Game Control Ideas/Feedback

I have for a couple years been discussing specific project ideas with a few friends and as my schedule is about to free up drastically (by graduating) I will have time to pursue these projects. I can't really go into them right now, but I did want to get ideas from some people, specifically here, about uses for unique controls.

The games we've talked about producing would be on the PC platform (written in a multi-platform manner, so that, Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX users can all play it).

The main focus would be using unique controllers (such as the Wii Remote) for input. Specifically, I'm interested in ideas people come up with for using the Wii Remote (and attachments) with the newly introduced balance board. To note, though, I would support more conventional controls as well: keyboard, mouse, and conventional controllers.

When I first saw it, I thought it was a whatever sort of device. It's interesting, at least, to see Nintendo stretch out to make a fitness game and that sort of thing. But then I started thinking about it and the idea that stayed the most prevalent in my mind was the combination of the balance board with two wii remotes running a new Punch Out!! for the Wii. I've been trying to thinking up fairly intuitive ways to control games that don't lend its self as closely as that example.

The games we're going to produce are going to primarily have a first person or third person (over the shoulder) camera. So, try to imagine control schemes for those types of games. To make it easy, you could imagine how you'd like to control something like HL2 or Gears of War.

This is an open brain-storm and I welcome all ideas.

---

Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

How can you simulate movement (aka: the wsad movement) with wii remotes?

Specifically I've always liked the idea of something that can be wrapped around your wrist and you clench it in your fist and have the buttons there at your finger tips. You'll have a joy stick (N64 style) at your thumb for movement, and then you can control aiming specifics with the direction you point.

Just outa curiosity crono, how long was your degree program you took (it seems like you've been in school for ~5 years).

---

Posting And You

This is the sixth (and final) year.

Besides the nunchuck that has a joystick? I was thinking about experimenting with shifting your weight
I just explained that there is a new attachment called the Wii Balance Board. Here is a link to the presentation. Just so everyone is on the same page check that video out. It didn't occur to me that a site centered around a gaming community wasn't aware of day old news from E3. Sorry.

I'll throw down some ideas I've personally had which are fairly obvious ones.

Classic controller attached to the Wii-Remote for full analog and motion control of vehicles, this would be incredibly useful for vehicles that go in vertical directions as well as horizontal (planes, submarines, hang gliders, other stuff.)

There's some obvious ones like, using the the Wii Remote and Nunchuck for FPS control (which is already being done, and you can play this with HL2 if you like using the mod Wii HL2 or something like that, look it up)

I was thinking about something not entirely related, but in a 3^rd person game, the data from the Wii Remote, nunchuck and balance board could be used to simulate character movement based on your own. This would do crazy things for stealth games like Splinter Cell. Just to clarify: it would be the nunchuck for movement control (wsad), the wii remote for aiming and object orientation, and the balance board for character orientation (leaning, crouching, etc). If the center of mass cannot be detected, the information from the board can always be checked with information from the wii-remote through IR sensing. It would also allow the character to orient the weapons as the player is orienting the remote. It'd be pretty cool, I think. And using these attachments on a more powerful machine than the Wii is very simple.

Anyway, I hope what I'm looking for is more clear now.

---

Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

I don't ahve any ideas, but if you haven't heard of it, TrackIR is worth a look.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrackIR

I would like to see a fantasy game, that uses the Wiimote as a sword, and the character's damage is based on how well the player completes a certain move. For instance, if you picked fencing, the damage a player does is linked to his ability to complete, say, a basic jab, and how accurate the player is with the move.

Maybe you could do the same with a bow, using the nunchuck as the aim, and the Wiimote for power.

---

Dark_Kilauea
DVS Administration
http://www.dvstudio-production.com/

I could also use the balance board to see where the weight of the attack would go while using a sword.

Gwil, I would like to do something that had head movement independent from aiming. There's all sorts of play dynamics that could arise from that.

---

Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Add this to devices I'm interesting in using.

---

Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

beta-blockers ftw :biggrin:

---

i eat paint

The Wii is looking healthier and healthier every day.

---

Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

this current generation of consoles is so unbelievably s**tty

If Nintendo wouldn't be so stubborn about their "gaming for everyone" (read: kids and old people) marketing and finally realized that no western developer makes games for a console where everything looks outdated because of insufficient hardware, they would have the bestest consoles in the world.

My inner nerd screams for a Star Wars game where you can wield an actual, virtual light saber with the wiimote. How cool would that be? I haven't heard of any such game yet and it's a shame none of the bigger developers respects the Wii. It's always that "3rd console" for "fun". f**k fun, do something serious with the single most awesome controller in video game history.

---

Why snark works.

