project-image

Tilt Five: Holographic Tabletop Gaming

Created by Tilt Five

Augmented Reality glasses that open up a whole new holographic game space.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Tilt Five July Update!
over 2 years ago – Tue, Jul 20, 2021 at 11:45:17 PM

MANUFACTURING & SHIPPING UPDATES 

We’ve started Beta Kit shipments to Beta Backers! They’ve been so great offering insights, running experiments, and exploring different aspects of the SDK and hardware. We love it! Every Thursday we meet with our Beta Backers on our Discord to chat about their experience, we take a ton of notes, and truly appreciate the close level of communication and feedback.

We are going slow and steady on these Beta shipments, this is the first time we’re having real users play with these kits and put them through their paces. We’re spending time closely with each Beta Backer to learn from their experience and to help with any surprises. During this Beta period, we’re also taking time to develop our support processes to give questions and feedback the time and care they deserve.

These Beta Kits are pre-mass production units so with the help of our Beta Backers’ help, feedback, and insights, we’ll be able to identify improvements that can help make an even better final product for the rest of our Kickstarter backers.


URGENT REMINDER FOR ALL BACKERS:

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR SHIPPING INFORMATION AND OTHER INFO ON BACKERKIT IS CORRECT! AS WE GET CLOSER TO SHIPPING DATES FOR THE DIFFERENT PACKS, WE WANT TO ENSURE THAT EVERYTHING IS GOOD TO GO.

IF YOU NEED TO  UPDATE YOUR SHIPPING INFORMATION, PLEASE DO ONE OF THE FOLLOWING:

1. Use the link on your original BackerKit Survey email

2. Contact us ([email protected]) and we’ll help find your BackerKit link!


GAMES UPDATES

Say hello to Figmin!

We’re proud to announce a content partnership with OverlayMR to bring Figmin to Tilt Five! Create your own games and scenes with Figmin, share them with the community, and play games that others have created. Sculpt 3D models, bring community shared 3D models in your scene, and decorate your games with gifs. Check out the new trailer for Figmin, and catch their latest updates on Twitter.

 We’ve constantly finding and signing more games and studios to bring to Tilt Five and will be announcing them in future updates.


DEVELOPER & COMMUNITY UPDATES

New Developer Docs Site!

Check out docs.tiltfive.com to see our first developer documentation pages. Let us know what you think!

New Tilt Five Forums are now open!

If Forums are your jam, jump over to forums.tiltfive.com and kick off the discussion! Sporting a slick new Dark Theme, the Tilt Five Forums are ready for action.

Where Discord is great for real time chat with other users, Forums are great for indexing and archiving topics, categorizing official solutions to issues, making all our community knowledge easily searchable and increasingly helpful over time. Have at it!

SDK Rev14: Debonair Draugr released

Tilt Five Control Panel

The Beta SDK is currently available for our Partner development teams and Beta Backers through the Tilt Five Forum. After the Beta period we’ll open up the SDK for everyone else to jump into! All backers still have access to the sdk-preview while waiting for hardware and full SDK access.


STAY IN THE LOOP, COME JOIN OUR DISCORD!

Connect with us and a great community of developers, gamers, enthusiasts, and other Tilt Five supporters. Join our Discord!

Developer Planet, SDK updates, Community Questions
almost 3 years ago – Thu, Jun 03, 2021 at 04:20:11 PM

Tilt Five Developer Program: A First Look!

We are so excited to officially announce our FIRST group of Tilt Five Developer Partners! These intrepid hologram developers hail from every corner of the globe and you will recognize a number of them from our Kickstarter campaign. And this is just the beginning... We've already begun signing the next round of developers and games!

Our holographic vanguard took a few moments out of their busy schedule to make the above video! We’re super proud of the work they’ve done so far and we can’t wait to share more about them and their games!

Tilt Five’s first group of illustrious partners include:

Applications for the Tilt Five Developer Program are now open for game devs looking to bring their games to the Tilt Five system. APPLY HERE!

 
 Welcome to the team! 

