Star Wars, Videogames, and a 20-Foot Screen Equal This Amazing Student Project
A Star Wars themed game made by a graduate student attending the University of Illinois at Chicago might be the coolest game the franchise has ever seen. What was originally an attempt to adapt a real-time strategy game to a tabletop, multi-touch interface has become a Star Wars themed RTS played on a 20-foot wide multi-touch LCD screen.
After originally starting out as something called Planetary Defender in 2009, creator Arthur Nishimoto has since decided to drop certain elements in favor of focusing on "the fleet battle aspects," which amounts to combat featuring Star Wars ships, music, and sound effects.
Many of the bigger things, like Star Destroyers, were taken from Star Wars: Empire at War, while smaller units (fighters, bombers) were drawn in Paint.
The game was originally played on a tabletop screen, as seen in the video below. Last summer, Nishimoto moved the game from that screen (with its 1920x1080 resolution) to a 20-foot wide screen (resolution: 8160x2304) housed at the university's Electronic Visualization Laboratory.
The video above showcases the game in all its chaotic action on that screen, along with the radial menu interface used for controlling capital ships (allowing players to repair their ships, launch fighters, etc.). The game includes superweapons for the Rebels and Empire: the ion cannon from Hoth and the Death Star, respectively, the latter of which doesn't require a funny hat in order to fire.
Nishimoto spoke to Wired about his creation, noting that it can be played by as many players as you can fit near the giant screen. He also talked about his future plans for the game: "I plan to continue using Fleet Commander as a platform for exploring multi-user, multitouch interaction techniques. Other future work may involve a 3-D LCD wall." As if this weren't already awesome enough.
The history of Fleet Commander's development is outlined at Nishimoto's website, where you can also see the other projects he's worked on.
