I had an insightful chat with our professor about my project implementation. He commented that while the idea of a game controller was sound, and while wearable computing was a potential direction to pursue, he worried that my project was headed too much towards the “mean.” According to him, my previous projects in his classes (I have had 3 previous ones with him) have always been easily recognizable as “me.” Apparently, I have a style, and I wasn’t really trying for one, specifically. 😀
So I brought up an idea I’d been batting around recently, after searching through Sparkfun’s online catalog. Sparkfun has many different sensors and actuators, but it also has a bunch of cool human interaction devices, switches, buttons, displays, that sort of thing. And not just the ones that might pop into your head at first. Sparkfun offers 6 inch tall number displays, of the type you probably see in your microwave. Fingerprint scanners; huge lighted palm sized buttons; switches with a flip cover, like you might see on some nuclear launch console. Sparkfun also offers many different types of joystick components, from old style Atari to current gen.
Some developers are so scared of game piracy (a real problem), that they have designed their games to work incorrectly, if at all, if certain conditions are not met. No internet connection, a code not entered correctly, etc. They have a right to do this to combat people stealing their games for reasons that are out of the scope of this post, but suffice to say these precautions can often become onerous for normal, legal players who just want to enjoy the game.
But what about the controllers for these games? As far as I have been able to tell, controllers themselves are not protected by similar measures. You can physically operate the controller, maybe move the cursor on the screen, without actually being able to play the game. But what if you couldn’t?
What if the controller was deliberately designed to challenge the user to ensure that anyone who can use it has both a great sense of patience and a sense of humor. A controller with, potentially, a fingerprint scanner that allows a switch to be read that allows a code to be displayed that must be entered, and so on. Different actions could branch off, depending on what the potential player performed. In attempting to eventually access the game, the controller could become the game. Winning the controller would then open up the game, but using the controller is an achievement in itself. I’m not out to torture the player, or induce so much frustration that he or she quits, but encourage further exploration and play every moment along the way. Like a good game should. I’ll explore this idea further, but as of now, this is my direction, after discussing my project idea with my professor.
Physical Computing, Round 2 