Fourfold

The Fourfold

A game console you talk to. Say what you want to play, and it builds the game.

Description

The Fourfold is a handheld game console that makes its own games. You hold the knob in, say what you want to play, and the console builds it. When the game is ready it lands on your shelf next to the others. If you want it different, you pick the game and say what to change.

It has a knob, two buttons, a touch screen, two microphones, and a speaker. Every one-player game is made to be playable with just the knob and one button.

The console is a working prototype and is still being built. Fourfold publishes a dated build journal, including the things that broke.

History

Where it came from

Fourfold has built electronic conference badges since 2017. The most recent, for THOTCON 0xD in 2025, had a screen, a touch wheel, and mini-games. The Fourfold is the same kind of object, built for games first.

The current prototype

The current prototype runs on an Espressif development board. In September 2026 the full loop worked on it for the first time: say a sentence, get a game. The knob and buttons went in on September 25, in a 3D-printed case.

Features

  • Say what you want to play and the console builds the game.
  • Change any game by talking to it.
  • Pick how much game you want: about 3 minutes for a sketch, 12 for a whole game, 30 for the full thing.
  • Keep playing other games while a new one builds.
  • Every new game is played by automated testers before it reaches the shelf.
  • Your shelf of games works with no internet.
  • One knob, two buttons, and a touch screen.

Videos

  • Highlights: the shelf, Pong, and Submarine on the prototype. 42 seconds. Download (.mp4)

  • Full play session, uncut. 3 minutes 9 seconds. Download (.mp4)

Images

Download all images (.zip)

Select an image to open the full-size file.

  • The Fourfold prototype held in one hand: gray case, screen, green and yellow buttons, large knob
  • Inside the open case, with the circuit board, a ribbon cable, and wires to the buttons
  • The 3D-printed faceplate with two buttons and the knob, before the screen went in
  • An earlier case holding only the screen, showing the game library
  • The bare development board
  • The first two buttons, soldered to prototyping board
  • Console home screen: a shelf of games with a New Game card at the front
  • Console screen while listening to a spoken request
  • Console screen showing the sentence it heard
  • Console screen asking how much game to build: quick, standard, or deep
  • Console screen announcing a finished game and its controls
  • Console shelf with a finished game selected
  • Kettle, one of twenty games built for The Fourfold: a brew kettle on the burner: the flame gauge, a thermometer, hops waiting on the shelf, and the brewer beside it
  • Peloton, one of twenty games built for The Fourfold: cyclists on a two-lane Iowa road with a tractor ahead, the legs and draft meters along the bottom
  • Tumbler, one of twenty games built for The Fourfold: a safe dial showing 23, a thief crouched beside it, and the night guard walking the corridor above
  • Salvage Orbit, one of twenty games built for The Fourfold: a small tug circling a blue planet, wreckage and a station on nearby orbits
  • Cannon Forts, one of twenty games built for The Fourfold: two stone forts on either side of a green hill at night, a cannonball arcing between them
  • The Furnace, one of twenty games built for The Fourfold: a giant forge golem glowing orange in the middle of a round arena, the smith on the ring around it
  • Bellringer, one of twenty games built for The Fourfold: five church bells on ropes, notes falling toward them, the ringer below and rain in the windows
  • High Steel, one of twenty games built for The Fourfold: a tower crane lowering a steel beam onto a half-built tower against a blue sky
  • Windjammer, one of twenty games built for The Fourfold: a paper sailboat on a dark pond among lily pads, reeds and a duck, heading for a dock
  • Ring Breaker, one of twenty games built for The Fourfold: a core of colored bricks around a red heart, with the paddle riding a ring around it
  • Deep Line, one of twenty games built for The Fourfold: an ice fisher's line dropped deep into a lake at dusk, a hooked trout and sturgeon below
  • Mimic, one of twenty games built for The Fourfold: a knight in the middle of a torchlit stone room, goblins coming from both sides
  • Water Bomber, one of twenty games built for The Fourfold: a water bomber over a forest grid, fires spreading from the left, the lake and cabins below
  • Switchyard, one of twenty games built for The Fourfold: a rail yard seen from above, colored trains heading through switches to matching sidings
  • Moon Golf, one of twenty games built for The Fourfold: a golf ball's aim line between two small moons in a starfield
  • Last Hive, one of twenty games built for The Fourfold: a honeycomb hive in a meadow, the guard bee firing at a wasp coming in
  • Rooftop Courier, one of twenty games built for The Fourfold: a courier running across rooftops at dusk with washing lines and lamps
  • Lunar Tug, one of twenty games built for The Fourfold: a small cargo lander flying over gray lunar terrain toward a landing pad
  • Dragon Kite, one of twenty games built for The Fourfold: a dragon kite with a long tail flying over a harbor festival at lantern hour
  • Scarecrow, one of twenty games built for The Fourfold: a farmer by a red barn under a harvest moon, crows landing on the crop rows

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)

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

  • Fourfold: Design, hardware, firmware, and games

Permission to publish

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

Contact

Press inquiries: jay@fourfold.co