Ember Protocol

A self-study: building a smart-glasses game with AI

Ember Protocol is a poker-inspired card roguelike for Even Realities G2 smart glasses, controlled with the R1 ring. We built it between 17 July and 16 September 2026, about two months, and it is published on Even Hub.

It was a self-study. We wanted to find out three things:

The hardware. What it is like to design for the G2 display and to play with the R1 ring.
The platform. How easy it is to build an app for the Even Realities platform and get it onto Even Hub.
AI, all the way through. How far AI tools can carry the whole making: the game's code and its promo video.

The hardware

The G2 shows its picture as green light in the lenses. The R1 is a ring, and the game is played with it.

Even G2

Canvas: 576 × 288 pixels
Display: 4-bit greyscale, shown as green light
Layout: One full-canvas text container for input, plus four 288 × 144 image quadrants
Screen: Nothing scrolls: every screen fits the canvas

Even R1

Swipe: Moves the cursor
Tap: Selects
Double tap: Goes back, or exits

Drawing for the G2

We also wrote a short guide for the artist: how to draw pictures for the G2 glasses. Simple words, the most important rules only, in seven languages.

In one line

Flat shapes. Thick lines. Green on black. Small size. No gradients.

It has a tool too: choose a picture and see it the way the glasses will show it. Nothing is uploaded.

Read the guide Try your picture

Building for Even Hub

A web app. Ember Protocol is a TypeScript web app, built with Vite on the Even Hub SDK.
Fit the canvas. The game has 11 screens (Home, How To Play, Select Pilot, World Map, Rival Brief, Card Play, Play Result, Drive Result, Hand Redraw, Run Won and Run Lost) and a move list. Each one fits the 576 × 288 canvas.
Simulator first. The game ran first in a desktop simulator.
Then the real glasses. To play it on the G2, we served the app on the local network and scanned a QR code in the Even Realities app (Even Hub > Developer Center).
Tests. Automated tests cover saving and restoring a run, edge cases, ring input, real SDK event payloads and the scoring balance, and CI runs them.
Package and submit. evenhub pack builds the .ehpk package. A submission checklist and the store listing (copy, icon, screenshots) went with the submission. The app asks for no permissions, and progress is saved on the device.

It was super easy to build for, using the SDK and the Even Realities Discord. They also keep a regularly updated MCP server for AI tools.

How we used AI

The game's code. The game was built with AI coding agents working under Vince's direction: Vince steered the work, reviewed it and playtested on the glasses.
Automated fixes. FragMint's own automated agents also opened fixes, for example for CI and for image decoding. Each was reviewed before it was merged.
The trailers. Both promo trailers were made with AI tools, from a storyboard: Higgsfield for the video and ElevenLabs for the audio.

We didn’t attempt anything extremely difficult, but it was something that had to have a level of fun and care put into its creation.

The result: the game

Pick a pilot. Beat four rivals. Build hands.

Ember Protocol is a compact card campaign. Every play is a poker hand built from six cards. Manage pressure and pilot integrity, swap cards when a hand stalls, and take an upgrade after each win. Runs are randomized and progress is saved on the device.

Four pilots: Ryn Ember the Aggressor, Sora Vane the Tactician, Dax Holloway the Bulwark, Nova Vale the Skirmisher. Each changes how a run plays.
Four rivals: Scrapjaw, Switchback, Glasshook and Iron Orbit. Each has a lesson to teach and a lane it leaves open. Wins unlock the next.
Hands as moves: Pairs, runs, suit trios, full houses, four of a kind, five of a kind. The move list finds them for you. You choose which to play.