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Surface Computing D&D Demo

20 Oct

Posted by David as Electronic Games, RPGs

We’ve been following the potential of surface computing for augmenting face-to-face games. The latest demonstration of this is a project out of the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University—a proof-of-concept for an interactive Dungeons & Dragons battle map.

Surfacescapes Demo Walkthrough from Visual Story TAs on Vimeo.

(Hat Tip)

5 Responses

shadejon

October 20th, 2009 at 6:28 am
1

Wow.

Funny how players cling to the need to see dice rolling, rather than just rely on a computer generated result. Does this virtual rolling mechanism “do it” for players, or do they still want their physical dice?

Yehuda
Rob

October 20th, 2009 at 7:11 am
2

You have the control pieces for minis – why not have dice that you can physically roll on the surface and can tell what number is face up based on what surface is face down?

Nothing wrong with the graphical dice, but – when the dice pops up that can be thrown you should be able to throw a real dice and it reads that instead. (The graphical die should show what has been thrown so that any ‘reading’ problems with the surface will show up straight away. If there is a problem then you can have a reset and possibly just roll the graphical die instead – or have a DM over-ride that can input the actual result on the die.)
David

October 20th, 2009 at 7:51 am
3

There two things about dice, Yehuda, that make them an important part of the game to many players, even in electronic form:

1) Anticipation. The time it takes for a die to roll adds tension to task resolution. Some computer-based random number generators show spinning numbers to achieve a similar effect. Imagine a number instantly appearing (or worse yet, just a yes/no result)—not fun.

2) The action of rolling dice replaces the action being modeled in the game. I don’t actually swing a sword, but it’s my die rolling that determines whether or not I kill the dire wolf.

Rob, physical dice as control pieces that the computer could detect would be extremely cool!
David

October 20th, 2009 at 7:52 am
4

And here’s another idea—build the surface computer in to a Geek Chic table:

http://www.purplepawn.com/2009/07/second-look%e2%80%94geek-chic-tables/
Robert C Kalajian Jr

October 20th, 2009 at 7:55 am
5

It’s a shame that the Philips Entertaible never saw the light of day. The physical aspects of it would have made it such a great product.