<\/P>
Building a Physical Tower \u2013 and a Virtual World <\/P> During a game, players take turns stacking colorful plastic pieces that represent beasts and artifacts. The object is to make the tallest, most fabulous tower possible by introducing new creatures, powering them up, bringing them into new combinations, and so on. Points are awarded based on the choices you make; once the tower falls, the game is over \u2014 and you have a new score to beat.<\/P> <\/P> Here\u2019s the twist: While players take on the physical and creative challenges of stacking the pieces, the tablet-based digital component of Fabulous Beasts controls the game, assigns points, and creates a virtual environment in which the beasts live and evolve.<\/P> <\/P> Bringing Together Digital and Physical Play<\/FONT><\/STRONG> <\/P> Fleetwood benefits from a deep background in game design, and especially in making participatory physical games for museum exhibitions and similar art installations. Burrell-Saward began collaborating with him back then, starting when \u201cI built a three-meter-tall talking throne for one of his exhibitions at Kensington Palace.\u201d<\/P> <\/P> The Sensible Object team began to form at the end of 2014, when Fleetwood wanted to create a product that would bring his interest in participatory gaming to a wider audience. The fledgling company received funding from arts and research organization REACT Sandbox<\/A> as part of the \u201cPlay\u201d initiative. At that point, the team began \u201clooking for ways we could specifically tie digital play and physical play together,\u201d Burrell-Saward says.<\/P> <\/P> Today, the team includes Fleetwood, Burrell-Saward (3D design and prototyping), George Buckenham (game design), Lyall McCarthy (2D graphics and UI design), and Chris Shaw (mechanical and electronic engineering). <\/P> <\/P> Erasing the Divide between Tabletop Games and Video Games<\/FONT><\/STRONG> <\/P> As Burrell-Saward puts it, the physical aspects of these popular games \u201clook very nice, but they don\u2019t do anything.\u201d By contrast, the Sensible Object team wanted \u201cto make the physical side as integral as the digital side.\u201d<\/P> <\/P> After spending several months developing the prototype, the team took the game to industry showcases such as the Game Developer\u2019s Conference and the Shenzhen Maker Faire. The got the reaction they hoped for when testers praised the novelty of play and resonated with the social side of the game. In the half-year since then, the designers have geared up for a market-ready product, radically revising the prototype based on hundreds of hours of play-testing with different age groups in China, the United States, and Europe.<\/P> <\/P> Burrell-Saward says that the youngest players have been the quickest to grasp the hybrid nature of the game: \u201cThe younger the kids were, the less instruction they needed in how the iPad interacted with everything else.\u201d By contrast, many adult players have needed \u201cmore explaining about how these two things can exist in symbiosis.\u201d<\/P> <\/P> If the trend continues, this symbiosis may come to seem natural. Burrell-Saward believes that ultimately the traditional division between video gaming and tabletop gaming \u201cis going to disappear.\u201d<\/P> <\/P> From Product Design to Design-for-Manufacture <\/P> He particularly likes using the program for setting up toolpaths and other manufacturing functions. \u201cIt\u2019s a fantastic tool for getting you cutting quickly,\u201d he says, \u201cwithout waiting hours and hours to generate code.\u201d<\/P> <\/P> Working with a couple hundred other people in a maker space in central London, Burrell-Saward has a chance to see how other startups usedesign software. Cost is a real issue, he says, but subscription pricing for Fusion 360 and other applications makes the challenge much easier. Whereas in the past, his team might have only been able to afford one copy of one program, now they can afford a subscription that meets their needs at every step.<\/P> <\/P> The Coming Evolution of Fabulous Beasts<\/FONT><\/STRONG> <\/P> The core box product offered in the Kickstarter campaign will come with about two dozen pieces, \u201ckind of like a traditional box game,\u201d Burrell-Saward says. Additional pieces will be made available as booster packs or upgrades. One Kickstarter tier \u2014 the \u201cmaker\u201d set \u2014 will include white game pieces ready for painting, RFID tags, and STL files for people who want to 3D-print their own pieces.<\/P> <\/P> Meanwhile, the team can experiment with new variations of the product that allow different modes of play. One particular benefit that comes from having the digital side control the game is that the designers can use the same physical components, yet drastically change the playing experience based on how the digital component controls the game.<\/P> <\/P> Burrell-Saward sums up the evolutionary nature of the game and the team\u2019s design process when he says: \u201cI\u2019m really, really keen to see what people might make with what we\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/P> <\/P> <\/p>\n<\/FONT><\/STRONG>
Fabulous Beasts is the brainchild of London-based gaming startup Sensible Object<\/A>. Working from a vault under the Waterloo Bridge, the company\u2019s veteran designers and artists have created a cooperative game in which 2\u20135 players work together to \u201cbuild the most fabulous world possible,\u201d according to product designer, Tim Burrell-Saward.<\/P>
Alex Fleetwood, CEO and founder of Sensible Object, found his initial inspiration for the game on a camping trip in California. As he carefully stacked firewood to make campfires, he had the idea to incorporate physical balance skills with a digital environment.<\/P><\/P><\/CENTER>
According to Burrell-Saward, there are a number of games on the
market that aim to provide \u201cdigital play that doesn\u2019t exist solely on a screen,\u201d including offerings from Activision, Disney, LEGO, and Nintendo. A lot of these games incorporate a physical component such as a character figurine, yet aren\u2019t specifically social in the physical world.<\/P><\/FONT><\/STRONG>
The team has used Fusion 360 in various stages of the design process. Burrell-Saward imports surface models into the program to do \u201cessentially all of the solid stuff\u201d such as shelling, ribbing, and draft angles. With Fusion 360, he also generates STL files for 3D printing and the g-code used by milling machines.<\/P>
The team\u2019s efforts have garnered them awards, drawn positive attention from the mainstream gaming press, and attracted angel investment. Now, the team\u2019s Kickstarter campaign<\/A> will fund the first production run of the game. While there are still some refinements to be made, the design of the game is almost complete, and the team has already visited China more than once to collaborate with manufacturing partners and prepare for the start of production later in the year. Their goal is to deliver games to purchasers in time for the 2016 holiday season.<\/P>