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[gimymblert]

I don't agree about the wiimote statement. Here is what happenned:

- Nintendo bring a king to motion game and it was mii sports. People copy the king but are way less competant at doing so, leading to shovel and huge desert.

- Then nintendo bring a hardcore game "motionized", twilight princess, with waggle, again a king that everybody copy, instantly killing any improvement by setting a standard.

- then they released mario galaxy which made waggle the core of the game and more interesting use of the wiimote secondary (direct interaction with the scenary, like pulling, grabbing, pointing) which reinforce the waggle as a standard format of interaction. Instead they should have create a new ip that would totally get advantage of these (totally transparent and well implemented) secondary interaction, huge fail here, creating the mario 64 (had created the format for 3D open navigation, 3D camera and analog control) for motion control.

- metroid 3 and resident evil shown that separating aiming from looking was a superior control scheme for 3D shooter, even if their implementation was prototypical.

- some game with good implementation flew below the radar because the game weren't good (force unleashed wii)

- some obvious idea get really badly implemented, okami was a no brainer, but shoddy implementation of pointing killed the game literally, you had to keep the wiimote twist angle constant to draw a straight line, basically the local xy of the screen map to the local xy of the wiimote, that mean if you twist the wiimote 90° and move horizontally, movement translate to screen vertically ... NON SENSE!

- Motion control does not just mean motion, no more heroes use it for stance control though tilt angle, it became an extra precise analog in mario galaxy with the ball challenge (even if it was unnecessary in this particular case)

- Motion control designer also failed at 1:1 movement fallacy which made no ergonomic sense. As if, if you play a ninja you should not expect the player to do a summersault. Nintendo solve this greatly in wii fit mixing many ergonomic option to feedback with some hidden abstraction, and while almost all wii board game made no sense at all, the wii fit skateboard game is just an amazing piece of design. Too bad wii fit was branded as a mini game and fitness product, talk about a huge waste of opportunity.


SO What's motion good for CORE gaming?

1. Pointing is a far more superior interaction method to interact with environment and on screen GUI, and a much more reactive aiming device than a pad. It's like a no brainer, some game like the pes 2008 increase ten times the bandwdith, literally making football an rts hybrid (you control the footballer with the analog and give order/pass/direction/control to teammate with the pointer). This ability to manipulate and bark order to teammate while having the usual interaction bandwidth for your main character is unmatch by a simple pad and voice control (nice try kinnect). Pointing also allow thing like drawing a path etc...

2. Tilting is basically a second free analog per hand. each hand can reach at best 2 interaction zone, modern controller has 3 zone (1.button/pad, analog, flip/trigger) which mean you need to keep main recurring control on 2 area and have the third optional, which mean reduce interaction bandwith. Tilting allow you to control two analog at the same time (analog + tilt) or have access to button without losing analog control.


Think about how this would revolutionize FPS:
1. no more switching between looking and interaction button on dual shock setup, have access to button directly without losing bandwidth), has movement and looking + core interaction on one single hand, the other hand became free to point directly at the screen to shoot and bark order.

Of course the wiimote was prototypical, but it's easy to build on this and integrate traditional control. Two move with all the button of a half dualshock would be the next big thing (and allow dual pointing) 6 buttons + motion + 1 analog + 1 trigger per hand is a great deal of bandwidth.

The problem of motion control was simply it was not a standard on a free platform too, which limit serious innovation in a risky market.

[skaldicpoet9]

I don't agree about the wiimote statement.

What's to disagree with? Some games are great for Wiimote interaction (Metroid Prime 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Twilight Princess, Zak and Wiki, Little King's Story etc...) and some games were completely horrible for it (most racing games on the Wii, sports games that utilize multiple buttons, platfomers (which is funny because they are Nintendo's bread and butter, but the classic controller was much better suited for 2D plats)). It was really hit or miss because most a lot of genres just don't play well with motion.

Content sells consoles. No one hears about the Wii U. Suddenly Zelda is big. Everyone plays it. Has a big marketing push. Everyone hears about the Wii U.

