Fourfold

Fourfold conference badges

Electronic conference badges that attendees wear, play, and take home to hack on.

Description

Fourfold designs and builds electronic conference badges. Each one is a small game console that attendees wear: a circuit board, firmware, and an enclosure, made in runs of up to 2,000.

The badges are built to be hacked. Fourfold has published firmware or example code for four of them, and has taught badge hacking workshops at THOTCON.

History

2017 to 2023

The 0x8 badge in 2017 ran tesserHack, a maze game played with three knobs and four lights. The 0x9 badge was shaped like a key and had its own currency. The 0xA badge worked through sound. The 0xB badge was an NES controller crossed with a circus ticket, and the 0xC badge was a laser tag game for the whole conference.

THOTCON 0xD, 2025

The organizers asked for a Tamagotchi. Fourfold built 2,000 ESP32 badges with a 1.3-inch screen and a capacitive touch wheel in six months, wrote up the process in four parts, and released example firmware afterward.

Features

  • One team for the circuit board, the firmware, the enclosure, and the production run.
  • Games designed for the badge's own controls.
  • Over-the-air firmware updates during the event.
  • Open firmware, so badges keep working as development boards.

Images

Download all images (.zip)

Select an image to open the full-size file.

  • THOTCON 0xD badge (2025): oval blue board with a screen and touch wheel under clear acrylic
  • Render of the THOTCON 0xD badge
  • THOTCON 0xC badge (2023): clear plastic housing and square green board
  • THOTCON 0xB badge (2021): green board shaped like a game controller
  • THOTCON 0xA badges (2019): helmet-shaped black boards
  • THOTCON 0x9 badge (2018): key-shaped green board with a screen
  • THOTCON 0x8 badge (2017): black board with three knobs

Logo and icon

  • Fourfold logo in teal with an orange accent, for dark or light backgrounds
  • Fourfold logo, alternate color
  • Fourfold icon: the chevron mark on a black rounded square
Download logos (.zip)

Selected articles

Additional links

About Fourfold

Fourfold is a studio that makes games and electronic hardware. It is developing The Fourfold, a game console you talk to, maintains the strategy game Delve Deeper on Steam, and has built six generations of electronic badges for THOTCON, Chicago's hacker conference.

More about Fourfold

Credits

  • Jay Margalus: Badge and game design, 0x8 through 0xD
  • Rudy Ristich: Badge design and build
  • Rob Rehrig: Electronics (0xB), housing and lens (0xC)

Permission to publish

Fourfold allows photos and video of Fourfold conference badges to be published anywhere, including on video and streaming services, for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Making money from videos that show Fourfold conference badges is explicitly allowed.

Contact

Press inquiries: jay@fourfold.co