Congratulations on finishing your project. Both size and weight seem like a great success. I have to agree with Bonobo, however, that the visuals are very busy. It's quite a bit harder to focus on shapes than would be the case on a wooden board, mainly because the color of the grey magnet-spheres is exactly in between the black and white spheres. Weird though it sounds, it would probably be easier to play a game on it if the magnets were some bright color like green, pink or red.

How about leaving it in a lake for a few years to rust

I see wat u did there, I'm trying not to laugh.
Also not sure if should laugh because funny or sad.
But seriously: Nobody laugh.

It looks lovely. I like the size of it. I was expecting the spheres to snap to each other in a zigzag fashion. How do they stay perpendicular?

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Cursed magnets! I am confunded and perplexed as to how they doth work.
At first I made the mistake of making a row of 20, then another row of 20, and connecting them afterwards. That led to the polarity of the magnets being wrong very often and the rows snapping to each other in a zigzag fashion.
If you look at the last picture you'll see that I just make a continuous string of spheres that I just bend over at the end of the row to make the next row of spheres never needing to cut the string of magnets and so never having the polarity wrong and being faster.


Tomorrow will be the first game with this set and my opponent is a rather conservative guy so I expect to get hurting honest comments from him.
I know the set isn't perfect and traditionalists will cringe when they see it. But who cares?
I liked the idea of it and making it was easy and lots of fun for me and if some of you like it also it's an added bonus.

I like it so far. The shinies do hurt my eyes, tho. Given that you made the playing pieces black and white, is there a way to make the shiny board-spheres yellow, like a painted goban?

I actually kinda love, how it turned out! Yes, shiny and I guess a bit hard on the eyes if you have been plating on traditional gobans, but for a total noob like me who's not used to anything yet it seems to be a totally acceptable way of playing. the weight might be a dealbreaker for me, but, well, it's mostly just me being frail.

Very cool! It looks quite sci-fi even if the shiny-ness is distracting.

I wonder if this changed on how we think about the game.

Because here you are placing it between other round shapes where as in real go you are placing the stones on edges of squares.

In the end it is all the same but I think playing on this board would let you think in a different way.

My personal belief is that the game of Go is just a representation of reality and as such that representation can vary in shape and form. Some concepts of Go as one other poster has already noticed become more clear when you play on Sphere-Go. I like to think of this set as being on the atomic particle level where lines and double-convex shapes are only what we represent the reality with.

PLEASE REBUILD, COPY, ENHANCE, SELL, GIFT, WHATEVER THIS SPHERE-GO SET AND HAVE FUN WITH IT.
(just don't forget to referr to me as the source for it as you do and I will be satisfied)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

IT HAS BEEN A WHILE

did anyone try to copy the concept for himself yet?

I love the final product. Where did you find the board materials? It's hard to get a feel for the size, other than smaller. Did you ever youtube it?

I think it looks awesome!

Got me thinking. Maybe a traditional lined board of sorts, with a frame built around it.... then fill it with clear marbles. Get the same structure you have with the magnets, but with a more traditional surface showing through to the bottom. Then play with black and white marbles.

.... hmmmm......

Can't you get hold of matte magnets? If you could, and then acquire black, white and gold matte colours, I think it would be infinitely easier on the eye and retain all the practicalities.

Love the idea though

sure, just spraypaint all 400 individual magnetic board spheres in the color zou like

possible ...you could buy long cuboidic magnets to make the board ...i like the idea, thanks

i was happy to get the 400 magnets for cheap (like 60eurocents per piece "cheap"), i could sandblast them or spraypaint them or make them shine in another metallic color by electrolysis ....but ...i'm the lazy kind of guy ...i like it the way it is

By the way ...I figured out why traditional Go-Stones aren't round but biconvex ....if they are round they roll off the damn table too easily

Another drawback of the set is that the magnetic board spheres make nice bracelets and necklaces for the nice girls I meet so I am left with almost no magnets now.

The magnets I got from magnetportal.de and the stones from edelsteine.de all together it came out pretty expensive with about 350euros. (who cares)

It was a nice experiment and if I REEEEAAALLLYY needed another compact go set I'd make it again.

Now I'm left with beautiful girls wearing the magnetic stones as bracelets or necklaces and 400 black and white stone spheres i play with for no reason now and then. (perfect)

So you've guessed right ...The set is no longer in existence in it's former form.

THE NEXT BIG THING I'LL DO:

Make wooden cuboids (magnetic of course) that snap together to make a board the size of a standard go-board and use regular stones (maybe i'll spice it up with some weird colors or something else visually distracting just to mess with all the conservative traditionalists or not. )

Why?
1. Because I can.
2. Because with the wood I'd keep the old satisfying sound of the stones hitting the board.
3. Because the Board would be much much more compactible and easier to transport.

I won't take any care about weight, just volume.
I'll try to keep the construction simple but I'm sure that point will fail

Time-Horizon; it should be finished by the end of the year

untill then ...please leave all your positive and (especially) negative comments here.
I enjoy reading them
Thanks
Have a nice day

THANKS! I'm glad you like it ...HEY! make one for yourself. you basically just have to order the materials and when you've got everything at home the construction of the board just takes minutes. (plus it's fun to play with the magnets just for fun)
nope, didn't youtube it, sorry. can't anymore now.
materials are from magnetportal.de and edelsteine.de

yeah thanks ..i like sci-fi looking things