A family board game, surveyed one tile at a time

Chroniclers’ Island

A cooperative board game on an island that stays on the table between games and gets bigger every time. After each game an AI chronicler prints next week’s events onto stickers.

Whole familyThe 6-year-old plays. A parent or the older sibling reads the event cards.

Players
The whole family, all on the same side
One game
About half an hour
Island
About 40 printed hex tiles, 8 cm across, plus 10 blank ones
After the game
A chronicle entry, deed stickers, six new events and a sealed envelope
Cost
1,500–2,500 CZK (about €60–100)
Game 8 in progress. The label printer is the only electronics in the picture. The rest is printed plastic, cardboard and a cloth bag.
  1. The island waitsThe island from last game is still on the board. Everyone takes a hero card with the ability stickers that hero has earned so far.
  2. Fog bagOn your turn your hero walks to the coast. You pull a tile out of the fog bag and lay it down, and its symbol says which event card gets read out.
  3. The die decidesThe table agrees on what the heroes do, and the die decides. A success earns a find token.
  4. Sealed envelopeAn envelope opens once the condition written on it comes true, say “build a bridge”. Inside is a new rule or a new tile.
  5. After half an hourEach child holds the button on the phone and says in one sentence what their hero did. A parent adds two sentences about the game, and the kids say where they want to go next.
  6. The chroniclerClaude writes the chronicle entry and sends the label printer deed stickers, six new events and the envelope for next game. I print any place the kids draw on a blank tile within a week.

Play a round

Game 8 of a made-up campaign. My son’s hero is Captain Otter, my daughter’s is Firefly. You play two turns at the table, then the part after the game: the kids talk to the chronicler, the Mac checks the reply, and the label printer does the rest. Every answer on this page is pre-written.

  1. At the table
  2. Tell the chronicler
  3. The printer
  4. Next game

The wow moment

Game 9 starts a week later. My 6-year-old pulls a tile with the claw symbol, I read out the event card, and her hero’s name is on it. The crab she fed a sandwich last week is back, and it’s on her side.

She did that with one sentence into the phone. Her brother gets a card of his own, because the code won’t print a deck that leaves one of them out.

The blank tile she drew a crab rock on comes back during the week as a printed tile, and it goes into the fog bag with everything else.

What they said after game 8

Son (9)

“Captain Otter carried Firefly across the river on his back.”

Daughter (6)

“Firefly gave the crab her sandwich.”

Dad

“We found the Reeds and the River. We built a bridge and the envelope opened.”

Both kids

“The smoking mountain!”

What came out of the printer (4 of 10 labels)

A friend with clawsThe crab that ate Firefly’s sandwich remembers. It holds back the tide for her.Put a sand tile from the bag next to any coast. Firefly takes a find.↩ Firefly Otters on the riverThe river otters saw Captain Otter carry Firefly across. They offer a ride.This turn, Captain Otter can move any hero across water.↩ Captain Otter Firefly · Crab friendCrabs never block Firefly. Sealed · game 9Open when a hero stands on the smoking mountain.

Why a tenth time

  • Nothing gets reset. Game 10 starts on the island that games 1 to 9 built, and the hero cards carry every sticker they earned along the way.
  • The deck is new every week. Six events come out of the printer after each game, written for this island, and two of them come from what the kids’ heroes did last time, one each.
  • Envelopes wait on the shelf until their condition comes true. One wants a bridge, the next one three finds from the sea, and some of them sit there for several games.
  • The kids add places. A crayon drawing on a blank tile comes back as a printed tile within a week, and from then on it’s part of the map.
  • In the third and fourth week the callbacks start: the crab, the bridge, the lantern on the hill. The chronicle file remembers all of it, so the island has a history the kids made up themselves.

Sooner or later the island outgrows the board, and then the kitchen table.

The chronicler

What AI adds

Claude writes the next chapter between games, with the chronicle of every game so far in front of it.

  • A consequence from one sentence. Firefly gave the crab her sandwich comes back as a crab that holds back the tide for her. The code can check that the card exists and has her hero’s name on it. Deciding what a well-fed crab does next is the model’s job.
  • Events for this island. The six new cards mention the Owl Wood, the Reeds and wherever the kids said they want to go, so the deck fits the map on the table.
  • A longer memory than mine. A place named in game 3 can turn up again in game 11, because it’s in the chronicle file.
  • The envelope for next time, with a condition picked from the list the game knows how to check.

Without the chronicler I’d be writing six event cards every week. The cardboard prototype works roughly like that, with Claude on my phone doing the writing.

How it’s built

The toy is printed plastic, a cloth bag, cardboard and one label printer, and the AI part is a script on the Mac.

