"Surfacescapes Demo: the future of tabletop gaming?" Topic

In all honesty I'm not all that keen on the idea, but the technology is very impressive.
link

Demo Video: vimeo.com/7132858

Interesting, but putting minis on a "bottom lit" table isn't very pretty.

I just checked on the cost of the thing. Anywhere from 12.500 to 15K. You also need a tax number to buy one if I'm reading the order form correctly. If you plan to do this, you might want to be single and sell the Porsche.

You'll need the room pretty well lit but I think it's fine.

I just held up a mini to my monitor. Lit with my table lamp, both the minis and the monitor looked reasonble.

If it takes of as a mainstream device, the price should drop pretty fast. Maybe viable in 3-5 years?

Technically this is awesome. The application can be applied to a lot of areas. Naval battle game would be very nice as well as 6mm type games.

I'm guessing it'll be mainstream in 3-5 years as well.

While this is technically very spiffy… Sometimes adding tools like this to a game changed the game enough to make it a different thing altogether.

I play in a Blood Bowl League where having a laptop computer at the table is now standard issue, and it's just such an annoyance. If I came to push figures, roll dice, talk trash, and kill elves, then that's what I've come to do. I don't want to have to salute my technological overlords every time I want to roll a die or play court stenographer when someone falls down.

I salute the people who used their gaming background to make an interesting project for this monolith. It certainly is more interesting use of the technology than balancing a budget on a spreadsheet or playing whack-a-mole with pop up ads… I just can't see why I need yet another computer intermediary getting in the way of what should be beers with friends, dice, good times, and glorious made up stories.

"Now get offa my lawn!"

If you'll do all that, maybe just better play a first person VideoGame don't you?

Impressive tech, but for my games I prefer the old pencil and "real" dice method.

The next thing these guys develops will be "virtual beer" Figure it out!

Best wishes.

3-5 years, isn't that what the said in the 1980s about 3d TV and virtual reality?

I am still waiting….

Though the tech is impressive, there's a considerable amount of "clicking" and "selecting" to accomplish some very basic tasks (I note the effort involved in moving the dire wolf and declaring the attacks). Why not just grab a mini and move it, eyeball the grid, and roll your dice? Seems like a lot of work (and expense) to do something more easily handled "by hand." The only real advantages I see are the ability to create varied layers of detailed terrain imagery and the possibility of using creatures you don't have miniatures for.

But then, I'm old school when it comes to D&D: draw the map in pencil, roll the dice, and use your imagination for the rest. I never needed to see a physical representation of anything to visualize our band of noble warriors in life-and-death struggle with monstrous foes of all descriptions.

Yes, I know, that sounds like an odd thing to say on a site dedicated to miniatures gaming. But I see D&D as being about the story, not the tactics. Combat is secondary to the role playing. In a miniatures game, combat is primary; the story is just a reason for the tactical scenario to exist. And at that point, I begin to want a greater visual experience… but that also extends to a three dimensional environment, which this system cannot provide. To me, it's stuck in the middle, being neither what I want from a role playing game, nor what I want from a tabletop tactical game. So it's an interesting exercise in technology, but that's about all.

Dead idea.