A Star Wars themed game made by a graduate student attending the University of Illinois at Chicago might be the coolest game the franchise has ever seen. What was originally an attempt to adapt a real-time strategy game to a tabletop, multi-touch interface has become a Star Wars themed RTS played on a 20-foot wide multi-touch LCD screen.
After originally starting out as something called Planetary Defender in 2009, creator Arthur Nishimoto has since decided to drop certain elements in favor of focusing on “the fleet battle aspects,” which amounts to combat featuring Star Wars ships, music, and sound effects.
Many of the bigger things, like Star Destroyers, were taken from Star Wars: Empire at War, while smaller units (fighters, bombers) were drawn in Paint.
