Slashdot Mirror
Biofeedback Gaming
runningwater writes "A new kind of game was debuted at the E3 expo. It is called Journey to Wild Divine. The game features a biofeedback USB interface designed to allow a player (or players) to navigate through the game using their mind power, breath, and heart rate. This is a wild and visionary concept which works so fluidly you can blow on the screen and objects move as if propelled by your breath. The game features an awesome soundtrack, including Grammy-nominated artists and spanning many genres. This is the new generation of gaming, and you have never seen anything like this before." Their site has a page with more information about the biofeedback aspect.
Obligatory MegaTokyo link
Tetris had this years ago, Tetris plus with and ear tag to measure your heartbeat then speed up the game as it beats more :-)
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
Ah well.
the PowerPad and PowerGlove Nintendo put several years ago? this seems like the next step in that direction ("physical gaming")
well, it's nothing one behind the ear wouldn't cure
1. Will the game be fun to play?
2. Will playing a biofeedback game teach you how to do things with your state of mind that are difficult to learn in other ways?
It's an intresting idea... the devil (or God) will be in the details, though.
I see a huge synergistic opportunity for the good people at Parks Medical Electronics, manufacturers of Penile Plethysmographs (be sure and scroll down to see a photo of your future "interface"):
Plethysmographs
"...all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness..." yada yada
"Why are you breathing so hard? Hey! Stop looking at me like that!"
So, the new generation of gaming involves blowing on a screen while listening to grammy-award winning music? ... Right. If you'll excuse me, I hear my Super Nintendo calling my name.
Trent Polack
www.polycat.net
The testimonials are what you would expect from a new product but with no mention of an estimated release date or where to purchase it makes me wonder if this could just end up being a marketing tool without an actual release.
I guess I'm going to have to wait until I see something more tangible.
Snowy Angelique Maslov - http://www.snowy.org/
"We envision a world where vibrant wellness is the norm, consciousness transforms beyond fear, and people live in creative abundance in harmony with the earth."m e=Content &pa=showpage&pid=21
http://www.wilddivine.com/modules.php?na
OMG...make it stop
Personally, I'm excited about this simply for the opportunity to have an emperical means for assisting people in meditation, in their own homes. This could open up whole groups of individuals for meditation and the related philosophy or theology with which they want to associate it.
That said, I'd be particularly excited if the system could somehow be made extensible, i.e. that using a front-end software they provide you associate certain activities with normal system commands. In such a system, for example, you could perhaps script an interface to react to your GSR to control any game.
Alternately, I'd hope that they have a simple front end so that an end-user could write a program to read the same information from the sensors. This would allow us to basically create parallel games or simply meditative tools without the "storyline" or particular format of their game.
"Stumble before you crawl"
...what kind of in-game effect urination will produce? :D
I sure hope this isn't a FPS.......
"Much work is lost, for the lack of a little more." -Edward H. Harriman
I'm confused. How does this relate to SCO? Please let's stick to the topic!
- Put a big monster just behind a corner in an attempt to scare the hell out of you.
- Wait for you to turn the corner.
- Check heart rate.
- If heart rate > 150 write "gotcha!!" on screen.
wasent there an episode of Cowboy Bebop along these lines?
We substituted the coffee Slashdot normally drinks with "Sandoz Crystals", Lets see if they notice the difference
Can we mate the controller with a FPS? Players could be forced to get into a "somewhat meditative" state into order to use their flamethrower. How about a controller that measures additional biometric parameters? It could incorporate an anal probe, for example, and players could be required to bring their sphincter tension within a certain range to circumnavigate obstacles.
This post is dedicated to all of those
I'm waiting for a version with seriously inteligent AI and high quality VR before I plug MY bio energy in.
This is a wild and visionary concept which works so fluidly you can blow on the screen and objects move as if propelled by your breath.
umm I had a biofeedback input device on my TANDY Color Computer in 1985. and it had a couple of games that allowed you to "play" them.
Whil I'm sure they have advanced cince then it is hardly visionary.
I love it when the new pup's learn old tricks they think they were the first to come up with it.
Yes it's better cince they take more than 2 inputs (heartrate and skin conductivity for "biorythim") but then I played with a ekg input device in college in 1990 also..
when they can make it so I can play quake with my thoughts THEN I'll be impressed.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Ignoring the fact that this is being proposed as a game, its environment appears to be one that allows the mind to manipulate an environment.
/.)
The environment itself is rendered (hopefully in real time!) with apparent triggers throughout the game. For example wondering up to a waterfall where your heartrate increases by a small factor could trigger a dolphin jumping in the water....
This type of biofeedback is definately useful! If any folk have ever attempted meditation and reaching towards understanding of self, the lack of instant-feedback makes this process extremely difficult for the uninitiated.
Overall I see this project as a very good idea that is hopefully implemented well. Ultimately, however, I don't see this catching on as society isn't designed around relaxation and exploring ones own self.
And a shame....
-Just some crazy duck.