Sure, the core audience will flock to Zelda. However, I don't see Susy Soccermom really rushing out to grab the Wii U after the Zelda U announcement. What's going to sell the console is a casual grabber like Wii Play or Wii Sports Resort that plays to the strengths of the system (for some reason Nintendo Land isn't really filling this role like Wii Sports did) and marketing that dispels the notion that the Wii U is not just a tablet controller add-on for the Wii.

To PS4. What's a feature I should be excited about, as a potential dev for it? Pick whatever you want.

Well, for me it would have to be the crazy amount of ram. It means higher resolution textures, more particles and effects, better AI, more dynamic lighting/real-time reflections and greater draw distances. Sony hasn't really brought too much new to the table other than a beefier spec, built-in social features, cloud-gaming and suspend/sleep, so I don't really see anything else that I would get too excited for if I were a dev at this point.

[s0]

What's going to sell the console is a casual grabber like Wii Play or Wii Sports Resort that plays to the strengths of the system (for some reason Nintendo Land isn't really filling this role like Wii Sports did) and marketing that dispels the notion that the Wii U is not just a tablet controller add-on for the Wii.

hasn't most casual gaming more or less migrated to smartphones anyway?

What's to disagree with? Some games are great for Wiimote interaction (Metroid Prime 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Twilight Princess, Zak and Wiki, Little King's Story etc...)

little king's story didn't even use any wiimote features haha

[skaldicpoet9]

hasn't most casual gaming more or less migrated to smartphones anyway?

Pretty much, it would seem. Which is definitely putting Nintendo in an interesting spot regarding their marketed demographic since most of the casuals are migrating away from consoles. I think they could really bring back that crowd if they play up the strengths of the system (local multiplayer family fun and asymmetric coop goodness) and the similarity to the tablet/smartphone games that they are currently familiar with.

little king's story didn't even use any wiimote features haha

Oops ::

Don't shoot me guys, it's been awhile since I've played that game and I could have sworn it was one of a few games that I remember having really good Wiimote controls.

[gimymblert]

@Skaldicpoet

Oups I was replying to graham ... However the wiimote is still  a regular controller with button, I have no problem playing game that don't use motion (or don't need them, just like all game don't use analog), and I can't have enough praise for the freeing of hand the dual setup introduce, which is the most underrated innovation of the wiimote.

PS4 really drop the balls here, they could have redefine core gaming with their dual move patents, even a mere FPS would have been a total new experience.

I want to go further and say the ultimate controller would have dual move + kinect, kinect don't work alone (much like button don't work much without a pad, analog, etc...). The additive power (+ occulus) just make game better.

@CA sinclair
That's why PS4 is gunning full fire at core gaming

[Graham-]

Your argument is basically wiimote failed because the games failed. No one prevented devs from making good games. Maybe the games failed _because_ the wiimote isn't as hardcore as you're suggesting.

Pointing is irritating. The best form of communication, through any medium, is one that maximizes expressiveness for the minimal amount of input. The Wiimote goes in the wrong direction. You have to do more to get the game to do the same amount. How is that a building block for deeper controls? Imagine if every word in english was 4 times as long but just as expressive.

Now compare the iPhone to the Kinect, or Playstation Move.

The issue with motion control is two fold:
  1. It's used poorly in games - I agree with you here.
  2. It's made at a sacrifice. You choose motion _or_ a real controller.

Wiimote problems:
  1. your left hand doesn't stabilize the button pressing in the right. less control (reaction times, degree of trigger press/analog push)
  2. vice-versa.
  3. fewer buttons per hand because of reach.
In other words your hands can't cooperate on the job of holding. You have to hold twice. That's hard.

The football example can be countered with well designed controls for a standard controller.

If the nunchuck did more than shake, or the wiimote had a more precise sense of motion - maybe an issue with the games themselves, don't know - then we'd have true motion. There's no reason each hand can't do something. Hand movement and finger use are different things. Controllers should use both. Or we need dedicated seats with joysticks sticking up and keyboards mounted etc.

So maybe the Ouya needs motion controls.

Maybe I should say a touchscreen has more obvious ways to enhance a deep game than motion controls do. That's partially a design issue. Okay. Touchscreens are also way more approachable, and they let two things happen at once. Amazing for multiplayer and balancing pace. Looking down to flip through your inventory is more than just increasing your input bandwidth. You're pulling away from the screen, relaxing, thinking in your own little world, while the main screen moves on, in the back of your mind, or responds to other players.

