#128874 - argus - Wed May 16, 2007 6:47 am
Before I get totally flamed, hear me out. I've never used a DS motion sensing device, and I'm hoping someone can explain its appeal to me. When I try to imagine using one, it just doesn't make sense.
On a system like the Wii, motion sensing works well because you don't have to look at the controller while you play. But with the DS, you have to tilt your head/upper body for any tilt game. I can't think of a single instance in which this would be enjoyable. I'm imagining games where you would steer (like Excitetruck or a flight sim) or tilt (like a marble-rolling game). Any scenario I can come up with seems like it would be tiring to rock around in my chair as I play - especially a fast-paced game like Excitetruck.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, at least with the Wii you can keep your eyes steady on a stationary screen. Having a motion sensor in a portable is like having your TV tilt around while you play. At best, I imagine it would be a nuisance... at worst, I imagine headaches and dizziness.
I could be completely wrong. Perhaps a moving screen is the next big thing for video games... who knows? Maybe someone can enlighten me. Have any homebrew games been developed yet that work really well with this technology?
#128883 - Sektor - Wed May 16, 2007 2:05 pm
It works perfect for marble maze type games since you tilt your head/the box when you play the real version of that.
Other games need to be more sensitive, so it's bit harder. DiggerDS requires you to be able to see the whole screen pretty much all the time, so I had to make it so you could move with only slight tilting, so you could still easily see the screen when moving in each direction. It still needs adjustments though, including a calibration/offset option would help.
Provided it's configured so you don't have to tilt very far, seeing the screen without moving your head should be fine for driving games.
The DS could also be used as a wireless tilt controller for a PC and then you would have a fixed screen. I don't think anyone has done that with the DS motion sensor yet.
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#128889 - Lynx - Wed May 16, 2007 2:52 pm
| Quote: |
| I can come up with seems like it would be tiring to rock around in my chair as I play |
I can't speak for you obviously, but almost everyone I know already rocks around in their chair when playing a standard console. Don't we all lean left and right trying to get our car/character/etc. to do what we want just a little better?
As for a moving screen.. I don't really see the difference.. Even with the DS, I watch people swing it around just to get a character to jump higher.
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#128906 - Dood77 - Wed May 16, 2007 6:20 pm
| Lynx wrote: |
I can't speak for you obviously, but almost everyone I know already rocks around in their chair when playing a standard console. Don't we all lean left and right trying to get our car/character/etc. to do what we want just a little better?
As for a moving screen.. I don't really see the difference.. Even with the DS, I watch people swing it around just to get a character to jump higher. |
My parents used to make fun of me for doing this when I was first starting to play Super Mario Bros. when I was like 5 or 6. Now (17) I can pretty much stay still while playing console games, and it helps with button accuracy.
(Now that my mom has picked up Super Paper Mario for the Wii I watch her jump the controller every time mario jumps, especially when it's a large gap :P)
But back to the original subject, the DS LCD screens have a pretty reasonable viewing angle, and the DS Lite has it even better.
| Sektor wrote: |
| The DS could also be used as a wireless tilt controller for a PC and then you would have a fixed screen. I don't think anyone has done that with the DS motion sensor yet. |
But whats more expensive/trouble? A DS with homebrew capability and a motion card, plus a compatible wireless NIC for your PC, or a Wii controller and a cheap bluetooth adapter? (I got mine for 8$)
#128907 - KeithE - Wed May 16, 2007 6:22 pm
| argus wrote: |
| When I try to imagine using one, it just doesn't make sense. |
Your feelings about the motion sensor are actually pretty common. However, once people try it out, they generally "get it". I have shown motion sensing devices to many people, and quite a few people need to feel it for themselves before they understand that it works well.
On the GBAccelerometer page, there are several motion sensing games for the GBA that work very well - HazardBall, MarioBalls Tilt, Loop the Loop Tilt, and Arkanoid Tilt all are great to play with the motion sensor. I have also made a magic 8 ball for the GBAccelerometer (not posted online yet)
For the DS motion sensors, I think that Holiday Toss is one of the most fun games made so far. Until you try it, you can't appreciate how cool it is.
When you are designing motion sensing games for a handheld, you do need to take into consideration that the screen will be moving. So, not everything that can be done with a motion-sensitive game controller can be done on the DS, but there are certainly quite a few things that can be done.
How about a golf (or bowling) game where you look at the screen, set up your shot, then close the screen and make the swing motions? When you are done swinging, look at the screen again to see where your shot went.
