Abstract |
Today, tabletop games and especially tabletop role playing games (TTRPGs)
have seen a surge of popularity, with various pop culture media promoting such
games and video streaming platforms exposing wide audiences to the hobby of
tabletop gaming. Currently, there exist two categories of playing environments
for such tabletop games. Firstly, locally, with all the players gathering around
a table and utilizing physical components (dice, miniatures, board, terrain, etc).
Secondly, through Virtual Tabletops, platforms created for digital remote play,
that offer tools (virtual dice, board and miniatures) agnostic to any game system
for facilitating any tabletop game session. Several of these platforms specialize
in specific game rulesets to provide extended features like useful automations and
complex calculations.
Some existing Virtual Platforms can provide a high level of integration in a rule
system, but those platforms implement 2D graphics and with a very limited set of
animations and audiovisual effects. On the other hand, more visually appealing
3D Virtual Tabletops provide very limited rule integration and as a result also
limited animations and visual effects that would need to match specific character
actions as dictated by the game’s rules.
In this thesis, we present Arcane Tabletop, a platform for creating and experiencing multiplayer turn-based board games in Extended Reality. The novelty of, as our approach to a Virtual Table, is the combination of the digital and physical worlds, that allows for players to enjoy the aspects a physical setup provides,
with the automations and immersive enhancements that a virtual table can offer.
Additionally, the system presented in this thesis provides both a high-level of integration with any given game ruleset and the extension of such an inclusion to the game’s mechanics and presentation. Each action and each character in the game is animated and has visual and audio effects, in 3D. This, in unison with the
presentation of the game happening in extended reality, is our effort to “breathe
life” into the tabletop.
Arcane Tabletop provides four distinct functionalities for creating, customizing and finally experiencing a tabletop game. Firstly, the creation of a custom turn-based board game rule set that can be imported in a board game scenario.
Secondly, the loading of various assets such as 3D models, animations and visual
and sound effects in order to create a template on which a game scenario can be made. Thirdly, the creation of a game scenario by utilizing a template and combining it with a game ruleset. Finally, the experience of a game scenario in Extended Reality through Microsoft’s Hololens 2 holographic head mounted device.
Experiencing a game scenario requires players to wear the AR head mounted
device, and to gather around the same space. The game consists of a holographic 3D model of terrain that serves as the board of the game, and characters that
players control. Each character has a set of abilities that enable them to interact
with other characters or the environment. The goal of the game and the nature of
the interactions between characters varies according to the scenario and the game
ruleset.
The resulting experience of playing the game should retain the tactile feeling
and sense of community of a physical board game, and simultaneously utilize the virtual nature of the tabletop, which allows sound and visual effects to be incorporated in the gaming session, in order to provide a higher sense of immersion. In addition, the incorporation of various automations facilitates a gaming experience
that is more guided, seamless, and conducive to a smooth flow for all players.
In conclusion, this thesis presents the research and development work performed on the topic of tabletop games and the digital platforms that facilitate
them in the form of a literature review, a description of the design process followed
for the Arcane Tabletop, a brief technical description of the system, and finally an
evaluation that was conducted regarding the user experience of a particular game
scenario created as a case study.
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