[Graham-]

To skaldic, I'm excited about RAM. Social features and cloud are interesting because they mean it's easier for me to share my experience. I suppose I can go to my friend's and just have my gaming experience with me? And we can continue to easily collaborate through the same game when I go home? Builds a habit for all games.

So if the Wii U needs casuals then someone will make some casual game and sell that. There's always room to move units. Back in the day launch was important because it got devs on the system. You needed devs to move units, units to get devs. It was a catch-22. But now there's another reason to dev for the Wii U: controls. And it's easier to get on there.

The industry is opening up. I can't say Wii U isn't dead, or is dead. I'm just saying momentum works differently now. Growing slowly is a reasonable way to go. It didn't use to be.

[gimymblert]

Pointing is irritating? I guess I'll send you the PC master race with their mice/keyboard set up (rts, arpg, fps, point and click, you name it) all games that have greater bandwidth than a pad. Actually moving to the pad greatly dumbed down many genre (console fps has less vertical gameplay and less movement overall with more gameplay latency than frenetic pc shooter)

You simply has not enough practice, I had session of 24h straight in motion heavy game with no particular good implementation (dbz tenkaichi wii, wich still expect you to have reaction time with large movement similar to button press) and got away with no strain on the hand ... experience! When I start playing mario64 i couldn't go in straight line and the control lack accurancy, 10 years later I can blind jump on a pixel without looking at the screen and fly on the back. Similarly, when I play burning rubber on 6128+ I move my whole body and push button really hard just like 10 hours too late, when I first play fps all I can see was ceiling, floor and wall never forward or the enemy, see a pattern?

As a designer I can recognize a good innovation that is additive to the corpus of knowledge and a sidegrade, and the wiimote is a massive upgrade.

Every core gamer whow played RE4 wii had seen how a massive improvement it was over the GC version simply because of control, it was a great game made exhilarating BUT THEY KILLED WITH FIRE by creating subpar lightgun game that remove all the fun (contrary to link crossbow training which is massively underrated despite being massively under developped). SO yes some game has shown that it could have been.

Now let's talk about fps ponting and how it fail on wii: CONVENTION! the straight stupid port of mice convention on wii kill it (however experience allow to relieve the pain) even though it was superior to pad control. The main idea is that you should have been able to control the gaming without having to point at the screen AT ALL TIME (stupid dev). But design is poor in the game industry (really), design is the ability to solve problem most designer don't solve them, they regurgitate and altered existing design.

Now the wiimote wasn't perfect, but the lay out is more a problem of fitting square peg in round hole, people didn't design with the control in mind, just cramming their ill idea onto something disregarding its specificity or any reality (yay 1:1 motion). Even nintendo didn't escape this mess (fucking skyward sword and his stupid over bloated lay out FOR NO GOOD Reason! and that's only one of the noobness present in SS).

Now let's look at the gamepad, it's actually a step back, think about, how can you interact with the screen while moving a character? the screen need the two hand to keep balance (and it's has only one touch) and when you use the screen you sacrifice a whole area of button (plus it does not have trigger). The gamepad IS an upgrade but on output only (data feedback on one more screen with significant resolution) But selection is likely a downgrade from the skyward sword item selection, which don't have you pose or lose control.

[Graham-]

Hey man. I love the PC. I play shooters on the PC. I program for a living, sort of.

The mouse is precise and consistent. The wiimote is not.

Wiimote (game) design is terrible. Pointing at the screen always is awful. I could design around that. Maybe the wiimote is precise? But I just play games with weak controls or that don't threaten to do amazing things with it, so I don't realize. I'll reserve judgment 'till I dev for it.

The point is, whether the wiimote is good or not, is that devs sucked at exploiting it. We are much better with touch screens. See smartphones. The tablet controller removes things, yes, but it also combines what makes mobile great with what makes consoles great. Consoles are this big entry point. You have to sit down, turn on the right input, commit. Mobile is easy. On/off. Simple controls - don't think. Go anywhere. A lot of people use ipads and iphones at home, on the couch, not on the go. They just like the experience.

