Sensing horizontal tilt I'm building a digital gear shift knob, which would display current gear (1-5, R) and based on readings from OBD-II change color when gear shifting is required, to save on fuel consumption.

I need a way to detect the current gear - PID 0D (current gear) is not availiable in this car. I was thinking about doing it based on the horizontal tilt of the gear stick, since there are 6 positions plus a neutral gear:

    1   3   5
     \  |  /
      --0--
    /   |  \
   2    4   R


Is there a sensor I could use? Or perhaps it'd be possible to build one, e.g. using 6 of these ball switches: https://www.adafruit.com/products/173
There is however a space constraint since everything needs to fit inside a gear knob, therefore I'd prefer a nice single package.
You could also sense the position of the stick where it enters the floor with hall sensors... 1-5 and reverse would have sensors, neutral would be when none of the other gears are detected.