Game Design Considerations for Alternate Controllers - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Game Design Considerations for Alternate Controllers

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Game Design Considerations for Alternate Controllers Greg LoPiccolo Ryan Lesser Harmonix Music Systems Who is Harmonix? Spun out of MIT Media Lab in 1995 Focused ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Game Design Considerations for Alternate Controllers


1
Game Design Considerations for Alternate
Controllers
  • Greg LoPiccolo Ryan Lesser
  • Harmonix Music Systems

2
Who is Harmonix?
  • Spun out of MIT Media Lab in 1995
  • Focused on Interactive Music Innovation
  • Our Mission to bring the experience of musical
    performance to non-musicians
  • Led to video game development

3
Why does Harmonix make games using alternate
controllers?
  • By accident!
  • Mandate to pursue music software ?
  • Frequency/Amplitude required ?
  • Focus on design innovation
  • Led to . . .

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What is an alternate controller?
  • Dance pad
  • Eyetoy / camera
  • Microphone
  • Light gun
  • Drum, Guitar, etc
  • Steering wheel

8
Why design games with alternate controllers?
  • Underappreciated area of game design
  • Controller has HUGE impact on
  • Mechanics of player abilities and constraints
  • Player role expectations
  • Provides access to new game experiences

9
Why design games with alternate controllers?
  • Lowers barrier to entry more potential players
  • Conventional controllers canbe intimidating
  • Physical interactioncontributes to immersive
    experience

10
Harmonix Alternate Controller Design
  • Undertake two simple steps to figure out what
    game to make
  • Dont pre-judge the process, but follow where it
    leads
  • Most importantly

11
Early prototyping and iterative refinement is
CRUCIAL
  • Build
  • Test
  • Revise
  • Repeat
  • But that is a different talk . . .

12
Designing for Alternate Controllers?Use These
Two Easy Steps!
  • Step 1 Identify the desired player experience
  • Step 2 Evaluate and/or develop the controller

13
Step 1 Identify the desired player experience
  • Prerequisite for an effective design
  • Isnt this obvious?
  • Yes, but implicit for most genres

14
Step 1 Identify the desired player experience
  • Alternate controllers imply fundamental shifts in
    player experience.
  • Think about the experience, NOT the game mechanic

15
Step 1 Identify the desired player experience
  • Incomplete understanding of gameplay at beginning
    of process
  • Clear understanding of experiential goals helps
    to evaluate ideas effectively
  • Easier to identify and kill off dead ends
  • Provides space for good ideas to flourish

16
Step 2 Controller Evaluation/Development
  • Needs to support play experience unachievable
    with a conventional controller
  • Alternate controller provides unique data
  • What opportunities does this data provide?
  • What limitations does it present?

17
Sony PS2 Dual Shock Controller Data
18
Three Game Examples
19
Example 1
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Step 1 What is the core Karaoke experience?
  • Singing (drunk)
  • Performing in front of an audience (drunk)
  • Singing with other (drunk) people

22
Step 2 Evaluate Controller
  • Controller Microphone
  • Everyone knows how to use one..which is a huge
    step forward!
  • What data does it provide for us to evaluate?

23
Step 2 Evaluate Controller
Good
Bad
24
Step 2 Evaluate Controller
  • Pitch
  • Volume
  • Lyrics (Phonemes)

25
Karaoke Revolution Microphone Controller Data Raw
Input
26
Step 2 Evaluate Controller
  • Pitch detection unique, intuitive, technically
    feasible
  • Volume detection ? too variable to be useful
  • Phoneme detection?
  • Computationally expensive
  • Unforgiving
  • Time-consuming to develop

27
Shipping mechanic
  • Player sings vocal part of familiar song
  • Game grades on pitch accuracy
  • No attempt at speech parsing

28
Karaoke Revolution Microphone Controller Data
Derived Input
29
Graphic
30
Conclusion Karaoke Revolution
  • Desired player experience Karaoke performance
  • Usable controller data pitch analysis
  • Outcome decent (4 sequels and counting)

31
Example 2
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Step 1 What is the player experience?
  • Tougher question than for Karaoke Revolution
  • Possible player experience limitedby (as yet)
    unknown capabilitiesof controller
  • On to step 2 --

34
Step 2 Evaluate/develop controller
  • Controller system body camera scene
    analysis code
  • Scene analysis is highly configurable
  • Um, what do we want to accomplish?
  • Back to step 1!

