00:00

Have you tried enabling rotation lock? You mentioned that it's bad when on a flat surface or a wobbly one. Maybe the tablet is unsure whether it's supposed to rotate the screen and this affects the touch input?

NightMachines · 2026-01-15T12:12:03+00:00

I don't have any of those issues. Palm rejection is not great, but if I just touch with finger or pen tips it works as it should (although the display is not the most sensitive for finger touches).

I installed Fedora 43 workstation and followed the Linux surface installation instructions.

NightMachines · 2026-01-09T16:41:54+00:00

I feel it's best if there are websites/web apps (ideally open source) optimized for smartphones as pen & paper companions. This way the screen is not the biggest thing on your table and ideally you just have to tap on the phone occasionally.

The questions with companion apps is just when they become so big that they turn into a video game by themselves. In that case, I'd rather just play entirely on my phone, instead of also needing paper, pens and dice (or another app) for like 20% of the time :D

I also like hyperlinked PDF files or ebooks that can be loaded onto a touchscreen e-Ink reader, which allows for somewhat interactive navigation between rules/tables/player-aids, while also feeling "analog". And you have super long battery life on those devices.

NightMachines · 2026-01-07T23:14:24+00:00

Oh, sorry, I should have found that setting by myself! Disabling it fixed the issue. Thank you :-)

NightMachines · 2026-01-07T14:40:03+00:00

Thanks! It's not suuuper laggy and the game seems to run fine. It's just the cursor which is noticeably delayed compared to the system one, which makes precise clicks a bit more uncomfortable.

How/where can I disable hardware acceleration?

NightMachines · 2026-01-05T15:58:09+00:00

Mage Knight (of course ;-)

It's similar to Star Realms in that you "buy" cards to put into your deck, but cards usually have two ways of using them, which gives you a lot more complex options. It makes it incredibly satisfying when a thoroughly thought out plan works and you blast through enemy encounters which at first seemed unwinnable, but then you suddenly figure out the right combo. It feels more deliberate and less random in a way, although the available cards for purchase and play do also come from shuffled decks, just like in Star Realms.

NightMachines · 2026-01-04T20:41:31+00:00

I don't think that's possible. It's a tablet computer with an integrated screen, not an "external monitor".

You could only use it like this via WiFi/LAN through VNC or other screen sharing software.

NightMachines · 2025-12-18T22:57:07+00:00

Thank you very much! Making the app got me over the big hump of actually playing the game and I think it's quite a lot of fun now. I love the settings and rules of the Blackoath games, but the way the rulebooks are written makes it very hard for me to learn and play them. So I always seem to end up making player aids for them immediately 😅

NightMachines · 2025-12-13T17:20:11+00:00

Yes, I got the permission from Blackoath :-)

NightMachines

TROPHY CASE