Dungons and Dragons on Microsoft Surface

When I was in 7th grade (possibly 6th) my good friend introduced me to Dungeons and Dragons. His older brother was the dungeon master and our band of 12/13 something friends were the players. This was the mid 1970's so the game was still in its original box set at the time, but that just made it all the more fun. My friends and I continued to play through high school and then, sadly, we all when our separate ways and never played again - or at least I didn't. I long for those days when we would sit around in so-an-so's basement for hours laughing our butts off.

The first time I saw a Microsoft Surface, which was a year ago this past September, one of the first things I thought of was, "Wow, this would be cool for playing D&D!" Since then I thought about it a number of times - as have many others I imagine - but I've never tried to program the game on the Surface. Fortunately, somebody has, the kids at The "Surfacescapes" team at the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University. Below is the video demonstrating the game which is just for demonstration - I suppose its only a matter of time before Hasbro decides to sue them, so see it while you can.

Back in June of this year I wrote a blog entry titled, "Using Multi-Touch Tables and Tablets Together" in which I spoke about combining large touch surfaces (i.e. touch walls and tables) with tablets for game play. I think the D&D game demonstrated by Surfacescapes would benefit from this approach and it would give those guys a chance to show off their Windows 7 programming skills as well.

The nice thing about combining peripheral tablets or slates with large multi-touch form factors is that each participant can access their own private data as well as reference materials without impacting the game flow or the other players. At any rate, if you played D&D you will probably like the video below - its still rough in my opinion, but its a great start.

Surfacescapes Demo Walkthrough from Visual Story TAs on Vimeo.