More Multi-Touch Games!
by William Lee Sims · 12/05/2012 (11:30 am) · 8 comments
N.R. and I have been working on a new set of mini-games for the multi-touch system we've been working on. We're working with Mesa Mundi and will be selling the games at their store.
I'm really happy with The Battle Home: A Pachisi Game. I researched all of the precursors to Parcheesi and found that it had a rich history. Since almost every combination of rules have been played together, I allowed the players to also pick which rules they want to see. We integrated Awesomium into T2D fairly easily. This allowed us to build HTML based upon which rules were selected and we build the instructions dynamically.
We also allow players to come and go as they please by switching between human and A.I. players at the click of a button. We even have 3D dice and cowry shells using the t2dShape3D object. (Although we fake the shadows underneath with sprites.)
By far our most fun game is Pair Soup. It's a cooperative matching game. We've had up to 7 people playing at the same time, and everybody swears that they could do better next time and help the group get to an even higher score.
Bloody Hearts is a simple Hearts game with a few options for rules based upon how Hearts is commonly played by different groups. I wrote an decent A.I. It pulls off the occasional good round, but almost never wins a game.
We made a target-shooting game called Got It!. It's for 1 to 4 players and you're simply trying to kill the germs to get the highest score. There are upgrades/downgrades to add a challenge, but it's supposed to mimic the simplicity of a game like "Hungry Hungry Hippos".
The last game is Fas' Jack. It's blackjack with rules that are player-friendly (house disadvantaged?). Every round you get an additional $5, see the dealer's first card, bet, then play. After 10 rounds, the player with the highest score wins. The 10 rounds play very quickly; a game ends in 3 minutes. Because the rules are quite different from standard blackjack, the standard strategies don't work. The A.I.s know the best strategy for a one-round game; humans have to learn the additional strategy of a 10-round game in order to best the computer.
Our next test will happen on Monday. We're upgrading to Windows 8 to see if our multi-touch T2D works without modification. *Crossed Fingers*
It's been a lot of fun to write new games that we actually get to play at home with friends. The multi-touch table is the best project I've ever worked on, and I know I'm lucky to be able to own one and to be able to write games for them.
I've made a playlist of the 5 videos, which I don't know how to show here. You can either click that link in the previous sentence, or watch the first video here:
I'm really happy with The Battle Home: A Pachisi Game. I researched all of the precursors to Parcheesi and found that it had a rich history. Since almost every combination of rules have been played together, I allowed the players to also pick which rules they want to see. We integrated Awesomium into T2D fairly easily. This allowed us to build HTML based upon which rules were selected and we build the instructions dynamically.
We also allow players to come and go as they please by switching between human and A.I. players at the click of a button. We even have 3D dice and cowry shells using the t2dShape3D object. (Although we fake the shadows underneath with sprites.)
By far our most fun game is Pair Soup. It's a cooperative matching game. We've had up to 7 people playing at the same time, and everybody swears that they could do better next time and help the group get to an even higher score.
Bloody Hearts is a simple Hearts game with a few options for rules based upon how Hearts is commonly played by different groups. I wrote an decent A.I. It pulls off the occasional good round, but almost never wins a game.
We made a target-shooting game called Got It!. It's for 1 to 4 players and you're simply trying to kill the germs to get the highest score. There are upgrades/downgrades to add a challenge, but it's supposed to mimic the simplicity of a game like "Hungry Hungry Hippos".
The last game is Fas' Jack. It's blackjack with rules that are player-friendly (house disadvantaged?). Every round you get an additional $5, see the dealer's first card, bet, then play. After 10 rounds, the player with the highest score wins. The 10 rounds play very quickly; a game ends in 3 minutes. Because the rules are quite different from standard blackjack, the standard strategies don't work. The A.I.s know the best strategy for a one-round game; humans have to learn the additional strategy of a 10-round game in order to best the computer.
Our next test will happen on Monday. We're upgrading to Windows 8 to see if our multi-touch T2D works without modification. *Crossed Fingers*
It's been a lot of fun to write new games that we actually get to play at home with friends. The multi-touch table is the best project I've ever worked on, and I know I'm lucky to be able to own one and to be able to write games for them.
I've made a playlist of the 5 videos, which I don't know how to show here. You can either click that link in the previous sentence, or watch the first video here:
About the author
#2
12/05/2012 (2:46 pm)
So far T2D runs fine on Win8, but I've only run it on a standard PC and have no idea how the touch will work out for you guys.
#3
We integrated Windows HID and TUIO events alongside the standard keyboard and mouse events in T2D. As long as Windows 8 uses those same HID events for multi-touch as they do in Windows 7, I think we'll see it working immediately. If not, hopefully it'll be as easy to integrate the new events alongside the old.
12/05/2012 (5:25 pm)
@Richard Ranft, It's great to hear from somebody who has run on Windows 8. It makes me less nervous about the upgrade.We integrated Windows HID and TUIO events alongside the standard keyboard and mouse events in T2D. As long as Windows 8 uses those same HID events for multi-touch as they do in Windows 7, I think we'll see it working immediately. If not, hopefully it'll be as easy to integrate the new events alongside the old.
#4
Your games looks good tho! Really responsive and fun, a little sceptical towards the card game, I would say it would be nice if there were some kind of auto sorting on the cards so you didn't have to cover as big an area but could like, say show only diamond card, or spades. Then you would have keep a fairly smaller amount of cards hitten :)
12/05/2012 (11:59 pm)
I want one of those tables :3Your games looks good tho! Really responsive and fun, a little sceptical towards the card game, I would say it would be nice if there were some kind of auto sorting on the cards so you didn't have to cover as big an area but could like, say show only diamond card, or spades. Then you would have keep a fairly smaller amount of cards hitten :)
#5
indianapolis.
Best of luck with the games!
Will
12/09/2012 (2:08 pm)
Wow, great work. do you know if you can do something of the like with android on a big screen like that? Always wondered if you could put your android tablet on a hdmi cable with a touch screen and it would work as if the same table top version. Anyone happen to know? I love android dev right now, currently writing a tab and phone app for both phone and tab release for our haunted houses coming shortly to indianapolis.
Best of luck with the games!
Will
#6
@Will Zettler - The hard part is getting the touch events back to the Android OS for processing. There are Android-to-TUIO apps, but I've never seen a TUIO-to-Android app that sends TUIO (or Windows) events back to an Android device.
12/09/2012 (4:30 pm)
@Lukas Joergensen - There's a slider to the left of the cards to set the size of the cards to whatever you want. We typically play with card-stock blinds that don't interfere with the touch surface but hides the cards.@Will Zettler - The hard part is getting the touch events back to the Android OS for processing. There are Android-to-TUIO apps, but I've never seen a TUIO-to-Android app that sends TUIO (or Windows) events back to an Android device.
#7
03/31/2013 (12:48 pm)
Are there any plans to sell those games? I for one would love the poker game.
#8
BUT! If you just want the poker game, that can be had for free through the Google Chrome store. The instructions for setting it all up can be found at dougx.net/.
04/01/2013 (9:14 am)
We are selling the games and you can find them at mesamundi.com/collections/software-games.BUT! If you just want the poker game, that can be had for free through the Google Chrome store. The instructions for setting it all up can be found at dougx.net/.
Torque Owner D Fasel
Game 3D