My Mom will not drop in to play the Wii, unless it's casual. She will drop in for the Wii U if there's the right game. The gamepad is accessible. It is comforting. I like it because I can switch between a mobile experience and a console one. It merges the strengths of two massive and divergent markets. The wiimote was too new.

[gimymblert]

My point was the analog is not precise (aiming), much less than the wiimote (we have game that have both control to compare), if you like the analog the wiimote is superior every day. Yet good game has solved the analog problem.

But yeah, the dev are faulty AND LAZY, but they are barely better with touch screen, mice convention does translate MUCH better (even at the price of hovering), the outcry about retrofitting button gameplay however is huge (try play an fps on touchscreen alone).

However that happen with the DS too, it was too new and full of bad implementation. But then you had at least ninja gaiden DS who showed increases control compare to pad while keeping the frenetic pace of input.

The mobile market has a huge library to look for from DS game and point and click interface, yet most lesson hasn't been learnt. Then you have a game like angry bird and people complain it's not a real game, it's as much a real game than super mario nes which had define good input for pad.

Edit:
Remember when touch screen control mean gesture recognition? where is all the gesture recognition now?

[gimymblert]

Can someone split this discussion with graham in its own thread (named "discussion about good motion and touchsreen control")

EDIT:
BTW if you want to dev for wiimote, get bluetooth on your pc, dwnload free dll or glovepie (or similar), hey presto!
Wiimote does has limitation, but to condemn any improvement "motion" control imply because of them is NOT FAIR.

[Graham-]

I'm not against motion controls, just the way they are now. They are still a frontier. Mobile/touch is being conquered.

[s0]

Can someone split this discussion with graham in its own thread (named "discussion about good motion and touchsreen control")

that's most of the thread but ok.

looks like the ps4 just isn't interesting enough to talk about, lol.

also moved to design for more focused discussion.

[Graham-]

Thanks.

Gesture recognition was just too hard. My Dad had a pocket device that could read motions with a pen: palm pilot. Took to long to learn how to use it. Very inconsistent. Like voice recognition. The software just isn't there.

On a side this an area of research I am competent in. Fuzzy AIs.

[gimymblert]

Yeah it does not make much sense either in terms of ergonomy, it's harder even for human and full of ambiguity.

The best motion control are those who have a layout (point on a grid to link) or have very rigid requirement, that is those who create abstraction to be learn.

One things people forget is that even the most intuitive interface has to be learn, the primary interface (the body) has to be learn too (learn to walk, talk, etiquette, write, etc...) that's pretty much wii fit there, it was hard for a lot of people even when the simplest game use the simplest movement (just stand still!).

There is no invisible interface, all interface are design then learnt.

[Graham-]

This is the biggest issue with gestures and motion control. Same thing with "brain readers" - devices that use your thinking as input.

Devs look for something that is obvious to use right away. This is wrong. They should look for something that is maximally precise and expressive. Then build a game around teaching the player how to use it. Or an AI that adapts to the player. Or both.

[Graham-]

I'm reading that the PS4 is focused on linking mobile to the console. You can watch your friends play with your mobile remotely, carry your game with you, or at least a piece of it. This and glass. Everyone is going the tablet + console route. Wii U is in the pool w/ everyone else.

Someone (me) should make a good game that takes advantage of the six axis and regular controls simultaneously. 0 games I've played even try.

[gimymblert]

The problem of any creative field is to be creative, in video game, the game is literally the interface, interface is the purpose of game. Instead of regurgating the same copy paste mess we should reinvent the "interface" as much as possible. That's what made nintendo mythical until he start doing like everybody, pumping the same game without anything news. The gameplay IS the interface IS the content. And reinventing does not mean changig everything everytime.

Interface in games can be loosely fitted in 3 category: the head, the hand and the feet.

1. the head is any output to be sense and convey information (rumble, sound, visual, material feedback like pressing a button, etc...)
2. the hand is all the interaction that happen in the gameplay and change the state
3. the feet is the navigation between action and information but does not necessary change the state of the gameplay

Now mapping in game interface tend to group them together (look at the typical layout for fps/3ps game, the button map the hand, the analogue the feet and the head ... literally).