Or another idea I just had today - Bop it. You could have "twist it" (uses the gyro), "bop it" (uses the touch screen", "push it" and "pull it" (uses Z-axis of accelerometer), "toss it" (uses all accelerometer axes), and so on.
#128942 - spinal_cord - Wed May 16, 2007 11:12 pm
| Lynx wrote: |
As for a moving screen.. I don't really see the difference.. Even with the DS, I watch people swing it around just to get a character to jump higher. |
I remember playing Addams Family on the SNES, my legs would be flailing about all over, and hands would constantly be either in the air, or down close to the floor, especially on the freezer level. I won't reveal my age back then, but I was way older than 5/6 years old.
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#128968 - argus - Thu May 17, 2007 5:29 am
| Lynx wrote: |
I can't speak for you obviously, but almost everyone I know already rocks around in their chair when playing a standard console. Don't we all lean left and right trying to get our car/character/etc. to do what we want just a little better?
As for a moving screen.. I don't really see the difference.. Even with the DS, I watch people swing it around just to get a character to jump higher. |
Moving our bodies and hands around is one thing... it's moving my eyes around that worries me. I probably wasn't very clear about that. Normally we move around while playing consoles, but our eyes stay fixed on a stationary screen. Sure, we look around at different parts of the screen... but never before has the screen itself moved. That's why I'm questioning movement of a portable.
| KeithE wrote: |
| Your feelings about the motion sensor are actually pretty common. However, once people try it out, they generally "get it". I have shown motion sensing devices to many people, and quite a few people need to feel it for themselves before they understand that it works well. |
Yeah, that's sorta what I figured. Unfortunately, there's no easy way to "try before you buy" in this case. I love the motion sensing in the Wii, but something tells me this is a pretty different experience. I guess I'll just take everyone's word for it.
#128986 - tepples - Thu May 17, 2007 11:39 am
| argus wrote: |
| Moving our bodies and hands around is one thing... it's moving my eyes around that worries me. I probably wasn't very clear about that. Normally we move around while playing consoles, but our eyes stay fixed on a stationary screen. Sure, we look around at different parts of the screen... but never before has the screen itself moved. |
Kirby Tilt n Tumble? WarioWare Twisted (except in Europe)?
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#129038 - spinal_cord - Fri May 18, 2007 8:48 am
Focusing on the screen is not a problem, I remember having worie about being able to focus on two screens before I bought my ds, turns out that wasn't a problem either.
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#129102 - argus - Fri May 18, 2007 9:56 pm
| tepples wrote: |
| argus wrote: | | Moving our bodies and hands around is one thing... it's moving my eyes around that worries me. I probably wasn't very clear about that. Normally we move around while playing consoles, but our eyes stay fixed on a stationary screen. Sure, we look around at different parts of the screen... but never before has the screen itself moved. |
Kirby Tilt n Tumble? WarioWare Twisted (except in Europe)? |
Yeah... I'm aware of the Warioware game, but never heard of the Kirby one. I guess it slipped my mind when I was posting. Anyway, I'll have to check that one out sometime.
#129118 - Ant6n - Sat May 19, 2007 12:14 am
a bigger problem than the whole moving screen issue is that people that write games don't accomodate for the fact that players dont hold the gba/sp perfectly level. This goes for all gba games on the kionix webpage, even the ones that only use left right tilting, since the tilt will be much stronger when holding the gba/sp level than when holding it in a usual position, that is, tilted 45 degrees towards the player. The only game that doesnt seem to have that problem as much is hazardball, since it lets you calibrate the motion sensor, but it again has the problem that 'jumping' the ball (which is essential to playing), tends to move the screen of my SP out of position (i.e. it closes it).
#129460 - OrR - Wed May 23, 2007 12:49 am
It is correct and an important thing to consider that motion sensing on the DS is not the same as on the Wii. The screen moving around makes lots of games impossible but on the other hand it makes others possible. Marble games work very well, for example. The game where you have to rotate the three objects a certain number of times is insane fun because you have to try to keep looking at the screen. Excite Truck would not work but the DS Motion Card has a sensor that detects rotation around the middle of the bottom screen and that can be interesting for racing games. The one where it's already implemented doesn't work too well but with some gameplay tuning it just might. There are other interesting possibilities in combining touchscreen & motion that you simply don't have on the Wii. Somebody just has to explore them.
#129488 - Dood77 - Wed May 23, 2007 6:26 am
How cool would it be to have some kind of a top-down action/racing game with physics similar to Asteroids? You could have the ship always stay straight relative to the DS, but when you twisted it the rest of the world would turn, as if real north would always be north in the game no matter how you turned :)
Again I am crippled by my limited programming knowledge :'(
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