Las Vegas - Board games are a lot of fun, but I don't play them much these days. This is because there is no one nearby to play with, and if I impulsively want to pull out the cards or plastic figures, it won't happen without first negotiating a schedule.

Wizama's SquareOne, the one and only board game console, aims to solve this; it first debuted at CES 2019, but returns this year with three playable demos.

The basic idea behind SquareOne is that the console supports 32 different languages and can display different languages for each connected user if needed, allowing them to play games together remotely, even if they are in different countries. 17" LCD touchscreen display and four built-in speakers bring the game to life; SquareOne also has a built-in battery for portability and comes bundled with a variety of pawns, figures, and cards.

Many of the accessories I saw were custom-made for Wizama's own games, but there is a standard deck of playing cards that can have multiple potential users, and the Wizama team told me that the included pieces make it easy to play whatever you want. Wizama is also working with other game developers and plans to increase its library of downloadable games in the future. These games can be stored on the SquareOne's internal drive (64GB or 128GB), with 2GB of RAM and cloud storage options.

As I sat in the Wizama booth and played along with three other conference attendees, we started with Chromacy. This is a strategy game where you control the space on the board and compete with other players for territory in a simple max-win card battle system. This is not SquareOne at its best, but it does show how visually interesting board games can be. The board can record how many spaces you have moved, read the cards you use to fight, and play attack/defense animations when you and your target make choices.

Dice rolls will also be automatically registered by the console via Bluetooth and NFC once you throw a die into the corresponding dish; Wizama is also working on a more attractive looking dice tower, which will likely include optical recognition of die values. Hopefully, it will be easier to make compatible dice without the six-sided dice that come with SquareOne. [A.R.M.S of Genesis was a deck-building fantasy RPG game with a Dungeons & Dragons campaign flavor. I didn't get to play the game, but I did get to see how the characters moved around the board and interacted with the environment, the various cards that the character classes had access to, the opening scene of the game with the NPC quest providers, and the final boss of the area, the We were shown a brief look at a ferocious-looking monster with crab legs and a nasty-looking axe.

Wizama is focusing much of its marketing on the social aspect of SquareOne, offering a beautiful vision of playing the gaming group's latest custom DnD campaign without having to travel anywhere in a role-playing game like this one. Additionally, the board comes with a save/load option, making game setup and cleanup easy and fast.

The final game in the demo is "Cosmo Squabble," a real-time game in which players dodge lasers and repel opponents with pawn-controlled spaceships, with a variety of power-up cards adding spice to the basic shooting experience. This game showed the technical limitations (especially latency and sensitivity) that Square One is still struggling with. The spaceship on the screen was clearly behind where I was moving the piece I was playing, and I found it difficult to find the exact spot where SquareOne would read the physical card and give me a power-up.

Wizama has not yet sold the SquareOne, but it is expected to launch earlier this year (initially on Kickstarter) for $499. For this price, you can buy a Nintendo Switch console and two-thirds, or an Xbox One X or PlayStation 4 Pro, and have money left over for a game or two. But the ability to attract more potential players with dynamic visuals and audio, or get more play time with other users with remote play capabilities, is definitely something board gamers would want. All I can say is that if Wizama can remedy some of the shortcomings in the user experience by launch day, I will definitely be tempted.

Be sure to check out our CES 2020 hub for the latest news and hands-on impressions from Las Vegas.