Dev diary: Tiny Tales Adventures puts family game night on the big screen
How a pass-the-tablet board game companion turned into a full fantasy adventure on the TV, with phones as controllers, 3D battles and a narrator who reads to the kids.
Tiny Tales Adventures started in January as something small: a companion app for a family board game night. Pass the tablet around, roll a d4 to move, roll a d20 to fight a goblin. Four heroes, a handful of monsters and a Dark Wizard at the end.
It didn't stay small.
The TV and the phones
The biggest change came in October: a TV mode. The board goes on the big screen, and everyone joins from their own phone by scanning a QR code. Your phone becomes your hero: your character sheet, your inventory, your spells and your dice cup. When it's your turn, you flick the phone and a golden d20 tumbles across the TV.
That one feature changed the whole feel of the game. Nobody is staring at a tablet waiting for their turn. Everyone is looking at the same screen, cheering the same rolls.
You can still play pass-the-device on one tablet, and you can fill the table with computer heroes if you want to adventure solo.
From flat board to a world
The board started as a grid of squares. Now it's a painted map that winds through eleven lands: the Meadow, Spider Forest, the Bog, the Caves, the Graveyard, the Ogre Compound, the Mountains, the Dungeon, the Pyramid, the Wizard's Tower and Dragon Peak. Every map comes from a seed (something like Rusty-Troll-68), so you can type it in at setup and play the same map again.
Most recently the map got depth. Trees, rocky peaks, crystals and towers now stand up out of their squares and overlap the row behind them, and they turn see-through when a hero is standing behind one.
Battles in 3D
Land on a monster and the board drops away into a 3D battle. Everyone on the square fights together. Each hero picks a target, the Mage throws Ice Shards, the Warrior charges, the Healer drops a Holy Nova, and the monsters wait for the last spell to finish before they take their turn.
Along the way the game picked up loot with proper item cards (hover any item to see its stats, its powers and the item you'd be replacing), a dozen status charms like sleep, snare, blink and rally, saving throws, shops, rest camps and party gates where the whole group has to gather before anyone moves on.
A narrator for little ones
The game has a Game Master voice that reads encounters and skill checks out loud, so kids who are still learning to read can follow along and play their own hero.
By the numbers
- 144 commits since January 11th
- 4 heroes, 11 lands, 1 to 6 players
- 41 pieces of music: three for every land, plus camp, battle, boss and the main theme. Seventeen of them are on our album, and the game plays all 41 at tinytalesadventures.com/soundtrack
Play Tiny Tales Adventures on any TV with a browser, plus everyone's phones. Then tell us which land is your favourite.
