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The Power Glove Lives! - Alternate Game Control Schemes
Thanks to Armchair Arcade for its article discussing alternate videogame control schemes from the '80s to the present day, particularly concentrating on "a consumer VR glove called the P5", which takes a cue from "the legendary [Nintendo] Power Glove." However, the author comments "One thing you will quickly notice when playing [P5-compatible] games is how tired they make your arm... When I was in elementary school, I had a teacher who would punish students by making them stand with their arm over their head for five minutes. At the end of the ordeal, your hands are cold from lack of circulation and your muscles are fatigued. It's the same thing here." Armchair Arcade also has a number of other new articles online, including a look at intellectual property and videogame history, and a discussion of FPS games vs. 2D platformers.
I recently bought a P5 off of ebay and was pretty excited to start playing with it. It's fun to mess with, but doesn't work nearly as well as they claim. It's by far not accurate enough to play a serious FPS with and very touchy. If you get off center with your hand it's hard to get it back to where it's usable since it just keeps tracking your hand no matter where it is, and it's very difficult to turn completely around with the thing because then your hand it way off to the side somewhere. After about 10 minutes I just put it down in frustration and started using the mouse again, and now it's just sitting on my desk like a neglected toy.
There's one arcade game that I know of where you stick your head in a helmet, and a LCD screen inside (I realize that this isn't quite VR, but the way it's designed is quite cool) basically serves as the view of the game. You are a stationary turret shooting tanks, soldiers and planes, and you turn and aim by moving the helmet (i.e. turning around in a circle and tilting your head up and down). You don't end up dizzy because it does not require much rotation, and because dizziness results from not having a point of reference. The graphics aren't amazing, but the game is fun to play because of the immersiveness of the whole thing.
The FogScreen (previously mentioned on /., if I recall correctly) might be an idea for large arcades or ehibitions (like anime cons)... can you imagine someone playing DDR right under the arrows, essentially replacing the ingame dancers?
I was think of getting a P5 after I heard that Black & White supported it. Since you only have a hand to control the world with (no menus) being able to do it with your real hand would be cool. Couple that with a VR helmet and it would be totally immersive.
Unfortunatly the actual gameplay of B&W wasn't that good but it had some great ideas and I'm looking forward to the sequel.
A friend of mine picked a P5 up on a whim (and for a very reasonable $20!). Being a sharp and sprightly lad he created a Virtools BB that exposed the various variables the P5 outputs, for to tinker with: http://devlab.flashbangstudios.biz/article.php?sto ry=20031104014626613#comments -scroll down a bit for the exact post.
Unfortunately, his prognosis was that while the finger bending data was simple enough and had the fidelity to be applicable, the positional data is unusable garbage. Because the desktop P5 positional sensor looks at a series of reflectors on the top of the glove to determine 3d position, the 'actual' position of the glove (as far as the sensor is concerned) leaps around in the most annoying manner imaginable if even one if the sensors becomes obscured. If you've seen the glove, you can see how easily that might happen while trying to play a game with it.
For my part, I played with it for awhile and found it to be well-designed and aesthetically pleasing, if not practical.
For $20 it would make a good centerpiece for a Halloween costume ;).
Wow, you missed here on a pretty obvious point, demonstrating that you didn't read the article, nor are you familiar with the device. The p5 is for the PC, and has been out for at least two years or so.
Other peripherals - for example the multitude of light guns for every system, or the DDR pad for home versions - have all sold quite well, despite not coming with a system. Some light-gun games have even sold for $99 or so instead of $50 because they include a gun (i.e. no real savings, you just get a branded gun).
"Stumble before you crawl"
How bad does Lucas think it is?
Sharpies don't just sniff themselves.
http://www.virtusphere.com/ It's basicaly a human sized version of those small plastic spheres you could put your hampster in to let them run around on the floor. The virtusphere apears to sit on top of some wheels. This is where we need to go with VR. I want a game that lets me: 1) walk/run to control character movement 2) Move my head to control view point and 3) Move a gun or other pointer device to control reticle movement. I want to be able to run forward while looking left and at the same time, shoot behind me. Imagine arcades with, say, six of these virtusphere things as well as modded versions of Battlefield 1942 or Counterstrike hooked up to them.