Projects in Vr Swordplay: Innovating Game Development through Vr

Published by the IEEE Computer Society 0272-1716/06/$20.00 © 2006 IEEE IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 15 D espite the many revolutionary advancements in video game technology, the basic interface between the human and the gaming system has received relatively little attention. Over the past three decades, video games have been an important driving force for the advancement of real-time computer graphics, sound, and, more recently, artificial intelligence. For example, with each new generation of console game hardware, the graphics and sound provide greater realism and the AI is more formidable. Unfortunately, the same arguments cannot be made when it comes to the advancement of user interaction and gameplay. In fact, the interfaces in today’s games have become increasingly complex and difficult to use given the myriad of buttons and analog controllers on today’s gamepads. Thus, potential impacts for improving the gaming experience for both serious and casual users exist through research into better gameplay and interaction techniques. Three-dimensional user interfaces are one technology class that can bridge the divide between gameplay and natural human expression. For reasons of convenience and deployment, commercial video game systems often have artificially limited input devices, such as a keyboard and mouse or the standard gamepad. Given that many of today’s games call for interaction in 3D worlds, such 2D input devices don’t appear to be an optimal choice. However, there is a movement toward 3D input devices for gaming, spearheaded by devices such as Nintendo’s Wii console and Sony’s EyeToy camera. The Wii, in particular, explores a different form of input—the system tracks the acceleration of the controller (the Wiimote) in space. The game’s interpretation of this acceleration data can have almost any meaning depending on the context: swinging a simulated tennis racket, casting a fishing line, or conducting an orchestra. In all these cases, players physically move the Wiimote in space with motions analogous to the real world. This 3D interaction style provides a natural mapping from human movement to gameplay controls we could not realize with traditional controllers. Given this movement toward 3D input devices in gaming, we explored the use of 3D user interfaces in the context of Swordplay, an immersive sword-fighting and spell-casting game aimed toward casual gamers. Developed as part of a course on “Innovating Game Development’’ at Brown University, Swordplay is an attempt to determine what types of interaction techniques could be useful with natural human expression in virtual 3D environments. The result is a fun, lightning-fast game intended to push the skills and dexterity of its users, similar to the popular button-mashing games of the early 1980s.