Graphics != Gameplay

Just my opinion. I would love to play a Jedi Knight style game on the Wii though.

My opinion, too. But reality showed that Nintendo's approach always leaves them behind when it comes to bigger blockbuster games.

Why is it left out by so many developers? Because the environment isn't reflected on shiny cars. It's a bit sad. With the N64 it was the other way round. Noone cared about soft textures and anti-aliasing (and if there's one place where anti-aliasing actually makes sense it's a TV-console) because the PS1 had busty babes and manly war games. Noone cared about zero loading times, analogue sticks and 4-player support either. It's like Nintendo is one generation ahead in terms of innovation but the other companies have more success because they better market to western mainstream.

If I'd buy a console tomorrow it would be a Wii. My last one was an N64. :rolleyes:

---

Why snark works.

They are. Lucasarts announced a long time ago that they were developing something.

If you want a serious game for the Wii, one of particular interest is Manhunt 2, but it's not coming out any time soon since it got slapped with an Adult Only rating. Trying to release something with that rating is product suicide. (I think it was because of all the acting out disembowelments and murdering aspects)

There are many others (a lot of them are actually exclusives), but you should find that out on your own. (Look up Super Mario Galaxy and Eternal Blue for pretty good examples of what the console can do.)

In general, Western developers don't make good console games. There's like ... Naughty Dog and Insomniac. Everyone else is out of business (I miss you Working Designs )

Apparently no one can give any suggestions that are actually useful, so it appears this thread is completely derailed, since I was never talking about the current consoles or their games.

[update]
It's sad how many people missed out on the game cube and it's excellent quality of games. As far as I'm concerned the N64 only had a handful of better titles than the counterparts on GameCube and the difference is very minor in any case.

Even though a console like the PS2 has a much larger library, the actual quality of each title is lacking. There's virtually no PS2 game that I'd like to go back and play multiple times after completing everything. Overall, their catalog is flooded with clones of everything and it really just diluted the overall quality of the system.

With the GameCube it isn't like missing the 4 or 5 really okay games that Sega put out on Xbox. It has some of the best console games to come out in the last "generation", if you want to call it that.

---

Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Crono</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>In general, Western developers don't make good console games.

</DIV></DIV>

Wwwwwwwhhhhhaaaaatttttt?

I would like to think that nintendo is for the younger people and women and adults with no gaming experiance, but I know I'll have much more fun playing Halo 3 xbox live at 3 in the morning screaming and yelling because its so fun.

---

Aaron's Stuff

aaron_da_killa said:
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting fishy</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>In general, Western developers don't make good console games.

</div></div>

i didn't say that, you muppet.

---

i eat paint

sorry fishy. I'll fix that up.

---

Aaron's Stuff

Crono said:
Apparently no one can give any suggestions that are actually useful, so it appears this thread is completely derailed, since I was never talking about the current consoles or their games.

I'd give suggestions if there was something actually revolutionary you could do with a wii remote. As far as I can tell it can do either gimmick movements (shake, hold level, gestures, etc) or it can emulate a mouse, big whoop. I don't even know how you'd use it for an fps that would be unique (ie not used like a mouse) and not suck ass. I can't even see how it would be used in a swordfighting game, cause how would you deal with blocks and parries (or the swords clash together and then one combatant tries to overpower the other) while still having free 1:1 ratio movement?

---

The gamecube sucked ass. Two good games (Smash Bros and Animal Crossing) and nothing else before I just stopped caring about Nintendo. That was probably inevitable though since I hated all the 3d Zeldas, Metroid Prime was an embarassing joke of a game, they shat all over Star Fox with Adventures and Assault, and there hasn't been a good Mario game since Super Mario World 1. Oh and Double Dash sucked too and was a huge step down from Mario Kart 64. That pretty much covers all the awesome franchises they had on the NES, gameboy, and SNES and then summarily ran into the ground on the N64 or GC.

Sorry, Crono, I tried to come up with something about movement, but it's really damn hard. I think it rather comes down to perfect polishing than over-the-top originality as most of the coolest things imaginable with the wiimote are indeed running the risk of being gimmicky.

And Mario Galaxy does look hawt from a gameplay point of view. But why oh-why can't they resist putting Mario in a bumblebee suit? It's really painful for every teenager and grown-up (outside Japan) to play a game in which someone wears a happy bumblebee suit. It's ridiculous. I don't need a main character to be on steroids but putting him into a bumblebee suit is carelessly stupid.

It leads to friggin' Steven Spielberg feeling inspired to do a game like this for the Wii and reserve his story-telling talent for a PS3 and X360 title.

It's a shame Rare was conquered by MS after the N64. Goldeneye, PD... those games were worth the N64. Everything Rare produced afterwards was a cheap rip-off of their old-days hits.

