‘HoloGrid: Monster Battle’ Is Phil Tippett’s Next Big Project


Today it was announced that Phil Tippett (best known for the special effects he created for the “Holo Chess” scene in the original 1977 Star Wars movie and recreated for the current Star Wars: The Force Awakens), has partnered with HappyGiant to create HoloGrid: Monster Battle, a new “next-gen augmented and virtual reality concept” game.

Who hasn’t seen the chess scene in both movies and thought, “I wish I could play that. It sure would make playing chess for fun!” Soon, you will be able to.

HoloGrid: Monster Battle is considered a hybrid that combines a board game, collectible cards, and digital game and puts them all into one package. HoloGrid is built for next-gen AR and VR platforms, but plans are in the works to make the game available for mobile devices and PCs as well. The idea, of course, is to give players the sense that these fighting creatures are battling right in front of you, just like they did in the Star Wars films.

Founded in 1984, Tippett Studio, led by two-time Academy Award-winning visual effects artist Phil Tippet, has created memorable moments in film, television, and numerous commercials. His work has been seen in Jurassic Park, RoboCop, Ted, Cloverfield, The Twilight Saga, and Starship Troopers, but fans fondly remember the chess battle scene from Star Wars.

“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 in today’s press release. “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.”

HappyGiant is an independent game developer created by former employees of LucasArts, Industrial light and Magic, Hasbro, and Pileated Pictures. The company is known for such games as InstaKitty, Ninja Time Pirates, Usagi Yojimbo: Way of the Ronin, Dolphin Paradise: Wild Friends, and Orca Paradise: Wild Friends. More recently, the company has created games based movies and TV shows, including Sacha Baron Cohen’s The Dictator and FOX’s huge hit TV show Empire. HoloGrid: Monster Battle is the company’s most ambitious project to date.

“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, the president of HappyGiant. “We believe 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.”

One intriguing fact about HoloGrid: Monster Battle is how Tippet and HappyGiant have incorporated the use of photogrammetry. Technically, the science of photogrammetry is making measurements from photographs, but it can also be used to measure and record 3D objects as is the case with this project.

“We’d been doing experiments with Photogrammetry, but more on museum level artifacts,” said Levine. “At the same time we began exploring doing projects with Tippett, we had the idea, ‘What if we tried this on some creatures?’ The results blew us away. That’s really where this idea was born.”

“And it’s the exact same technique we used on The Force Awakens,” added Tippett.

The creators of HoloGrid say that the game will play similar to Magic: The Gathering or Hearthstone, but unlike them, it will use the physical playing card to make the monsters on the game board move. Each card acts as a trigger for a certain movement of the pieces. With the new game, players will be able to play together locally or remotely on or offline.

Currently, the team is looking at all options, from publishing deals to crowdfunding.

[Photo by Valerie Macon/Getty Images]

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