Star Wars VFX Legend Phil Tippett, and his team at Tippett Studio, joins forces with Happy Giant to bring you a Kickstarter for HoloGrid: Monster Battle — a hybrid between a Collectible Card Game (CCG), a board game, and digital game. HoloGrid is aiming to raise $100,000.
Remember in Star Wars: A New Hope when Chewie and C-3PO start playing holographic chess — called Dejarik? Not only did Tippett work on the VFX for that — as well The Force Awakens and Jurassic Park — but he is helping to bring the dream of something like holographic chess into reality.
HoloGrid was named “Best Technology of PAXEast 2016” by MMOGames:
“No other tech on the gaming floor combined so many cool, new ideas at once quite like this game. It managed to put together AR, CCG gaming and mobile gaming into a mixture that engages with its personality and depth of play.”
How do you make a hybrid CCG/Board/Digital game?
CCG Aspect
Similar to Magic: The Gathering or Hearthstone, HoloGrid will use physical cards to trigger the AR creatures and the whole game board.
Board Game Aspect
If funded, HoloGrid will ship with a physical board, as well as being able to digitally create the board.
Digital Game Aspect
All points, attacks, and any random number generation (RNG) will be done via the digital game side of HoloGrid.
How do you play?
Everyone first picks 1 Champion card, 3 Minion cards, and 2 spell cards which becomes their deck.
Each turn grants the player 5 Mana, which can be used to perform any action with every action costing 1 Mana. An action is anything like playing a card, attacking, moving, or trading a card in, but you don’t need to use all 5 Mana points.
The aim of HoloGrid: Monster Battle is to take turns until a player destroys the other’s Champion.
Mike Levine, President of HappyGiant, on what the HoloGrid aims to do:
“This is our first step into a new world of AR gaming, and while we are launching it on mobile initially so everyone can play it, our long term vision is to bring it to emerging AR and VR platforms.”
Stretch Goals
The two most notable stretch goals are:
$350k
Remote Multiplayer will be added if the HoloGrid get’s to this goal.
$1m
If HoloGrid can get 10x it’s goal, the game will be brought to VR platforms, Vive, Oculus, PS VR, as well as many different AR platforms like Microsoft HoloLens.
HoloGrid is aiming to be released to backers in November 2016, and will be on mobile for Android and iOS, with the possibility of more platforms stretch goal dependant.
Will you be helping to fund HoloGrid?
