Multimodal, Multitouch Gaming Gaining Traction

andylim writes "Several universities and commercial entities are developing multimodal, multitouch games, such as a card game using iPhones for individual hands and an iPad for public information, and an iPad Scrabble game that lets you use your iPhone to see your letter tiles. Of course, it's an extremely expensive setup right now, but over time it will become cheaper. It's also pretty cool, so why wouldn't you want to play board/card/strategy games like this?"

Comments

RPGs/interaction games

[tacarat]

You run the risk of ruining pen and paper games by increasing the speed in which encounters get dealt with. GMs need time to BS and slow mechanics enable that. I'm sure there are other games where being efficient will detract from the social aspects of the situation. Slot machines are probably one of the best examples of such.

And the politics get started again

[Whuffo]

In the interest of truth, how about the commenters in this thread start by telling us if they own or have used at length an iPhone, Ipod Touch, or an iPad. I think that if we pay more attention to the people who have something that they know to add we might discover something useful here.

I mean, sheesh - if you want to see people holding forth on things they know nothing about you can always tune in the Fox channel. We're better than that here, aren't we? This "I heard it was bad so it must be" nonsense isn't doing anyone any good. It's a product, not a philosophical statement - so get down off of those high horses and let's discuss this like men and women.

Re:And the politics get started again

[causality]

In the interest of truth, how about the commenters in this thread start by telling us if they own or have used at length an iPhone, Ipod Touch, or an iPad. I think that if we pay more attention to the people who have something that they know to add we might discover something useful here.

That would exclude the people who don't own those and believe they have good reasons for this. Truth is not served by discounting them. Even if you could never agree with them, consider them an important contrast.

I mean, sheesh - if you want to see people holding forth on things they know nothing about you can always tune in the Fox channel. We're better than that here, aren't we? This "I heard it was bad so it must be" nonsense isn't doing anyone any good. It's a product, not a philosophical statement

It's possible to know something about an object that you've still chosen not to purchase. In fact I'd recommend knowing something about it before you decide whether or not to purchase it. There actually are philosophical aspects to this. Your own might motivate you to dismiss the opinions of anyone who hasn't patronized Apple. They could also motivate you to understand an alternative viewpoint and why a given person holds it. Either way you are reflecting a philosophy, worldview, set of priorities, values, whatever you wish to call it. Is it therefore an offense when others do the same?

so get down off of those high horses and let's discuss this like men and women.

That's a related but different subject, easily conflated with your first. This one is about the style with which something is expressed, not the nature of what is being conveyed. It's really about how the tone that is used can affect the quality of discourse but not the subject.

Re:Because I have no interest in owning iDevices

[Shikaku]

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/02/nexus-one-gets-a-software-update-enables-multitouch/

*BZZT*

Try spreading FUD again later.

It needs a catchier name.

[s-gen]

"multimodal multitouch gaming"???? Sod that. How about... "Two pods, one pad".

Re:Why not just play the actual games

[yotto]

Pick one:

* You're not in the same room as the person or people you're playing with (for the network games)
* You don't have room for 100 (board) games, but one iPad with 100 games is small.
* The game is difficult to score (or easy to score incorrectly) but otherwise fun (example: Carcassonne)
* You don't have time to complete the game so would like to easily save it to continue another time.
* You own a pet, or have children and are afraid of them disturbing the pieces.

I'm sure you can think of more.

Re:"Multi" touch?

[michaelhood]

The only multitouch demonstration on any of the videos was rotating the playing cards (to little effect anyway).

Why is "multitouch" specifically such a buzzword, and not just "touch" on its own? Multitouch has so far had weird implications on what sort of appendage/stylus you can use on the surface, whereas single touch does not. Plus, you can effectively do pinch/zoom on a typically single-touch panel, just not rotations.

simply, multitouch refers to a type of screen (capacitive in this case) that can track more than one point of contact simultaneously.

the other type of popular touchscreen is resistive, this is what is used on my htc touch pro2.

if you put three fingers on the surface of the screen, one after another (like how you'd press ctrl-alt-del), it would look like the following:

capacitive: _ _ _
resistive: _

on the resistive screen, whichever spot you touched first is "it".