Inside the Touch Pack for Windows 7: Blackboard

1 Jun
2009
13 Comments

Microsoft Blackboard logo Third to be touched upon is Microsoft Blackboard, a pseudo-physics game (reminiscent of The Incredible Machine and featuring graphics gaspingly similar to Crayon Physics) in which you use gestures to rotate and resize various objects to get balloons to explode from a light bulb’s hot touch. Like Rebound this game was developed by our friends at Fuel Games. As a huge bonus to those that can’t pass the first level, I’ve included the solve below.

Digging through the technical innards of the Touch Pack games is a rather tedious and fruitless process… but for blog post series completion purposes, Blackboard is yet another Win32 application tying into the usual DirectX and PhysX APIs, requiring shader support for high fidelity, etc. What’s new here, however, is mention of a level editor. Lets hope a) it materializes and b) is as easy to use as Tinker’s editor was.

13 Comments

VPS

That’s wonderful!!


anonymous

So does the Touch Pack install on a PC that doesn’t have touch hardware? That can be clearly bypassed by modifying the MSI. Do the apps & games work with non-touch hardware such as a mouse?


Rafael

Install – yes. Work with non-touch hardware – no.


PROJE

so funny… :)


pizzaboy192

Will this work with homebrew multitouch surfaces or screens?


Orion

Where can I obtain the Touch Pack? Also, will it work on a HP tx1000 with Windows 7? The tx1000 supports touch, but not multitouch.


dentaku

It’s a propeller attached to engine, not an entire plane :)


BadGirl95

Increases will stem from greater production from mines; decreases from being used up in wear and tear, in industry, etc. ,


Gangster95

This conclusion is less paradoxical than it appears at first sight. ,


Troubled

Microsoft Touch Pack For Windows 7 will not install on any machine with touch or not if you buy the retail version, as it was only rolled out with OEM software, and is to my mind beingh used by some retailers to sell the retail version, while most dont understand that it does not have the Touch Pack Included. Consumers should be very weary of anything that they hear from Microsoft in regards to Windows 7. Yes all the Tpuch features are really cool especially with the Acer T230H monitor, but even with this monitor being distributed through Europe monts ago Windows 7 does not have a driver to support it as acer got it up and running on Vista. Bottom line is if you want all the cool stuff that Microsoft have advertised like blackboard etc you will need to get an OEM version to have them untill Microsoft decide otherwise. The only real concern out there is that no one is actually telling the average consumer this and I have a bad taste in my mouth, finding out the hard hard way.


Kent

I’ve made my way through all 50 levels. Do you know if they have others? or anyother cool games for touchscreen computers like this one?


domain kaydi

thank you for this article. Ive looked at the end.


Amanda

Hi, we have this game but we’re stuck on level 24. Does anyone know how to get passed this stage?