My 2 Cents: It’s been a while since i have posted anything but when I saw this proof of concept for Microsoft’s Surface, I just has to post it.  In the past I have only been seeing different flash animations that utilized surface’s multi-touch interface but in this case you really see the potential of this technology. 

It does not hurt that I am a fan of Dungeons & Dragons but the way that this was executed was too nice…I really can not wait to get my hands on this…too nice

by Tim Stevens
posted Oct 20th 2009 at 7:58AM

We’ve seen some fancy applications for Microsoft’s Surface, the touchable, strokable, caressable computing device/big-ass table, but not a single one has made us twitter in nerdy glee like Surfacescapes. Created by a team at Carnegie Mellon University, it’s an implementation of Dungeons & Dragons in 3D, something that has of course been done dozens and dozens of times before, but this is different. Way different.

Surfacescapes Demo Walkthrough from Surfacescapes on Vimeo.

[hidepost]It brilliantly brings the tabletop style of play to Surface, with players moving real figurines over virtual battlefields, rolling virtual d20s and d6s to deal real damage against digital dire wolves and the like, opponents who can move and attack automatically. Sure, it takes some of the imagination out of the experience, but it’ll also make re-rolling your character a heck of a lot easier — not to mention eliminating the dungeonmaster’s folder of magic, mystery, and crudely drawn maps.

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Surfacescapes puts Dungeons & Dragons on Surface, makes your d20 obsolete (video)