A Word from Kristine

I’m so thrilled to be working on content partnerships at Tilt Five.  The minute I saw those tabletop holograms, I knew I wanted to be a part of the Tilt Five journey.  Though my career started with what are now prominent names in the games industry (PlayStation and Rockstar Games), I had actually joined both from their very early stages as start-ups.  I realized I loved working in that crazy, unpredictable environment and seeing the excitement with consumers when you finally release that killer hardware or genre-bending video game.  We’re going to do the same at Tilt Five. Most recently at HTC Vive, I was continually inspired by the indie development community, where so many amazing XR content creators are making innovative and mind-blowing experiences. I look forward to supporting some equally cool content from PC, mobile and XR developers for our AR glasses.

Starting a new job during lockdown was a lot more seamless than I imagined, and my cat has now appeared in more International Zoom calls than she ever thought possible.  Hope to see you all in person sometime soon at a games conference near you (sans cat!).


Manufacturing Update

Leveling up is our game! We completed the Engineering Validation Test (EVT) phase of manufacturing, a very Dark Souls-esque treatment of our hardware, and have started the Design Validation Test (DVT) phase!  


EVT was critical in helping us gain confidence in how to make this Tilt Five product way more robust across many environmental scenarios. We’re prepping the hardware for regulatory certifications, and are increasing production quantities as we move into DVT. As a result, we’ve been sending more and more units out to new partner development teams to kick off their game productions. 


Shipping Update

Next up for shipments are the Beta Kits for our Beta Backers! These Beta Kits are planned to ship in June! For LE Kits, XE Kits, and XE Group Packs, shipping dates are projected to roll out during the same projected timelines as the graphic above. No changes on those projections since last month’s Kickstarter update. As always, timeline estimates are most accurate in the near term, and get fuzzier the farther out we project.


URGENT REMINDER FOR ALL BACKERS: 

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR SHIPPING INFORMATION AND OTHER INFO ON BACKERKIT IS CORRECT! AS WE GET CLOSER TO SHIPPING DATES FOR THE DIFFERENT PACKS, WE WANT TO ENSURE THAT EVERYTHING IS GOOD TO GO. 


IF YOU NEED TO  UPDATE YOUR SHIPPING INFORMATION, PLEASE DO ONE OF THE FOLLOWING:

1. Use the link on your original Backerkit Survey email

2. Contact us ([email protected]) and we’ll help find your Backerkit link!


SDK Updates

We’ve made some great progress on the SDK and developer support front, with two recent SDK releases for our partner developer teams.

Questions from the Community

In anticipation for hardware shipments, the community on Discord has asked a lot of great questions, and we’d like to share them with everyone!


Shipping related questions

  • Q) When can we expect Tilt Five glasses and wands to start shipping?
  • A) Beta Kits will start shipping in June, LE Kits and XE Kits targeted to ship in Q3, once we complete the PVT phase and enter Mass Production, we’re targeting to ship XE Group Packs in Q3 and Q4. 

Hardware related questions

  • Q) Can you share more info regarding the USB-C connection, what types of ports are viable, and whether or not it has to pass DVI/Displayport, etc?
  • A) Our USB C cable uses standard USB 3.0 data, and does not pass DVI/DisplayPort data
     
  • Q) What are the recommended minimum specs to run the glasses?
  • A) These are some estimates based on the machines we have on hand to test with:
                Windows 10 PCs that can run 2 stereoscopic views, 60fps, 720p, Direct 3D11, with USB 3.0 SuperSpeed ports
                OS: Windows 10
                Processor: Intel Core i3-4130 or equivalent
                Memory: 4 GB RAM
                Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 560Ti or equivalent
                DirectX: Direct 3D11
                Storage: 2 GB available space
     
  • Q) Will 1 PC be able to support multiple glasses?
  • A) We’d like to support this in the future, although this will not be available at launch. There will likely be special requirements for the computer to support the video processing, USB bandwidth, and audio between multiple headsets.
     
  • Q) Will Tilt Five or its software work without an internet connection? 
  • A) Users will need an internet connection to download the required Windows drivers and any games. For multiplayer games or games with optional multiplayer modes, you will need an internet connection.
     
  • Q) Will Tilt Five require a login account?
  • A) No! We will not require login credentials to access our games or developer tools. In the future it is possible Tilt Five will require a login account for personalized features.

