If we aim to develop a game for Tilt Five, the first step is to understand the device’s affordances. During the first week of the project, our engineers devoted a significant amount of time to conducting a thorough study of Tilt Five, leading to the following conclusions:

In addition, we identified two unexpected factors. First, a player’s height directly affects what they can see. Taller players can view the entire scene, whereas shorter players may be unable to see the upper portions. Second, because the glasses must be connected to the computer via a wire, player movement is inherently constrained. Although players can move around the mat to observe the scene from different angles, the cable limits how freely they can do so. These realities, identified during the first week, significantly affected our subsequent design decisions.

On Tilt Five’s website and in its marketing materials, the device appears to be a standalone system with upward-projected holographic visuals. In reality, however, this is not the case. Tilt Five functions more like a wearable projector. Light is emitted from the glasses, reflected onto the mat, and then reflected into the player’s view. The glasses must be connected to a computer via a wired connection to function. As a result, the computer handles all computation and rendering.

Visually, Tilt Five does not provide true holographic projection. Instead, it presents a perspective akin to viewing into a box. When players adjust their viewpoint, it creates the effect of peering into areas normally hidden beneath the surface. This makes it naturally well-suited to the overseer-style perspective commonly found in tabletop role-playing games.