Motion Controls

Tried the Wii, Move, and very recently Kinect, and reflecting on my experiences with them...

Moving is fun, but more importantly, it Looks fun. Secondly, the "controls" are transparent.

(I mean when my uncle watches me play Gran Turismo, he's impressed with the way I drift a corner or overtake other cars, or execute a turn perfectly by hitting the apex and accelerating and decelerating out of and into another turn. However, he doesn't know how I'm doing any of these tricks. But it is driving, so how complicated can it be? Brake, Accel, Turn, that's it right? I asked if he wanted to play, so he picked up the controller and tried it, but hit every wall on every turn and had trouble backing up every time.
Next Game: Call of Duty. He's even more impressed with the way I turned around one hundred eighty degrees and shot someone while going prone. Then I switched to my pistol, jumped into a window while crouching and dropping out of the window and walking up to someone's back to knife him, then shoot his teammate that just turned the corner up ahead. A little more complicated than go, stop, turn. I ask my uncle if he want's to try. He just says it's too violent and too complicated. Both simple and complicated games can feel alienating, both when watching and playing.)

So, when there's a simple looking avatar playing a simple looking sport, bowling, archery, golf, to name a few, it looks easy and fun to play. In addition, they are learning how to play by watching you. They don't need to study the complicated Control Setup with lines and text filling the foreground with a 15 button interface in the background. They see the player, and they a.) are inspired to have fun b.) learn how to play c.) can jump in.
Because of this dynamic, I had fun enjoying the novelty of motion, and the novelty of an excited audience, and the novelty of always having people that want to play with you. These are very satisfying factors: positive attention, social play, kinetic energy, and bonding.

Game wise, however, there was that nagging feeling that crept up to me. "What am I doing?" I would ask myself as I shook my arm up and down, prodded it forward and backwards, swung my arms left and right... I am doing the same things over and over again for every game...
But how is that different from my thumbs moving dual sticks in every game? It's not. In both cases, we're doing the same things over and over. Kinect does seem to have more potential in avoiding this problem.

But the two control schemes, buttons and bodies, also have a key difference. Perhaps the trend will change in time, but as of now, most motion games attempt to equate your movement with a one to one correlation with the on-screen action. You swing, he swings. You punch, he punches. You turn, they turn. However, the relationship is not one to one. In fact, from your physical motion to the on-screen action, the relationship is more like five to one. Aside from the countless times your moves simply don't register no matter how hard you swung your "tennis racquet," there are many times your moves are read, but they are diluted. You perform a stylish and hard-as-you-can uppercut only to see your avatar deliver the standard, generic uppercut.

Or you run and swing your arms up and down as quickly as you can only to realize you didn't run fast enough. The game and the interface encourage and excite us to give our all, to perform with impressive force and elegance, to swing home runs and flip pancakes with gusto. And we do. We give it our all only to see in return, unregistered moves, underperformed moves, confused interpretations of our moves, or simply the pause menu saying that we are out of the play area. Basically, we give more and get less. For retirement homes, this is fine and even desirable. The game should encourage the utmost excitement while keeping the on-screen action tame, cute, simple - accessible.

However, us big kids and kids that are becoming big, want to feel empowered. We want to express our egos, our power, skill, wit, creativity, individuality even. What the traditional controller always provided was that amplification of your self, your power, your will. You press triangle, and the half naked muscle-man will pound the foe with flames and blades. press and hold triangle, and you will launch the feeble skeleton thirty feet in the air and slow down time while jumping up to meet the airborne body, awaiting the continuation of your desired combination at that time, at your whim. Remember, all this is done with one thumb, one button, within millimeters of movement, but millions of neurons firing in your head, thinking in advance, about how to clear the room of the rest of the minions while giving yourself time to take a jab at the boss' big face.

What do we have then? The formula is:

~Fast thinking, many thoughts
~Style - How should I perform the next awesome stunt?
Hard, weak, jump, roll, slash, dodge or spell-cast?
~Short range movement of thumbs
~Big range movement of on-screen action,
big animations, big sounds.

The result, for the "hardcore" gamer, is an experience where in most part the controller feels invisible and what remains at the forefront is the matching of the speed of your thoughts with speedy execution and matching your desires and curiosity with an equal amount of reward, surprise, and success.





















So, instead of making us wave our arms and run in circles to fly like an eagle, how about taking a cue from the power amplification that buttons provide and only ask of us to tilt our head slightly to the right to yaw right. Flick our head slightly up to do a loop de loop or look down to dive like an eagle or lean our bodies back a little to perform an air-brake. Maybe even open my mouth to activate the huge laser cannon special.





Maybe our instruments aren't sensitive enough. Then I expect and demand the change on the second generation of the Kinect and similar technologies. If we can carry over the speed and efficiency of the traditional button controls into button-less play, motion controlled gaming won't be a fad. After all, motion controls doesn't mean you have to move in large sweeping arcs. Heck, even buttoned controllers require us to "move" our thumbs. I'm sure there's room for "motion controls" that lie in between exhaustion and thumb twiddling.

By the way, how does an indie developer get their foot in the door of motion control game development?