35
Step 2 Evaluate/develop controller
  • What have other Eyetoy games done?

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Back to Step 1 what is the player experience?
  • Mapping limb or body motions to character control
    could be immersive and intuitive
  • Control unmediated by handheld controller
  • Forward to Step 2!

38
Step 2 Evaluate Controller
  • What control data can we get from Eyetoy?
  • 2D Face-tracking
  • (After lots of work) 2D Hand-tracking
  • Nothing from feet

39
EyeToy AntiGrav Controller DataRaw Input
40
Flash of Insight
  • Head is firmly attached to body
  • If body moves, head moves with it
  • Head tracking body tracking!

41
Where does that lead?
  • Steering, jumping, ducking with head/body
  • Er, something with hands

42
Snowboarding?
  • Its been done
  • How about . . .

43
Hoverboarding!
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EyeToy AntiGrav Controller DataDerived Input
46
Control Set
  • Left-Right Steering
  • Jump/Duck
  • Accelerate/Brake
  • Target-smashing with hands
  • Trick system gestures

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AntiGrav Conclusions
  • Desired player experience intuitive physical
    control of hoverboarding character
  • Useful controller data head hand positions,
    gestures
  • Outcome mixedworks great in ideal setup,but
    fragile

49
Example 3
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Step 1 Identify Desired Player Experience
  • GH was not a Guitar Simulator, but rather a game
    about being a Rock and Roll Guitar Player

52
Step 1 Identify Desired Player Experience
  • The thrill of Live Rock n Roll guitar performance
    boils down to
  • Reproducing guitar parts of songs
  • On Stage Showmanship
  • Firing up the crowd
  • Soloing/self-expression

53
Step 2 Develop Controller
  • We got some input from the very start!
  • Harmonix/RedOctane collaboration

Destroyed prototypes
54
Step 2 Develop Controller- Controller Appearance
  • The Guitar must look cool and not like a cheap
    toy
  • Must be inviting to both young PS2 players and
    old, jaded rockers like us.

55
Step 2 Develop Controller- Controller Size
  • Big enough to feel like a real guitar
  • Small enough to be stockable at retail

56
Step 2 Develop Controller- Virtuoso play
support
  • Fret buttons and Strum bar
  • Smooth feel
  • Short throw for speedy playing
  • 5 buttons to allow multiple playing positions
  • quiet
  • sturdy

57
Step 2 Develop Controller- Showboating Features
  • Tilt sensor
  • Whammy bar
  • We didnt know how these would work when we
    requested them

58
Step 2 Develop Controller- The Guitar Hero
Gibson SG!
  • The final version of the Guitar Hero Controller

59
Step 2 Develop Controller- Iterations
  • Button feel
  • Button switches
  • Neck
  • Paintjob
  • Cord
  • Tremolo bar (whammy)
  • Tilt sensors

60
Game-side design implications
  • High level goals
  • Support as many aspects of guitar wizardry as
    possible
  • Varied toolkit to support range of songs and
    difficulties
  • Obvious, intuitive play even for non-gamers

61
Guitar Hero Controller Data
62
Game-side design implicationsChords
  • supports 3 power chord positions

63
Game-side design implicationsSustain
  • Sustained notes are big in rock guitar
  • Co-existed well with chords

64
Game-side design implications Vibrato/Whammy
  • Simplest approach worked best, limited to ½ step
    detune
  • Gives player a bit of expression

65
Game-side design implicationsHammer-on /
Pull-offs
  • What are they?
  • Extremely guitar-y
  • Very difficult to display graphically
  • Very difficult to teach

66
Game-side design implicationsImprovisation
  • Conceptually awesome
  • Experientially sucky too easy for inexperienced
    players to sound bad
  • Hard to fit into game and visual design
  • Ran out of time

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Star Power!
  • Added some strategic depth
  • Provided gameplay justification for guitar tilt
    and whammy

69
Guitar Hero conclusions
  • Desired player experience Rock and Roll stardom
  • Usable controller datafrets/strum bar/whammy
    bar/tilt switch
  • Outcome wow!

70
Predictions
  • Music games
  • Eyetoy games
  • Nintendo Revolution

71
Conclusions
  • Alternate controllers imply a fundamental shift
    in player experience. Embrace it!
  • Identify desired player experience
  • Develop a clear understanding of controller
    capabilities

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Contact Us
  • Greg LoPiccologreg_at_harmonixmusic.com
  • Ryan Lesser
  • ryan_at_harmonixmusic.com
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