Star Wars has been a cultural juggernaut for almost 40 years now, with even its smallest details becoming iconic. Take, for example, the holographic chess scene from the original Star Wars movie. Onscreen for less than a minute, but it’s stuck around for years. Thanks to advancing augmented reality technology, Dejarik (because of course the game has it’s own name and Wookieepedia entry) is now a real game that can be played on smartphones.
While not officially a Star Wars game, HoloGrid: Monster Battle is the closest we’re going to get. Phil Tippett, the special effects mind behind the original Star Wars movies, even provided artwork and models to use. iDigitalTimes sat down with Tippett and HoloGrid designer Mike Levine to talk about HoloGrid ’s Kickstarter and the future of augmented reality in games.
To understand HoloGrid , you must first understand the chess scene in Star Wars. The scene, Tippett said, came from George Lucas taking inspiration from his figures.
“We were working on the Cantina scene for George,” Tippett told iDigi. “He would come in once a week to check in on the progress we were making. One day, he saw some of my figures on a shelf, got the inspiration for the chess scene.
“We had a very short period of time to finish the animation, I think about a week,” Tippett said. Due to the short timeframe, and Tippett not being that interested in games himself, he never thought about how the project would actually play if it were real.
Fast forward a few decades, and Levine found himself working with Tippett on some different projects. “We started by doing photogrammetry experiments,” Levine said. “We moved on from using objects to using a character, and rigged it up. It worked out really well.”
Photogrammetry, for those that don’t know, is a process where an object gets photographed from all 360 degrees, and a computer then takes the photos and makes a 3D digital model. This process is the same DICE used when making Star Wars Battlefront.
“Mike came into my shop and picked out a bunch of creatures I have in my inventory,” Tippett said. “Some of them can also be seen in my short films, Mad God.”
“Over on the side, we were working on chess for augmented reality for something else,” Levine said. “We put the two together, and it became obvious that this is what we wanted to do now.”
What came next is HoloGrid. Using a phone or tablet, players can scan playing cards that have a monster designed by Tippett on them. Once scanned, the monster on the card will appear on to be standing on the card as if it were actually there in real life. Using the mobile device’s camera, HoloGrid turns any table into a living, breathing, animated warzone for all sorts of monsters to battle it out.
While the base game is more or less done, developer HappyGiant has taken to Kickstarter to seek funding to help create additional characters, add multiplayer and other features and just provide some extra polish before release.
HoloGrid is a much more involved game than your typical mobile device time-waster. A copy comes with a box containing two sets of cards, a stand to hold up your device and a physical game board.
Levine says this version of HoloGrid is really the first step in a much bigger goal for the game. “This is really a 1.0 of where we want to take this game,” Levine said. “We want to give people an AR experience today on mobile platforms, that many already have.”
Once the momentum of AR headsets starts going, Levine wants people to remember that HoloGrid mobile experience. “The next gen platforms like HoloLens and CastAR, we’re enthusiastic about all of them and think HoloGrid will work well on all of them,” Levine said.
While virtual reality gaming is now available for consumers, Levine knows they are different mediums with different strengths and weaknesses. “VR is also amazing, but you’ll have to tweak the game experience,” he said. “With AR, the game is right there on your table, with VR you have to jump into the game. It’s a different experience.”
“I was 10 years old when I first saw Star Wars,” Levine said. “We were basically the first video game generation. We were just starting to play games, and got to see the future of them onscreen.” Well, looks like that future is now.
HoloGrid: Monster Battle is currently going through a Kickstarter campaign, and will come to iOS and Android devices. Estimated delivery for the project is this November.
So what do you think? Does the idea of a game made with Phil Tippett get you excited? Will you be backing HoloGrid: Monster Battle on Kickstarter? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