Printed parts

  • About 40 pre-printed hex tiles, 8 cm across, in terrain colors from the MMU3: sand, forest, meadow, rock, water. Several fit on the MK4S bed at once.
  • 10 blank tiles with a raised frame for a label. When the kids draw a place on one, I print it as a proper tile within a week.
  • Large hero figures, one per player.
  • Not printed: a cloth fog bag, a die, find tokens, blank cardboard cards and envelopes, and a notebook for the chronicle.

Electronics

  • A thermal sticker-label printer. It prints the deed stickers, the six event labels, the envelope label and the chronicle entry.
  • The Mac as the gateway, running one script: whisper.cpp for speech-to-text, Claude with rules for kids, and the chronicle in a file.
  • A phone with a hold-to-talk button.

No ESP32 this time. The tiles, figures and cards have no electronics in them.

Parts list

PartWhat it’s forPrice
Thermal sticker-label printerDeed stickers, event labels, the envelope, the chronicle entry800–1,200 CZK
1.5 kg of filament, plus the cardboard and cloth partsHex tiles and hero figures; fog bag, die, find tokens, blank cards, envelopes, chronicle notebook700–1,300 CZK
Mac (gateway) and a phonewhisper.cpp, the script and the chronicle file; the hold-to-talk buttonalready at home
ClaudeThe chronicler, on a parent’s accounta few CZK per game
Total1,500–2,500 CZK
(about €60–100)

Only the label printer has its own estimate. The second row is what’s left of the total. Claude is paid per game and isn’t in the total.

Architecture

THE HOUSE INTERNET Phonehold-to-talk buttonmic only while held Prusa MK4S+ MMU3: drawn placebecomes a tile The tableevent + hero cardsenvelope, notebook Mac · gatewaywhisper.cpp: speech → textaudio deleted afterchronicle file, tile listchecks every replyprints only what passes Label printerstickers for cards Claudeparent’s accountrules for kidssees text only audio text only reply checked labels stickers tiles

Where code ends and the model begins

Code does

  • Records only while someone holds the button.
  • Turns speech into text on the Mac with whisper.cpp and deletes the recording.
  • Keeps the chronicle file, the list of tiles on the island and which envelopes are open.
  • Sends Claude text only: the new sentences and the chronicle.
  • Checks the reply: six events, each fits on one label, every effect comes from the rule list, every child has an event with their hero’s name, and the envelope condition is one the game can check.
  • Sends back whatever fails and prints nothing until it passes.

The model does

  • Writes the chronicle entry from the kids’ sentences and the parent’s two.
  • Turns each child’s deed into an event that comes back next game with that hero’s name.
  • Writes the other four events for this island and for wherever the kids want to go.
  • Picks each event’s effect from the rule list.
  • Names the deed stickers and writes the envelope, with a condition taken from the list.

Safety and offline

Voices stay home

The phone sends audio to the Mac over home Wi-Fi. whisper.cpp turns it into text there, and the recording is deleted. Claude only ever sees text.

Mic on a button

Nothing listens during the game. The phone records only after it, and only while someone holds the button.

Code keeps the rules

The island, the hero cards and the envelopes live in the chronicle file. Claude writes text and picks effects from a fixed list, and the script checks every label before the printer gets it.

Nothing to swallow

Tiles are 8 cm across, the hero figures are large, and the die and find tokens should be big ones too. No batteries or magnets in the tiles, figures or tokens.

A parent’s account

Claude runs on my Anthropic account with rules for kids in the prompt. Anthropic allows products for minors with safeguards like these. The kids never type to Claude, and I stick the labels on the cards myself, so I read every one.

Without internet

The game itself plays the same, since tiles, cards, envelopes and the die are all on the table. Only the chronicler waits: the script keeps the transcribed sentences and runs once the connection is back, or I write six cards by hand like in the cardboard prototype.

Roadmap

One weekend

First playable prototype

Tiles cut from card stock, a die borrowed from another game and Claude on the phone. After the game I dictate what happened, ask for six events and one envelope, and copy them onto cards. The growing island, the chronicle and the envelopes already work at this stage. The printer and the printed tiles come later, once the game catches on.

Once it catches on

Full version

About 40 printed tiles from the MMU3 plus 10 blank ones, large hero figures and the label printer. The script on the Mac runs whisper.cpp, Claude with rules for kids and the chronicle file. The kids speak their own deeds into the phone, and the places they draw come back printed within a week.

More ideas to try

Status: an idea. Nothing on this page has been built or tested yet, and the demo is a simulation with pre-written answers. Prices are estimates from Czech shops in October 2026.