By looking at that you know how expressive is your interface directly or indirectly RELATIVE to your game idea.

Kinect generally has very poor direct spatial navigation, any spatial navigation is likely to be abstract. Kinect is much better for analog interaction, especially social, because there is a high bandwidth of the skeleton, but even then you need to create a specific language or map to an existing one (human body langage), works great for direct mapping like dancing game (even though movement are abstract as a series of fixed pose to match in rythm).

However in the "night into dream" eyetoy (a less expressive device than the kinect) game you had a great indirect mapping to fly in a tube, basically your hand reach a circular zone in a small area displaying your vignette and moving up or down inside the circle area turn the character right or left, not 1:1 motion to character but still very intuitive.

Wii fit use a similar interface by displaying a small board with a point representing your balance, so you ave direct feedback and the board has many zone that where indirect interaction (to go faster maintain the point into the zone). Too bad no body thought about generalizing this to analog stick because it would allow for richer gameplay (dynamic zone and feedback based on tilting the analog), also would work great for regular motion control too as it give a feedback to adjust to (instead of trying to second guess what the system want from you).

SHIT I'M RAMBLING AGAIN

Well what I want to outline is that a good learnable interface has feedback that teach itself to the player. For example I still wonder why nobody use a sound on virtual analogue (or motion tilt everywhere) to feedback value and limit, wii fit is excessively good about it! To bad everybody shrug at wii fit!

[Graham-]

Using the analogue for gestures is an interesting idea. I'm sure I've mentioned to you before that in my work I've spent a lot of time looking for deeper ways in which players can express themselves to the machine. For my current game players will learn to speak a language, converse with npcs etc. The idea is the same.

You have this really expressive way to communicate, with all these rules and context sensitive meanings. You roll them out to the users, and teach them through mechanics, then as they learn they get better at expressing themselves. What becomes a long thought process becomes automatic, and is used as a building block for more complex expressions.

I haven't spent time coming up with the most natural way to get ideas in through a controller. Using slight mouse movements, nuances in button press timings, analog gestures. All fair game.

[gimymblert]

I'm reading that the PS4 is focused on linking mobile to the console. You can watch your friends play with your mobile remotely, carry your game with you, or at least a piece of it. This and glass. Everyone is going the tablet + console route. Wii U is in the pool w/ everyone else.

Someone (me) should make a good game that takes advantage of the six axis and regular controls simultaneously. 0 games I've played even try.

Do you have an idea?

Before the wiimote ws unveil and I had predict the motion control thingy, I thought they would put a touch screen with gba quality as controller (ds + wario smooth move (motion) + crystal chronicle. I WAS WRONG.

Basically I had an idea that mixed mariokart double dash idea with smash bros. Regular mario kart gameplay but the coins has return and fueled the use of abilities similar to smash bros.

Basically there is the driver and the fighter and they can swap like double dash. each can use the motion tilt control to sway the gravity center of the car, basically influencing the trajectory of the car. For exemple opposite direction tend to give a harsher turn, overturn or underturn depend on which player does the sway, shaking in a direction might ram the car in that direction, allowing for quick adjustment of the character agree on what to do.

The fighter use the touchscreen to directly target things on the race (which became more interactive) to influence the race in the team favor. The fighter can also try to grab or punch nearby opponents. The trick is that if two opponent perform a grab they hold each other hand until one release the grab button. This allow to do some extra move, if one harshly accelerate and the other harshly brake, they does a quick tornado that clear the way centered on the braking vehicle. The trick is that if one button is release while doing the tornado the accelerating vehicle is projected in the air to a certain distance, this has two effect, to screw the team that has been launched OR help them crossing a small gap, but that's hard to pull. Now holding hand can also allow to take shortcut unavailable before, you need another team to balance out some slippery and round bridge that can't be driven on simply.

But all idea stem from the fact I had motion on the pad, it looks good on paper but i'm not sure it's easily translatable on a game (feedback and input). DISCLAIMER, i'm programming the game right now (that's where the architecture rant come from, not from the sonic programming), I had a programmer but he has no interest in "arcade game" what he wanted is to make was iracing style simulation (ugh )