The SurfaceScapes team at the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University have designed a proof of concept Dungeons & Dragons tabletop game to work on Microsoft Surface. SurfaceScapes is aiming to provide features that Game Masters and players will be able to work with to recreate the D&D experience on Microsoft's giant screen table.
I'm not a Dungeons & Dragons guy at all, but this is just neat as f**k. The above video goes through a walkthrough of what SurfaceScapes has developed so far. If videogames are making the transition away from handheld controllers, then I rather have something like the Surface become mainstream rather than Natal. Too bad these things cost a few grand.
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Meet the rest of the team
I'm going to step back here and say that Microsoft Surface is cool anyway regardless of D&D, so anything geared toward "table-top" gameplay should exceptionally cool on Surface.
Wow, that's a really slick interface. I wonder how easily you could import your own models, though- a true roleplaying system is going to have to be extremely flexible.
The game was way too slow paced, I agree with Husky Hog. Speed that shit up, and get rid of the grid on the battlefield... way too distracting. Or at least make it like a dark gray or something not so obtrusive.
However, some of the interface concepts really were awesome.. just needs some polish and some major increase in game speed. let the players slow it down... nothing as annoying as a slow ass interface.
They'd likely change the grid to small plusses at grid intersections. I fear that this might not allow for actual dice rolling. I don't care about a computer, some gamers will always want to roll their dice.
And also - This is the new 4e Ruleset. Their character builder is about as far advanced as we currently have access to. I imagine that if the CB still has glitches (which it does) this would be a pain to constantly be doing bug fixes for.
Looks like 4ed. I don't know if I would want THAT much built into it, some of that stuff is just faster manually. However, that is pretty friggin badass.
imagine if that was WArhammer 40k. . . awesome; in the not so distant future it will be so. every one will have a Microsoft Surface rather than a gaming table.
Anyone else kinda concerned that the Bigass Table missed a user interaction? Rewatch the video and see how many times the demonstrator had to touch Surface twice to get a response...
@Valthonis For a tech demo, it's impressive; however, I think there are a lot of things missing in the overall user experience of it (the D20 is slow as hell, that really breaks the continuity of the game). Currently, it seems like it's a by-developer-types-for-developer-types kind of experience. If the team does some solid audience research and uses it to further inform the design process (and they test it with their intended audience. Not other developers; I'm talking about straight up tabletop and comp-based D&D players) it can be a pioneering play experience.
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Contest:
9:20 AM on 10.20.2009
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also, if anyone has any doubt that gaming demand is yet again driving serious technology, point them here.
I need that, like now.
However, some of the interface concepts really were awesome.. just needs some polish and some major increase in game speed. let the players slow it down... nothing as annoying as a slow ass interface.
And also - This is the new 4e Ruleset. Their character builder is about as far advanced as we currently have access to. I imagine that if the CB still has glitches (which it does) this would be a pain to constantly be doing bug fixes for.
Also, pie menus FTW.