Tower No Tumble

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BACKGROUND, Field, Context, Research Question The videogame industry often ignores the history of play beyond the digital. As tangible technologies become more prevalent, game designers stand to learn a lot from folk games, tabletop games, and sport. Although we should resist the claim that technology can "improve" upon traditional games, we still benefit from asking what multimedia and new hardware can uniquely offer. Tower No Tumble (TnT) aims for a workable balance between digital and physical, asking: how can we combine sound and animated characters with traditional tabletop games to make fresh new family-oriented experiences? CONTRIBUTION, Innovation, New Knowledge TnT was a commercial physical-digital block-stacking game for the (now-defunct) Sifteo platform. Wilson was the designer and producer, along with a team from Die Gute Fabrik. In TnT, players physically flick one character - rendered on a Sifteo cube screen - against an entire tower of characters (cubes). The goal is to hit the tower without toppling it. Unlike traditional stacking games (e.g. Jenga), TnT uses character animations and sound to make the physical game pieces feel "alive." The project is directly inspired by the traditional flicking game Crokinole, but uses accelerometers to detect when contact is made. Aimed towards children and families, TnT aims to find a closer, accessible blend between physical and digital, instead of just "dressing" non-digital paradigms with computational frills. SIGNIFICANCE, Evidence of Excellence TnT demonstrated how we can transmute design patterns from classic tabletop games into digitally-enabled tangible game experiences, opening up new possibilities for family-oriented play. The project was commissioned by Sifteo and was sold on their storefront until the company shutdown. It was selected by a jury of industry peers as an IndieCade 2013 Digital Select, exhibited in Los Angeles.