Games/Software related questions

  • Q) Have you reached out to XYZ insert company name here…?
  • A) It’s possible! We’re talking with a lot of studios, large & small, to discuss their games and potential partnerships. If you have game or content recommendations, please stop by our Discord and leave your suggestions in the #game-wishlist channel!
     
  • Q) Will Windows 7 be supported, or will I be forced to switch to Linux or Windows 10?
  • A) Sadly, not even Microsoft supports Windows 7 anymore, so we’re optimizing for Windows 10. Time for an upgrade!
     
  • Q) How many games can we expect to try out at release?
  • A) We're working with dozens of developers. Each of them have different timelines which means there will be a constant stream of new games to try every month after you receive your kits. One example, you’ll be able to play over 100 digital board games from our friends at Tabletopia! That’s just bonkers.
     
  • Q) How many multiplayer games can we expect at release?
  • A) Currently over ⅓ of the games being developed support multiplayer with more coming every month. While each title has their own release schedule, you’ll definitely have multiplayer games to try when you get your kit! Multiplayer games on Tilt Five will support multiple players around the same game board or another board remotely.
     

SDK related questions

  • Q) I'd like to know more about integrating Tilt Five into custom game engines, not just Unity?
  • A) We’ll be pushing out a Native C SDK this year, allowing you to integrate Tilt Five into your custom game engines, and even integrate with open source game engines like Godot.
     
  • Q) Will there be OpenXR support?
  • A) It makes sense for us to add support for OpenXR at some point. First, we will get a better understanding of its scope of usage among our developer audiences.
     
  • Q) How is the Unreal integration coming?
  • A) It’s going well! It’s been in development for the last 3 months and we’ll have the alpha version for internal review in a few weeks.
     
  • Q) Will the drivers and/or program that runs the Tilt Five be forced into a lockstep update scenario? Meaning, will users be required to have the latest software to run the device and when it updates, will it no longer let you run older versions of the software?
  • A) Through Beta and maybe early on we will need to be in Lockstep. Our goal is not to be restrictive, though there will always be some limitations. It is our goal to not allow a newer SDK version to lock you out of playing older games. It’s a challenge for a small team like ours, but we will work hard to make it so.
     
  • Q) Does the SDK automatically detect the board configuration (LE Game Board, or XE Game Board with kickstand) so the game camera can be positioned appropriately, or would the player need to manually specify their current configuration?
  • A) We’re looking at doing auto detection and some other solutions. We’re still exploring the best way to support this feature.  
     
  • Q) It would be nice to see updates on a public kanban or Trello board or something. Any plans there?
  • A) We’ve been thinking about how to be more transparent with SDK releases, updates, and even feature requests and this is a great suggestion!  We are looking into it. 

Other questions

  • Q) Any hopes of powering Tilt Five Glasses via a Raspberry Pi or similar devices?
  • A) On the graphics side, this would be more like a mobile phone and could probably run some light games. There’s some potential this could work with our Android SDK. While there are no plans currently to support Raspberry Pi, we definitely hope to see some folks in the community tinker with possibilities like this. Will it be you?
     
  • Q) Will there be a 1st party Tilt Five multitap type accessory so multiple glasses can be plugged into one computer?
  • A) Multitap! Oh the memories :D USB Hubs are tricky, our glasses are bandwidth hungry. A multitap device would almost certainly need to be a USB3.1 gen2 hub, SuperSpeed+ to get enough bandwidth from PC to hub, and bonus points if the hub is a powered hub. We don’t have any plans for this kind of accessory ourselves, but we are curious to try out the possibilities. 

  • Q) I would love to see some more videos of people/partners playing with the Tilt Five system.
  • A) Totally! Video is such a powerful way to see what’s going on with our hardware and software. We’re playing with different video capture methods to produce clean footage and we are working with our partners to produce more video pieces. Expect to see more videos coming soon!

 
Stay in the loop, come join our Discord! 

Connect with us and a great community of developers, gamers, enthusiasts, and other Tilt Five supporters.  Join our Discord!

April Update: Major Milestone Warning!
almost 3 years ago – Sat, Apr 24, 2021 at 03:46:00 AM

Hey fam!

We’ve reached a major manufacturing milestone and are so thrilled to share the great news...we’ve received our first 50 glasses & wands from the factory!