---

Why snark works.

As far as control systems working, I'm not on a strict development time line or threatened by a ship date. If something doesn't work exactly as I intend it to, it wont continue to exist.

I'm not entirely sure if it would be a gimmick or not. If the motion sensitivity actually aids or enhances the gameplay ... then how is that a gimmick?
I mean, finally, we can have realistic racing games without very specific devices. Something that's never been done right is car mechanics in a game because there was a lack of control.

As far as I can tell, the control abilities the Wii hardware present is really more of bringing more specialized, or even arcade, experiences to your home.

That's because it wasn't "Rare" when MS bought it everyone left as far as I know.

Spielberg, story, talent ... A coherent sentence cannot be performed with these words.

I'm mixed about the bubble bee suit. It looks like it's going to show up about as much as the wings showed up in Mario 64.

I've given up on trying to change people's mind about the gamecube ... so whatever. There's plenty of very good games (that aren't part of the franchises that were listed even) on the system. I think, in general, the gamecube was substantially superior to the N64 in game quality as well.

This thread was more on the side of, "What seems remotely interesting and intuitive" rather than, "revolutionary and innovative" as far as controls go. It could be ways to make genres easier to control or more precise or, perhaps, creating a new type of genre. I don't think, in general, that the Wii hardware can replace a mouse for an FPS unless the fps was catered to it and that would be a very different game. That's what I was really aiming at, not pounding the control scheme into a genre, but molding a genre around a control scheme, which is the only way to make a system like this have well working control.

---

Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

As far as FPS controllers go, I think until you can put on goggles and run around with a plastic rifle shooting zombies, wasd + mouse is probably the best. Wiimote has a really restricted range of motion (like those arcade machines with the plastic guns) and using a separate controller for movement (nunchuck joystick/dpad) might work, but I dont think I'd feel comfortable with it.

And as far as putting the goggles on goes, I've tried a couple of those, and they dont feel right anyway (but hardware tweaking could fix that I'm guessing). In a few years though, we may see some cool augmented reality devices. I hope.

---

"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

Yea, "gimmicky" in this case is a difficult word. I guess for me it would mean "sounds good, doesn't work practically". For example I never abandoned the "Trespasser" way of having a virtual arm that allows you to shoot around corners, push and pull things realistically ect. With the wiimote that might actually work and creat a new layer of interactivity, but the ridiculous results of the original game make me very doubtful about that.

PS: Spielberg is always within a huge marketing machine. You can take him as an indicator, in this case for how "Wii" automatically means "family friendly" for your average studio boss. They ask the big Hollywood director to do a game with an actual story for the Xbox360 and the PS3 and a boring Jenga clone for the Wii. Sigh It's just a great example for what's going on right now on the console market. Who needs innovation when you can have 14728370123 polygons?

---

Why snark works.

The only issue I have with the FPS combination with the Wii remote (because I've actually played FPS' with the thing) is turning and fov. Both of those things are clunky. The actual aiming is difficult at times because the remote is so sensitive, but, in general, it works pretty well. It is a valid alternative to a keyboard and mouse, and the movement potion with a joystick is superior to a keyboard. I think the prime for Wii will have some substantial improvements in FPS control with the devices, so we'll see how that turns out. There's still the issue of turning, which, as it stands, has a very "slapped" on feel to it. I can't personally think of a better way to do it at the moment, but it's definitely an area that needs to be worked on.

As cool as the idea would be for 1:1 movement in games ... it wouldn't work well. Why? Because people playing the games probably can't pull off the maneuvers correctly. A Tiger Woods game that used the combination of the Wii remote and balance board to accurately read your shot would be really cool ... but in reality, that game would be a pain in the ass unless you were actually good at golf. It could, of course, be an option though. The same thing goes with sword fighting. The only way a 1:1 fighter would work is if you had a system of stances and their stability and strength. That might be a little difficult to play (actually really difficult is more like it). Instead, a 1:1 version should be tweaked so that, you have 1:1 control in a certain frame of movement at certain times. I think the system could work very well, it just needs to be defined and then utilized.

I do admit though, that a 1:1 control system in any game that has some sort of skill would be interesting. Especially if the game was very sensitive about the controls.
I think, adding in an element of skill to pull of various moves is a good idea, since it removes to automatic (and boring) hit the button and it does it aspect. In some games, obviously, this doesn't apply, but in other games (like, maybe a Star Wars game) it would enhance it.
The device I linked on here earlier measures heart rate and through that can measure focus. I can imagine a very different SW game with that type of ability. The only downside is you have this silly looking thing hanging off your ear.

---

Blame it on Microsoft, God does.