(wow, userid 1599 and i think this is my first post ever to
I think 'physical gaming' is much more fun to play and also more rewarding. Anyone remember Duck Hunt for NES? That game would've been pretty bad if it weren't for the fact that you could actually aim at the ducks with a gun and hit them. That totally redeemed the boring gameplay and ancient graphics. Actually I'm gonna go play now...
We think you'll agree, there have never been computer images as beautiful and as meaningful as you'll see in The Journey to Wild Divine.
I don't know, I've seen screenshots of me attacking innocent bystanders with a chainsaw in Vice City. One could derive all too much meaning from that kind of computer imagery...
[SIG] It's like putting a moose in the blender -- a recipe for disaster!
"Hey kids! You can exercise while you play video games!"
Brilliant.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
I give the authors of this game +5 for creative advertising. That last sentence "is the new generation of gaming, and you have never seen anything like this before" gave it away as an advertisement though.
/. "editors"
Still, good job of slipping it past the
That's what it looks like. No thanks.
I used software set up with an EEG (which measures brainwave activity), and the goal was to make the fishes on the screen more tranquil by relaxing myself. This game seems like it may train people to be more anxious constantly. (I'm not dissing the idea, which is really cool.)
I've been working in some psychology research labs for some time now. One the professors I've worked with studies neurofeedback, i.e. monitoring the electrical activity of the brain with electrodes attached on the head. I've actually helped training a bunch of kids to move a cursor on a screen simply by getting them to be concentrated on moving it wherever it had to be at that moment. ( some info here and here. It's not excluded at all that in the near future, we'll be able to gain control of computer interfaces with a little help from such devices. It's my first post on /. , nice ;)
United States of America, good ol' backers of world peace.
Well, I must say this seems very interesting. I am hoping this will be as good as it sounds. Hell, this might start a whole new genre in gaming. Can you imagine this technology being placed in a First-Person Shooter? Where your calmness actually affects your accuracy in using a sniper rifle. Or where being able to move faster depends on how your heart-rate is reacting. I think this could be the next step in a new generation of gaming. Where how you act effects your game play, and how focused you are. Imagine being in Unreal and being able to "know" if someone is near you, and (because of the senses) being able to react so fast you can aim at them and head shot before they can notice...
-Annon Kaies Zi
_I_ always drive only the speed limit, on the roads, and obey traffic signals in GTA. Yes, I'm gay.
Please stop projecting your personal fantasies on everyone else...
this would work great in a sniper-type fps
being a real sniper requires control of your pulse and breathing... try a look at a biathlon event? you ski like crazy... then with your heart and breath racing, you're supposed to find the calm to shoot targets... training your control over your pulse and breath seems like a natural plug-in for a video game with biofeedback
or maybe some deer hunter type game too
totally turns the new age message behind this idea on it's head, but i think the grand theft auto crowd would get behind this sooner than the new age crap
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Biofeedback, eh?
I've seen these devices, they usually measure minute changes in the physical state of a person. Like they mention heart rate, others, facical temperature. All they simply are, is joysticks that are sensitive to other types of inputs rather than fingers and hands.
I mean it will be cool and all, but not truly thought propelled. There is a learning curve with these devices. The one I saw had a headset that you had to get good with to use it effectively, because you had to train your facial muscles to contract to control the character.
Bah.
Did they forget the military? (Keep pushing a soldiers buttons with an offshoot of this until you can't push'em anymore)
How about hackers that want to really screw with your mind?
How about cult leaders that require this type of game to "enlighten" someone?
How about game makers that really want to start toying with the user's emotions?
This game teaches you how to alter your mind and focus?
I listened to the MP3 from their web site and it seems that song's theme was much like the way people in Boulder Colorado(Where the game is being developed) think. The song has repeated many-a-time:
Why do we kill people who kill people To show people that killing people is wrong?
Anti Capital punishment.
What might the themes of the future versions of these games teach our children? Our soldiers? Our next generation?
It makes me think of the episode on Star Trek the next Generation where the people of the ship were controlled by a mind altering game that was designed to break into the human mind and control it.
From the blurb:
...oh, wait...
"This is a wild and visionary concept which works so fluidly you can blow on the screen and objects move as if propelled by your breath."
My gosh, that's amazing! All I had to do was click on "Hi-Bandwidth QuickTime Movie" and their server got blown away too!
How do they do that!?
My
Limekiller
It doesn't really matter if the game is any good or not (well, to an extent), it's more about what it can do ...
Just wait a few years, if this catches on, and more developers attempt this style of gaming.
Sort of...with the Mindlink controller. They were supposed to come out with biofeedback software for this device but the project was canceled. Ah, those were the days...
The Matrix Reloaded game has a "Focus" bar which allows your character to do matrix like moves, slow down time and such. It would be cool if you really had to calm yourself down and focus with the bio feedback device.
Sounds like Osmose and old Silicon Graphics Sponsored art piece.
http://www.immersence.com/osmose/osmose.htm
I had a go it was kinda fun but not as amazing as people said. I no longer fear death was one quote from a wired article. I think deep breathing for long periods was starving their brains of oxygen.
Making an AI smell the average gamer?
Isn't there a law of robotics that deals with this sort of thing?
I've played this game.. the graphics suck, it's basically just green lines on a black screen. There didn't seem to be any sort of plot at all. I think the name of the game was EKG.