Check 'em out! Look at these beauties!! <3

Why is this such a big deal??

Every kit we’ve sent out to development partners so far has been literally hand assembled by Jeri and some others on the team. All of the testing, calibration and any minor adjustments have been handled manually, one at a time. This is the first batch of kits to be 100% done in the factory, sooooo IT’S A BIG FRIGGIN DEAL!! It’s like going from monks crafting artisanal wonders in the dark to the printing press, or like leveling up from an abacus to the TI-83 Plus... just to play Doom!

We’re grateful to be part of this team and how everyone has rallied together to pull it off. As Jeri, our luminous leader, puts it, "It’s been an emotional rollercoaster to go from building everything yourself to sitting back and watching it happen from a distance. It's like seeing a good friend or family member move far away. You know they'll be ok, but you still have this nervousness in your gut when it happens. It's such a big push, and a major struggle, but for me I feel most alive when things are on fire, there's 10,000 problems and we’re working together as a team to do the impossible.”


Shipping estimates

We adjusted some of the shipping timelines to coincide with optimal timing from the factory. This helps us get your kits to you all as fast as possible. We’re incredibly lucky to have supporters from over 60 countries and we can’t wait to get you your goodies. One additional detail to note is shipping estimates may vary due to region specific shipping requirements, customs, guys named Steve texting while boating on the Suez Canal..., and possibly other unforeseen factors.

We understand there might still be some confusion or unmet expectations around shipping and delivery dates and we want to help answer any of those questions. Please come connect with us on our Discord and let’s chat!


Manufacturing Updates

Under normal manufacturing circumstances, we would have a couple team members on site to help supervise production and make quick response corrections where needed. This isn’t an option so instead, for the last month, more than half of our team has held late late night sessions with our manufacturing partners in China to go through production processes, assembly, testing, calibration, and making sure operations are going as smoothly as possible.

Success! Glasses are passing their quality checks!

We can’t say enough about how great our manufacturing partners have been! We see them as part of the team and their enthusiasm and patience has helped tremendously on those late night production calls. When the first pair of glasses passed testing and operators saw holograms through the glasses, they started cheering and shouting "I see it, I see it, it works!" and then came up close to the camera and asked, “So can we get some games to play??" It was a serious relief to see the devices pass inspection, and especially heartwarming to see their genuine excitement for what we’re building.

Check out our ultrasonic welding machine!!  


What’s next for the hardware?

Live footage of our hardware testing gauntlet :P

Now that we have this first batch of EVT Glasses & Wands, we’re going to put them through...THE GAUNTLET! Some devices will be going to CE and FCC certification testing, others will be submitted to french bread...to PAIN! Drop tested, extreme hot and cold temperature testing, submerged in goopy liquids, shaken, stirred, some glasses arms will be opened and closed 10,000 times, absolutely destined to be destroyed. Why?? Because out of this crucible of pain, will emerge strong, durable, crazy amazing glasses for all of you to enjoy.


SDK Update - Rev11.2 Alliterative Alpaca

We’re been making great progress to advance our partner developer studios and the games they’re integrating with the Tilt Five SDK. Our latest release is Unity SDK Rev11.2, here’s what’s happening under the hood:

  • Named after the fabled Alpaca!
  • Updated Wand pairing tool
  • Added new Windows Driver Installer (see image below)
  • Added new Tilt Five Control Panel
  • New Wand firmware (0.6)
  • Improved analog joystick/trigger inputs
Windows Driver in Action!

Wanna connect? Come join our Discord!

Hang out with us and a great community of developers, gamers, enthusiasts, and supporters:

  >>> JOIN OUR DISCORD <<<

March 2021 Update!
about 3 years ago – Thu, Mar 11, 2021 at 05:21:31 PM

Busy busy busy! It’s been a productive period since our last Kickstarter Update and we have some good news to share with all of you.


MANUFACTURING & SHIPPING UPDATES

We’re expecting to have EVT samples this month! We’re pleased to be at a stage where our vendors, suppliers, and manufacturers are working in sync steadily progressing towards hardware assembly. Our logistics and supply-chain team has been quite busy getting individual components transferred from different factories to our primary manufacturer for assembly. We’re super fortunate to have such a great team managing our manufacturing, logistics, and supply chain processes. 

