Surfacescapes Demo Walkthrough from Surfacescapes on Vimeo.

This is the best use for Microsoft’s Surface multitouch table we’ve seen yet. Recreating the Dungeons and Dragons experience on a tabletop. It’s a work in progress, but it’s pretty stunning. It was created by a team at Carnegie Mellon University. Players move real figurines over virtual battlefields, rolling virtual die to deal damage against the usual wolves and such.

So far they’ve got everything from modeled pieces, spell effects, and tons of nice touches to the terrain and ambient outdoor sound effects. It might remove some of the imagination from the game, but it makes many things easier.

[Engadget]