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Tiltfive Battleship

AR Game Project

Team of five -  Aarnav Sangekar, Nik Kim, Liam Hower, Michelle Chen, and Yuxi Xu
Role: UX Researcher, Effet Desginer/Programmer, Asset Manager.
Contribution: Board design, particle effect programming, UX research
Dec-06-2024

0/6A modern twist on the classic battleship board game where players engage in turn-based naval warfare, aiming to locate and destroy the opponent's fleet before theirs is sunk, but this time, in a table-top AR setting platform called Tilt Five.
  • 1/6

  • Game Play Design


1. Game Flow

  • Both the players place their ships on the board.
  • Once both the players have placed their ships, the guessing-phase starts.
  • During the guessing phase, each player will guess turn by turn.
  • During a player’s guess turn, they will choose a grid square to aim at and select to hit
  • If it is a successful hit by the player, then there is hit feedback to show.
  • If it is a miss, show miss feedback
  • Switch Turn

       Win Condition: All the ships of a player are sunk, the other player wins
The player who wins sees the opposite player’s ship burnt and destroyed with white flags, and a text that says “You win”

        The player who loses sees the opposite player’s ship fire towards them.

2. User Interface

        The user interface consists of a line shooting from the Tilt Five's wand controller, where someone can point and click to select a target. Each user sees their own and the opponent's board, but the opponent’s board is covered in fog and the opponent’s ships are also not visible to the player.

        There were plans to add a physical interface to the game, but due to time constraints we decided to stick to using the existing Tilt Five controllers for the game.

  • 2/6

  • Environment Design


        The environment consists of a board pattern with a checkerboard pattern to denote the board area for the player and the opponent. The ships and the fog of war will be placed on the boards. There are small buoys that are color-coded (the same color as the color pointing out from the wand) that are used to restrict the player vs the opponent area. There are also islands in the sea that are decorative as well as an island with a mortar where you will fire the target with.

AR Battleship Board Design


        When deciding on the assets that would go into our game, we chose to use an interface that makes sense within the environment that our game exists in.

        The cannons from which players could shoot at each other with were placed on islands, while the buoys helped to indicate where each player’s grid started and ended. There was also a fighter plane model that was developed, but ultimately not used since its original purpose was to facilitate abilities.

        We also created fish to swim in the water as a bit of immersion, which ended up being one of the consistently adored features of our game for the playtesters.

Asset Gallery

  • Water tile
    Islands
    A bomb
    A cannon
    Aircrafts
    Boats
    Submarines
    Attackers
    Buoys
    Fish
    T ships

  • 4/6

  • Asynchronous Layout

Players only see their ships, and can only select into the opponent board

Player 1 board view
Player 2 board view

  • 5/6

  • Final Game Play

Point and select game mechanism
Game end scene
  • 6/6

  • UX Research Report

Research Question
        
        How do augmented reality board games change players' game behavior compared to physical board games?

Hypothesis
 
        Our hypothesis for this study is that the AR-augmented version will encourage players to make different strategic choices, enhance their understanding of the game, and promote their interaction dynamics.







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Nik Kim

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A New Turing Test

I envision machines that pass my own version of the Turing test: “Can we play with them?” I remember the moments of playing co-op video games with my little brother under a shabby tent made of chairs and blankets. I cherish these small, precious memories—they’re still alive within me. Favourite...

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