Once we have these first EVT samples, we’ll put them through some basic quality checks. When sample units pass our quality checks, we’ll start shipping kits in incremental batches to development partners and Beta Backers! We’ll do our best to keep everyone updated on expected shipping timelines :)  


UNITY SDK UPDATE

Making great game controllers is hard! Not only do you have the required hardware components needed to make a comfortable, robust, and great feeling gaming controller, you also need great software so developers can create fun, convenient, and intuitive button schemes.

We recently pushed Unity SDK Rev10 to our partner game studios which includes improved Wand Input support for more accurate and consistent joystick and trigger inputs. Great work is in the details!

Check out our updated Wand Input testing tool for testing input status and range! If it looks familiar, we shared an earlier iteration of this tool back in the December 2020 Kickstarter Update .


GROWING THE TEAM!

A Word from Candy

I was born and raised in Taiwan.  After I got my MBA, I decided to stay in the USA.  I’ve been working in Logistics for my entire career, and I really like to simplify processes, and enjoy organizing things. I’ve set up logistics departments for several start-up offices and companies, the most successful ones being Guitar Hero and Skylanders! I’m excited for Tilt Five to be another success story in my career.


Say hi to Fred!

Born and raised in Taiwan then spent the past 32 years in the San Francisco Bay Area. I love technology, like to learn something new everyday, and am not afraid of taking risks. That’s probably why I worked for so many different tech companies and across different positions for the last 32 years. I love traveling with my family and friends, and also like spending time growing flowers and fruits here at home. A few years ago, my wife and I started working with a few community charity groups, and from the volunteer program we realized there’s so much more we can do to help our community!


TILT FIVE GAMES SURVEY RESULTS

We are blown away by the great community response on the survey with over 600 responses! Your input helps us better understand key areas and game categories to be targeting in our business development conversations and game dev outreach, and helps us get a better sense of your interests. Check out the results!


DISCORD IMPROVEMENTS AND BETA BACKER EVENTS

It’s been fantastic connecting with so many of you on Discord! Great discussions around development, hardware, games wish lists, unique use cases and more. It makes us happy to see you sharing super creative ideas and support for each other as you prepare for your hardware. Here are some recent improvements for our Discord community:

New Discord Roles! We added 4 new roles as badges of honor to commemorate our all of our different Kickstarter supporters and developers getting amped to use the system:

  • Beta Backer
  • Kickstarter Backer
  • Pre-Orderer
  • Developer

Global Language Translator bot:  No worries if English isn’t your native language, use this translation bot to talk with Tilt Five supporters around the world.

Beta Backer Events: We’ve started a weekly Beta Breaker Breakout Session on Thursdays in Discord from 5-6pm PT where we present updates, insights, host Q&A’s, and have team members join in to talk about the product, development, manufacturing and other details.

Join the Discord community to stay connected!


Many more details to come and thank you all for the supportive reminders and excited messages! We can’t wait to get you your hardware and keep exploring tabletop AR gaming with you.

–The Tilt Five Team

Manufacturing, SDK, Shipping, Team & Spotify Playlist + Call for Games Survey!
about 3 years ago – Tue, Feb 02, 2021 at 12:46:25 AM

How is it already February?!! We hope 2021 has been kind to you thus far and we’re excited to share some of the developments happening at Tilt Five.

CALL FOR GAME & GAME CATEGORY RECOMMENDATIONS!

We love talking to game studios and developers all over the world, introducing them to Tilt Five and discussing how we can support PC and mobile games. We put together a super short survey because we’d love to hear from you, our amazing backers and gamers! What kinds of games do you want to play on Tilt Five? Here’s some of the criteria we use when selecting games:

  •  3D: We have a strong preference for games using 3D game objects rather than 2D sprite based, flat 2D characters and environments.
  •  Point of View: We prioritize games with top down, isometric, and planar game camera angles over first person or over-the-shoulder 3rd person camera perspectives. This is an important factor to consider for the best playing experience on our game board.
  •  UI: We love seeing games with easily manageable, easy to read, and sometimes minimal UI versus games with a million options and tiny font sizes.

--->>> TAKE THE GAMES SURVEY <<<---


CRATE SCOTT!

