Comments on: Multitouch tabletop gaming

By: anon

anon — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:57:23 +0000

This was a really well done final project by Ramon Viladomat, he also created a facebook page, so you could try to get in touch with him for more information on his project:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/ReacTable-Role-Gaming/45721594002

By: CarsonLions

CarsonLions — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 22:39:33 +0000

Any more on this or Ramon Viladomat?

I have seen nothing, but am as interested in all the people were back in Jan?

By: Chris Wachal

Chris Wachal — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 18:32:30 +0000

I am in the middle of starting a project nearly identical to this. I have the pieces on order to build a touch screen table, the right size to play D&D on. I was thinking of using fiducial markers on the bottom of D&D minis in order to identify them and use MapTool(an open source D&D table program with networking support) as a base, adding multitouch support to it. However, it seems rather silly to duplicate effort. I am wondering what the code for this is doing. Is it opensource or is it meant to be a commercial application?

By: jbr

jbr — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 03:05:37 +0000

Ok, uh, someone above mentioned wanting to “buy a reactable,” but I can tell you first hand how painless and cheap it is just to build one, provided you have a decent webcam and a projector. I set one of these up a few years ago, actually, so I’m glad to see it’s getting some attention again.

By: Nick Fogelson

Nick Fogelson — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:16:23 +0000

I agree this would be great for Warhammer Fantasy or 40k – the rules are increasingly complex every year and this sort of system would be really great. The computer games are great but lack the awesomeness of the miniatures – this would be a great mix of the two. It would also be another reason why playing GW games on the tabletop is a very expensive hobby.

By: Attrezzo

Attrezzo — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 14:20:53 +0000

@ eternaluxe

errrt… Sorry you said “original” so yes the original source is opened… that is correct. I guess I’m hoping then that this game’s source will be made available at some point as well.

By: Attrezzo

Attrezzo — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 14:19:38 +0000

@ eternaluxe

Yeah, that’s the ReacTable source, not the source for this game. At least I couldn’t find it on ReacTable’s page. I want the game source.

By: mouse

mouse — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 02:10:07 +0000

Need mythgarr’s ideas implemented and augmented reality goggles so that people can play long distance d&d with the people appearing to be present. Just without the smell. And with a volume control.

By: pragma

pragma — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:08:12 +0000

This is incredible.

A system intended for tabletop gaming would need some way to make the figurines more visible. Either a ring of horizontal lights/leds around the screen to throw light onto items, and/or translucent figurines; much like the fiduciary markers.

By: Mythgarr

Mythgarr — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:08:11 +0000

I… hmm. This is interesting, since I sent the ReacTable team an e-mail mentioning my work on something similar. I’m curious as to whether they were inspired by my e-mail, or if they’ve been working on this for quite a while?

At any rate, it looks less intuitive than I would have imagined. I was thinking D&D, and when in map editing mode it would display a grid and any walls would automagically snap to the grid (since everything is grid-based in D&D anyway). Enclosing an area with walls would automatically lay down the default floor tile, different “themes” would change the default tiles, textures, etc.

Combined with some of the virtual tabletop engines out there, this could really be a great way to do long distance D&D.

By: eternaluxe

eternaluxe — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:57:55 +0000

The original source is open.
http://mtg.upf.es/reactable/?software
LGPL, GPL, BSD (bottom of the page)

By: trimegisto

trimegisto — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 16:49:20 +0000

warhammer??? this is for D&D, of course.

By: JH

JH — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:50:33 +0000

Wow, that’s really cool. That would make a really nifty way to play traditional board games, or say D&D.

By: benhoe

benhoe — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:45:29 +0000

oops…that last comment should’ve been @giskard

By: benhoe

benhoe — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:44:24 +0000

@iv

Did you miss this sentance: “the reacTable also uses tangible fiducial markers to represent objects and as an alternative input method”

;)