This document discusses the design of an augmented reality tabletop war game called Tankwar. The game aims to engage players mentally, physically, socially, and emotionally by allowing complex real-time strategy gameplay while maintaining the social interaction afforded by traditional tabletop games. Players control armies using head-mounted displays and interaction tools to complete mission objectives on a shared non-scrollable 3D landscape. Initial evaluations found that players were able to easily use the interface and engaged in more social interaction than with personal computer games. Future work will include further evaluations, iterative design improvements, and examining social communication through head-mounted displays.

1. Tankwar ­Tabletop war gaming in augmented reality Trond Nilsen, Julian Looser HIT Lab NZ / Department of Computer Science & Software Engineering University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand [trond.nilsen,julian.looser]@hitlabnz.org

6. AR Tankwar – Screenshots

7. AR Tankwar – Screenshots

8. AR Tankwar – Screenshots