We’ve sent a lot of crates to China over the last many months, and this most recent shipment is extra special for us. These fixtures and calibration devices can’t be purchased or ordered off the shelf. Our team put a LOT of time and energy into making these beauties sing because these will enable final assembly and assist with automating testing in the manufacturing process.  These had to be super carefully boxed up and shipped from the US to our manufacturer partners in China, where they’ve safely arrived, and are ready to get put to work!

Our lovely testing machines and fixtures
They grow up so fast!
Whoo! Jetlagged in China, thank goodness for in-flight entertainment

SHIPPING TIMELINE

We’re still targeting Q1 2021 to begin shipping our Beta Backer units, and after a period of making adjustments on the manufacturing side and in our testing processes, we’ll be able to start shipping additional units to our remaining Kickstarter backers and pre-order purchases.

Between general COVID delays in communication, shipping components back and forth for testing and approval, testing Manufacturing UI remotely, training on-site reps, and the upcoming Chinese New Year holiday period on the manufacturing side (新年快乐!), we’re proud to have made it to this milestone, and are excited to keep pushing forward and getting you your kits!
 

SDK UPDATE

Over the last month we’ve been rolling out the Windows Unity SDK to our partner game studios. For many months, our partner game studios have patiently been submitting initial game builds using our Linux based Unity SDK and have recently begun the content migration process using the Windows Unity SDK.

Over the next few months we’ll be adding support into the SDK for Wand Tracking, Tangible Tracking Camera for cards/miniatures etc., adding more sample scenes and “Reference Apps” as we like to call them, dynamic FOV adjustment, Android build support, and XE Game board support. We’re grateful for our partner developers helping us work out some of the initial hiccups in the SDK. We’ll be making some announcements soon about increased SDK access for our Beta Backers, we know many of you are itching to get your shot to beat up the SDK, so stay tuned for more news on this!

For all you UE devs out there, we're building out the native C API SDK which we'll use as a springboard to build out our UE SDK. Soooo excited to share more news on this as it comes along. 

If you’d like to talk more with the amazing folks in our developer community, and chat more on the hardware and SDK, come hang out on our Discord server!
 

GROWING THE TEAM! 

A Word From James!
“For the past 30 years, I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to lead product, R&D, engineering, sales, marketing, manufacturing and operation teams as well as serving as CEO, COO and Chief Strategy Officer in various size companies all the way from small start-ups to large Fortune 100 companies. Before Tilt Five I designed and/or commercialized hardware and software products and services shipping upwards 300 million units for some like Apple, SONY, DELL, HP, and Logitech, so this opportunity to bring Tilt Five to the market is really exciting.”

**Learn more about James Stanford, our own Hans ten Cate, and Tilt Five in this recent Press Release

Let’s Hear from Justin!
“Despite growing up in Colorado, I've never been much of an outdoors type. Instead, my favorite experiences growing up always came from playing (and winning) any game I could get my hands on. I'm always up for a new challenge, and I'm never one to refuse the opportunity when the gauntlet is thrown down. As far as I'm concerned, the only games I don't play are the ones I haven't heard about yet! All of that has been one big segue into working at Tilt Five; now it's time to show everyone what's possible, and what challenges and opportunities that lie out in the world!

Right now, I'm currently working my way up the League of Legends ladder, in between running and playing in at least 3 different D&D campaigns at any one time. However, if I were to call myself an expert in one specific game type, it would be escape rooms! I've made my way through most every available game within 100 miles, and I take every opportunity to try out new escape rooms when I visit new locales.”
 

CHECK OUT THE COLLABORATIVE TILT FIVE SPOTIFY PLAYLIST!

 Come add to the new Collaborative Spotify Playlist!

  1. Use the desktop or mobile app (adding tracks to Collaborative Playlist not supported on Web Player)
  2. Like the Playlist to add it to your Library
  3. Find your favorite video game songs or your favorite tracks to set the mood while playing board games >  select the song settings > Add to Playlist!
     

Thank you for your continued support and more updates coming!
-The Tilt Five Team

P.S. Don't forget to take the Survey! (seriously it's super short, totally anonymous, and will take like 2 minutes)  

--->>> TAKE THE GAMES SURVEY <<<---