Remember holo-chess in Star Wars? Tippet Studios is working on a real one

The creator of the classic scene aboard the Millennium Falcon is working with developer Happy Giant, on a game that would mimic its monster-on-monster battles in both AR and VR.

Who wouldn’t be interested in this? I mean, seriously, I can’t imagine anyone who saw Star Wars as a kid didn’t want to play that holo-chess game. Not that you would have wanted to play with Chewy of course, since you know- he’d rip your arms off if he lost.

Fortunately there’s no Chewbacca around right now, so it’s probably safe to talk about Phil Tippitt and HoloGrid: Monster Battle. A two-time Academy Award winning Visual Effects Supervisor and Director, Tippitt worked on films like “Star Wars films, Jurassic Park, Robocop, The Force Awakens, and many more”. Bottom line, he’s made a bunch of stuff that you love if you’re a sci-fi fan, and now he’s working on VR and AR games, specifically the aforementioned HoloGrid.

“For years I’ve been making monsters for Directors to play with, and now for the first time, I’m making monsters for YOU to play with,” said Tippett. “We’re excited about the new fields of Augmented and Virtual Reality, and to be working with our friends at HappyGiant to create HoloGrid: Monster Battle.”

Take this little beauty for example. HoloGrid: Monster Battle plays like a collectible card game, but with visuals that display right out in front of you via augmented reality displays. Yes, the board will appear in front of you, and yes, so will the beasties doing battle.

As to just how that’s set to take place, it’s simple- all the monsters that you see will be real. Well, in a way. Using something called Photogrammetry, Tippitt’s actual three-dimensional creations will be scanned into the game. So these are real models that will move and be controlled within the AR space, and that’s pretty awesome.

Tippitt is working with developer Happy Giant on the game, and even though they don’t have a publisher quite yet, they hope to have it playable on “next generation” AR and virtuality rigs. With that in mind, you probably won’t be playing it for a while.

However, it’s also important to note that they plan on introducing the game on PC and mobile platforms, so you might get a taste sooner than later.

“We’re incredibly excited and interested in new platforms like Magic Leap, HoloLens, CastAR, Meta and others, as well as current AR mobile tech such as Vuforia,” said Mike Levine, President of HappyGiant. “We believes in the future of AR Gaming, and to be working with Phil Tippett and his studio on this project is a dream come true. The tech has finally caught up to the point where this game can be made.”

Even though the game is a ways off in playable form, you can check out the website right now
and get even more of a feel for what’s on the way.