Feel the Game

A couple of weeks ago, I was remarking to Rhianna how much it made sense to introduce more complex haptic feedback to gaming over the next few years.  When the rumble pack came around, it was revolutionary.  At first, it was just a fun addition that added to the experience.  When your arwing was shot in Star Fox, you felt it.  And then, over the course of the next few years, the rumble featured prominently into many of the mechanics of the game.  Your controller would vibrate as you came closer to hidden treasures.  It would shake like a cell phone to let you know you received a message in game.  Rumble became refined enough that it could convey emotion in some cases, acting like your character's heartbeat.

But what if we've come far enough to enhance tactile feedback to all new levels?

"Yes, I do believe I'll be purchasing this game."

Enter Senseg: http://senseg.com/

This company is beginning the charge down what could effectively become the next revolutionary trend in the videogame industry.  Instead of simply touching a glass screen, you'd actually feel the textures and the movement of what was represented on screen.  In some cases, what you see wouldn't be what you got.  If you were, as an example, running your finger across sand, you'd feel sand - until you felt the presence of another object beneath it.

It could have applications beyond gaming, of course - someone who was blind could read a text message in braille, for instance.  But here, in the land of make-believe, all I can think about is the applications for my favorite pasttime.

On Senseg's website, they have an example on their opening page: Air hockey.  You'd feel when the paddle glided across the table.  You'd sense as the ball and the paddle hit against each other.  I'm not an insider, so I'm not sure about this, but you'd figure, if they learned to tweak things, you'd even be able to feel the subtle breeze that comes out of the real tables.

There are tons of other immersive ways to add this into gaming.  Specifically, I thought about Nintendo's new system when I first stumbled upon Senseg.

You're playing a game that requires you to explore your surroundings.  It'd probably some kind of point and click, so I'm specifically thinking about something along the lines of Zack and Wiki (a great game, albeit a little bit impractical at the beginning of the Wii's lifecycle, thanks to the wonky controls).  You know you have to look for an object in the sand - perhaps pieces of an amulet, or a bottle with a message in it.  As you drag your finger across the sand, it displaces the little grainy particles, until you suddenly feel a smooth texture beneath it.  Your character acquires the object, and it's because you felt it. 

Suddenly all kinds of options are available.  You could sweep leaves away from your view (this wouldn't work very well for the Wii U, as its tablet only has one point of touch with a capacitive input).  You could feel the curves and the slight heft of a chess piece as you moved it.  The sensation of water moving around your finger would be an unprecedented experience in a game.

Of course, this is only what's being talked about now.  Imagine all the possibilities that might be upon us in the next several years.  Sony recently applied for a patent on a controller that gets hotter or cooler depending on factors of the game you're playing:

http://kotaku.com/5951320/todays-best-discovery-sony-wants-to-patent-a-ps3-move-controller-that-gets-hot-or-cold

Some of the examples they gave: the controller get's hotter as your gun overheats, and it gets even hotter if your character is engulfed in fire.  There's room for plenty of other ideas here, as well.  Imagine your character falling into icy water, and sensing as the plastic of your controller adjusts to immerse you further into the narrative.

Of course, you have to tread carefully with that sort of thing.  You wouldn't want to damage the hardware, and you wouldn't want to hurt your customers.

Or would you?  TN Games (http://tngames.com/products) sells what they're calling Tactile Gaming Vests, that let you feel the game you're playing in an even more robust manner.  If you're playing Call of Duty, you not only feel the impact of gunfire, you sense what direction it's coming from.  Beyond that, you can tell the difference of the weaponry that's hitting you.  A knife slash would feel different than the bullet from a pistol.  The rapid fire would impact you in a much more rapid way than the brute force of a rocket blast.

And there are other routes that the industry is free to venture down, if they should so choose.  It would be difficult to implement, but what if you were playing a sword and shield game, and you wanted to be able to feel when your sword struck another player's blade, or their armor.  What if you felt a more robust sensation than just some rumble?

The possibilities are out there, we just need some geniuses to come up with them.