A system includes a card shoe that includes a housing for housing cards and an opening through which the housed cards can be drawn. The system includes a computer to detect whether there is any of the following predefined arrangements: (1) for each of a predefined number of consecutively drawn cards, the respective rank of the respective card is larger or smaller by one than an immediately preceding one of the cards drawn from the card housing; (2) a respective rank of each of a predefined number of consecutively drawn cards is the same; (3) a respective suit of each of a predefined number of consecutively drawn cards is the same; or (4) a same sequence in which a predefined number of the cards are consecutively drawn is repeated.

A crafting system for guiding a user in creating a craft, includes a crafting challenge repository storing a plurality of crafting challenges. The challenges each include instructions for creating a specific craft. A display surface can display the crafting challenges thereon. A controller includes instructions to receive a selection of a selected crafting challenge to be displayed on the display surface, and instructions to prepare a selected challenge for display on the display surface and to provide the prepared challenge to the display surface for display thereon. The controller is accommodated in a housing. At least one at least partially transparent crafting surface, may be removably mounted above the display surface such that when instructions of the prepared challenge are displayed on the display surface, the instructions are visible to the user through the crafting surface.

An electronic device with a transformable multi-planar display includes a central body and peripheral elements. Each peripheral element has outward-facing sides and inward-facing sides. Each outward-facing side comprises a microprocessor-controllable electronic display screen. Each inward-facing side includes a contact group of electrical contacts arranged to engage with another contact group of electrical contacts of another other one of the peripheral elements. Each contact group includes a plurality of permanent magnets, a plurality of sockets recessed in a corresponding inward-facing side, each socket defining a cavity that houses a corresponding permanent magnet and has an aperture through which at least a portion of the housed permanent magnet is permitted to protrude. A retention spring is situated within each socket and coupled to the housed permanent magnet. The retention spring exerts a biasing force to retain the permanent magnet in a recessed position when there is no engagement with another contact group.

According to another aspect, a method of determining a current state of a cubic puzzle independent of information concerning a prior state of the cubic puzzle using at least one RGB sensor. With the cubic puzzle maintained in a first state, (a) illuminating a first colored surface selected from the plurality of colored surfaces with a single source of light selected from the plurality of sources of light because of an association with the first colored surface and sensing a color of the first colored surface with the RGB sensor when the first colored surface is illuminated. Repeating act (a) by separately illuminating each of the plurality of colored surfaces with a respective single source of light selected from the plurality of sources of light because of an association between the respective single source of light and the respective colored surface that is being illuminated, and act of processing the colors sensed by the RGB sensor at each of the preceding acts to determine a location and orientation of each of the plurality of tiles with the cubic puzzle in the first state.

Apparatus and methods related to multi-player casino games are described. An electronic gaming device is provided that allows a live player to compete against a virtual player in a multi-player wager-based game using playing cards derived from the insertion of a physical denomination of currency. The electronic gaming device can be configured to simulate the decision making of a virtual player and associated behaviors of the virtual player during game play. In some instances, the simulated behaviors of the virtual player output at the electronic gaming device can be learned by a live player so that the live player can make better or more advantageous game play decisions. The simulated behaviors of the virtual player can be conveyed to the live player via visual images, such as simulated facial expressions of the virtual player.

An apparatus and method for a hide-and-seek game, of which the apparatus includes a housing, a gameplay status indicator coupled to the housing, interface elements coupled to the housing and configured to receive input from a user or provide output to the user, and a processor configured to execute operations. The operations include initiating a timer in response to a first player selecting to play a hide-and-seek game and entering a first input using the interface elements, the first input indicating that the apparatus is hidden, receiving a second input from a second player prior to the completion of the timer, the second input indicating that the second player has located the apparatus that was hidden, and executing a predetermined number of challenges, in response to receiving the second input from the second player, using the gameplay status indicator and the interface elements.

A software type pinball game enable players to change the background picture of the playfield and also to configure the game functional components via a drawn picture. Players can draw the picture on a paper, captures into any electronic image device, or using an electronic drawing device or application software to draw that picture into an electronic format and send to the game for conversion of game components.

An electronic device includes a display, a timer and computing hardware configured to execute a software product. Execution of the software product results in generating and rendering a graphical user interface on the display with four or more user-selectable graphical objects. Selection of a first user-selectable graphical object at a first spatial position on the graphical user interface and a movement of the selected first user-selectable graphical object along a path towards a second user-selectable graphical object at a second spatial position is detected and a position of the first user-selectable graphical object is exchanged with the position of the second user-selectable graphical object. If, during a predetermined time period, a selection of a third user-selectable graphical object and a movement of the third user-selectable graphical object towards a fourth user-selectable graphical object is detected, the positions of the third and fourth objects is exchanged.

A system includes a card shoe that includes a housing for housing cards and an opening through which the housed cards can be drawn. The system includes a computer to detect whether there is any of one or more of the following predefined arrangements: (1) for each of a predefined number of consecutively drawn cards, the respective rank of the respective card is larger or smaller by one than an immediately preceding one of the cards drawn from the card housing; (2) a respective rank of each of a predefined number of consecutively drawn cards is the same; (3) a respective suit of each of a predefined number of consecutively drawn cards is the same; and (4) a same sequence in which a predefined number of the cards are consecutively drawn is repeated.

The disclosed technology is directed to methods, products and systems for streamlining the process of playing bingo. This patent is directed to a computer application whereby a computing device such as a mobile phone captures one or more likenesses of a bingo card(s) using the camera function of the device. Optical character or image recognition software and algorithms interpret and store the card(s) and corresponding characters. When characters are called for matching with the bingo cards in play, the called character is entered into the computing device. The application compares the called character to those captured by the computing device to identify instances of matches on each card in play until a winning card is identified and the player is alerted of the win, or until the game is over.