Duo Pinball

Leveraging the Form Factor

While working at Microsoft, I had the rare opportunity of participating in a hackathon while having access to an unreleased device known as the Surface Duo. The first time I held the device and folded it back on itself, my mind started flipping through a rolodex of interaction ideas that could take advantage of this innovative hardware. The hinge felt uniquely capable of maintaining any fold angle. I considered the novelty of this - while other foldable devices optimized for one user, this outward-facing fold posture actually allowed for two people to be interacting with the device head-to-head.

Growing up, I played quite a bit of 3D Pinball Space Cadet on Windows, so one of my first thoughts was, “What if we could resurrect Space Cadet and ship a new dual-screen version with the Surface Duo?” It was the perfect idea. Satya himself would see my work and ask his leadership team what brilliant employee of his was behind this. I searched “Space Cadet” to get some background on it. And I learned that Microsoft actually does not own the rights to it. My plan was ruined.

But I thought - you know what? Head-to-head pinball still sounds like a great idea.

Setting the Scene in Unity

My first goal was to get a working prototype running on the device. Although the images below show the final models and textures, imagine if you will a few white primitives strewn about a sparse scene. After moving things around and using an embarrassing amount of brain power, I realized that I should create a setup that mimics the real-life posture of the device, and then create two cameras perpendicular to the two surfaces. Once I had this put together, I kicked out an Android APK file, transferred it to the device, and confirmed that the perspective and orientation of everything could actually work.

Visual Style

With this project, I was excited to explore a combination of low-poly 3D and pixel art. I had experience with these two worlds separately, but hadn’t attempted to put them together before. It was initially difficult for me to figure out the best way to approach UV mapping and texturing, but after a few iterations I was able to land on some pixel art textures that I was happy with.

The sprite animations were more familiar territory for me, having made quite a few sprite sheets for the game Drop Cats.

“Fantastic to see. Love that you are sharing. [CVP name here], check it out!!”

-Panos Panay

In Conclusion

I know what you’re wondering: “So did you actually build this game out and convince Microsoft leadership to ship it with the Surface Duo?” And the answer to that is: “No.”

I tried. I spammed Teams channels. I got it in front of the people with pull. But I think funding a game like this can be hard for a big company to prioritize, given that the success of the device would be riding on so many other higher-priority factors. But it was a super fun project that kept me engaged over a couple weekends, and I came out of it with a nice new page on my website.