Installation

Install the Board Unity SDK in your Unity project.

Developer Access

The Board SDK and deployment tools are provided separately to developers in the program. If you don’t have access yet, request access here.

Once approved, you’ll receive:

  • Board SDK - Unity package (.tgz) for touch input, session management, save games, and pause screen integration
  • Board Developer Bridge (BDB) - Command-line tool for deploying to Board hardware
  • Piece Set Models - Machine learning models (.tflite) for Piece recognition

Prerequisites

Before installing the SDK:

  • Unity 2022.3 LTS or later (Unity 6 also supported)
  • Android Build Support module installed via Unity Hub
  • Unity Input System package (1.7.0+)

Windows Users: You may need to run Unity as Administrator for the first build if you encounter “SDK directory is not writable” errors.

Create a New Unity Project

If starting fresh:

  1. Open Unity Hub and click New Project
  2. Select a template (2D or 3D, both work with Board)
  3. For render pipeline, use Universal Render Pipeline (URP) for best performance on Board hardware

Note: The High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP) is not compatible with Board’s hardware.

Install the SDK

Step 1: Open Package Manager

In Unity, select Window > Package Manager from the menu bar.

Step 2: Add Package from Tarball

Click the + button in the top-left of the Package Manager window and select Add package from tarball….

Step 3: Select the SDK Package

Navigate to your downloaded SDK file (the .tgz file you received) and click Open.

The package will install as “Board SDK” in your project.

Install Piece Set Models

The SDK requires a Piece Set model to recognize Pieces on Board. These machine learning models are provided separately and determine which Pieces your game can detect.

Step 1: Create StreamingAssets Folder

In your Unity project, create a folder at Assets/StreamingAssets if it doesn’t exist.

Step 2: Add the Model File

Copy the Piece Set model file (with .tflite extension) into Assets/StreamingAssets.

Note: Each model corresponds to a specific Piece Set (e.g., Arcade, Mushka, etc). You select which set to use when configuring the SDK.

Install Board Developer Bridge

Board Developer Bridge (BDB) is a command-line tool for deploying your builds to Board hardware.

Requirement: BDB requires Board OS 1.3.8 or later.

BDB is available for:

  • macOS (universal binary - Intel and Apple Silicon)
  • Linux (amd64)
  • Windows (Windows 11)

macOS

  1. Download the bdb binary from your developer package
  2. Move it to a directory in your PATH (e.g., /usr/local/bin)
  3. Make it executable: chmod +x /usr/local/bin/bdb
  4. Verify installation by running bdb help

Linux

  1. Download the bdb binary from your developer package
  2. Move it to a directory in your PATH (e.g., /usr/local/bin)
  3. Make it executable: chmod +x /usr/local/bin/bdb
  4. Verify installation by running bdb help

Windows

  1. Download the bdb.exe binary from your developer package
  2. Add its directory to your system PATH, or place it in a directory already in PATH

Verify Installation

Open a terminal and run:

bdb help

You should see the bdb help output listing available commands.

Verify SDK Installation

To confirm the SDK installed correctly:

  1. Open Window > Package Manager
  2. Find “Board SDK” in the list of installed packages
  3. Check that the version matches what you downloaded

The SDK package includes:

  • Runtime libraries for Board input, sessions, and save games
  • Editor tools including the Simulator
  • Sample scenes demonstrating SDK features

Next Steps