Actually I really think that the Brainfingers technology is headed in the right direction.. Sensors need more development though, I don't want to have to shave my head to use it. :/
Bio Feedback is key to learning how to control the various Brain waves that the device monitors, If I had a few extra Grand($ 2,050 + shipping)laying around I'd get the Brainfingers device! well that and a HDTV!
One side effect of biofeedback gaming is that the player will have to learn to control their physiology to play the game. In other words, games like this (while overly sedate to some) will train people to be healthier. So first, we have video gaming to improve memory retention, visual response rate and eye hand coordination, but now they'll be reducing stress and blood pressure by practice.
I think this can be a good thing.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Developed by ClearCode Enterprises, a development firm based entirely in Clearwater, Florida, the Wild Divine allows users to explore their "reactive minds" in search of evil space aliens named Xenu. It is equipped with a pulse reader and polygraph machine, designed to ensure the most truthful exploration of one's soul.
In other news, Scientology acquires Sierra Entertainment.
Bladder pressure.
Speaking as one who, back in the days, used to be able to play Atari games until the scoreboard rolled over to zero. Eventually it became a matter of how long I could hold off bodily functions, and whether I could run to the bathroom and back without losing all my reserve lives.
You can be sure there won't be a Linux version. It is really a shame that an innovative concept like this is pigeon-holed by the worst common denominator.
Why is it that right brained thinkers, designers and artistic types don't seem to care about whether everyone will be able to experience their creation? Is it just the path of least resistance?
Used to be, there was this cool place in Seattle called Entros. For a while there was one in San Francisco, too. Now they are gone, with no trace save a "demo" web site.
It was a restaurant/bar that had about five entertainment areas around it. The entertainment areas were always cool and different.
The most famous was "Interface", where one person wears a blindfold and a camera, and the other person sits in front of a screen watching what the camera sees; using two-way radio, the second guy tells the first guy where to go and what to do. "Go left, step forward, reach down, no, left, no, LEFT, feel for the ball, YOU TOUCHED IT! GO BACK!" Within a set period of time you had to accomplish certain tasks. If you got them all done, you were allowed to enter the victory lounge. I never got to see that lounge...
Anyway, they had a sort of game show where you had to compete to see who was the calmest. They would hook up the players to biofeedback, and then they would do various things to try to shake the players' calm. For the winner, it played a recorded voice saying something like "YOU ARE THE BUDDHA".
I miss Entros.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
If the US Constitution applies to AI then whoever managed this would be in trouble. I think that constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
As far as I can see, we've got pre-rendered doors every ten metres that you open by reaching a different heart-rate, skin-response, and so on. Oh boy! Sometimes the door opening is disguised as making the boat move, sometiems as making the crystal ball light up, but really...
When console controllers were equipped with analog triggers for the first time, did someone say "now we can have a revolutionary game where some of the tasks require the player to hold the right trigger just the right amount while holding the left trigger a different amount?" No. They said, now we can let the player fire faster or slower, hit the brake harder or softer, or any number of other natural analog processes we haven't been able to control up until now. A game where the only challenge is to guess how hard to hold the triggers would be stunningly boring. A metaphor is needed, some sort of consistent meaning for the pressure. Otherwise the whole thing is just a novelty.
Call me when I have to adjust my heart-rate to keep my dragon under control in the next Panzer Dragoon. There's a challenge that would teach you how to stay calm under intense pressure.
After reading Snow Crash I wanted to build a portable VR computer. For a while I worked with the Virtual Boy which was hacked to be programmable using Java on an attached PC. Then we got some small screens like used in older versions of the iGlasses which was connected to a control chip that took dual NTSC signals. They were pretty cool but the resolution wasn't good enough for anything like text and you could see the edges of them if you tried. My current design is a small cd man sized portable computer that talks to the Net via WiFi and uses iGlasses and the Twiddler keyboard/mouse combo. I'd love to use some sort of motion sensitive gloves and brain power instead but that is probably a pie in the sky version. It'd be really cool to see some sort of neurofeedback input device added to something like the iGlasses. Once these things become standardized input devices we can really start working on the software hacking portion of things. It could be a real gift to be able to mouse around the desktop using brain power and if people are able to learn enough mind macros (what I called them.. probably a better technical term) then we could have some really powerful desktops finally. You could think a macro for a given program and the program would just appear. :)
:)
The whole concept excites me. My sister is handicapped and has a lot of trouble using computers so a lot of my work is towards inventing easier ways to do so. My mouse to brain hack was an early attempt.
In a related topic we also used hypnotism on players which we found could sometimes make the game very lifelike (by suggesting the player believe that it's real) and it helped a bit with the attempts at brain control. The two concepts seemed to work well together. Maybe it helps the player concentrate on their learned mental commands to be hypnotised? I dunno.. was just my guess.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
You could have software which advertises products and then measures your unconcious reactions to see if you are affected. Its like the most sophisticated market research validation tool ever.
On the other hand it would be cool......
WHAT IF MY COMPUTER TELLS THE POLICE IM STONED????
Extended Warranty? How can I lose!