video game idea

[egypturnash]

From conversation last night with ultraken:

Most, if not all, modern consoles (I'm not entirely sure) have pressure-sensitive buttons. Not just 'on' or 'off', but 'on', 'On', 'ON", and 'ON!' and points in between. Let's be honest: I have never seen a game that really used this. In the tense parts of the game, you can't be bothered to distinguish between a light tap and big tense mash on the button. It's just a geeky feature, a bullet point. There's a few millimeters of throw on the buttons; there's no room for subtle control, except perhaps in the case of huge L and R triggers like the Dreamcast controller had.

It's an almost entirely useless feature.

Or is it?

I have a sense that when the action gets frantic, and I get more involved in a video game, I start mashing on the buttons harder as I tense up. Could this data be used to put the player more into the game?

Imagine this: A light tap on the fire button has no gameplay difference - no tap for this fire mode, push hard for that fire mode, overloaded overcomplex bullshit. But a light tap triggers a very casual, calm animation of the player character, while a hard smash of the same button gets a much more intense animation. Your emotions get translated into the emotions of your game surrogate. From casual, calm actions to wild, frenzied ones; the character's emotions better match the ones you're feeling, aiding the player-identification that's a component of a good game.

No 'hit button hard for megaslash attack' nonsense, just different animation on the player character.

Before this can be done, of course, one has to verify that a tensed player does mash harder on the buttons. I feel like this is the case, but I'm not sure. I know that someone getting into a driving game starts leaning back and forth with the turns, except for three embarrassed minutes after someone points this out.

Just one of those ideas.

[ addendum, Okay, racing games use pressure sensitivity. The only racing games I usually play are subgames in sprawling platformers. ]

Comments

[lediva.livejournal.com]

I feel like racing/driving games I've played recently make use of analog buttons for acceleration. Of course, that may just be my imagination.

The Gamecube controller has big ol' shoulder buttons, and I've definitely seen those put to good use in F-Zero GX.

[revar.livejournal.com]

I cannot remember which game it was, but there was at least one that I played last year that did a different action when you pressed the button hard. And a few race games with pressure sensitive throttles.

[turbinerocks.livejournal.com]

What!? Peggy isn't playing Need for Speed Underground, racing desparately against time to upgrade the intercooler in her turbocharged Acura Integra Type R? Beat the sorry ricer in his Eclipse GSR and you can afford the slammed suspension and those 18" Konigs!

^_^

[neillparatzo.livejournal.com]

I don't think that would work so well, at least on the Dual Shock 2. Just pressing a button casually but firmly is enough to register 100% pressure. You have to be really, intentionally light on it to get less than 100%.

So, sense 'anxiety' the alternative way.

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

There'd still be a distinctly different angle to the curve of a casual mash to 100%, and a hyperactive-about-to-crash nearly-square-wave 100% squashfest.

Still doubt it would work in any fighting game or similair, but in the equivilant of something like Sly Cooper, where much of the focus of the game is on the animation of the character three feet in front of you, I could see that being put to good effect.

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

Fine motor control goes when you get an adrenaline rush. Presumably, being really into the game and having a tense moment would trigger adrenaline, so likely, yes.

[adequatemagic.livejournal.com]

That takes me way back to the original Street Fighter. Again, the harder you mashed those big smooshy buttons, the more powerful the attack.

Good anger management, that machine, and it kept the game out of the realm of the hypercaffinated buttontappers for a while...

[doctorpinkerton.livejournal.com]

As someone who collects and restores old arcade games, I can tell you that that original Street Fighter is a sought after game, much harder to find than SFII.

As for the modern console buttons, that's interesting... I imagine they must be implemented like the velocity sensitive keys on a modern synthesizer. Hmmm....

[ultraken.livejournal.com]

From a How Stuff Works article:

Although each button can be configured to perform a specific and distinctive action, they all work on the same principle. Each button has a tiny curved disk attached to its bottom. This disk is very conductive. When the button is depressed, the disk is pushed against a thin conductive strip mounted on the controller's circuit board. If the button is pressed lightly, the bottom part of the curved disk is all that touches the strip, increasing the level of conductivity slightly. As the button is pressed harder, more of the disk comes into contact with the strip, gradually increasing the level of conductivity. This varying degree of conductivity makes the buttons pressure-sensitive!

[shadeykins.livejournal.com]

In Metal Gear you press the button to bring out your gun, and release it to fire. So you can also slowly ease off the trigger and put it away without shooting using the pressure-sensitiveness.

The animation thing sounds cool though. I know that if I start getting angry at the game, I'll end up holding the controller more tightly, and that probably translates to more rapid button pressing.

[ultraken.livejournal.com]

Depending on how frequently the game collects input values, the rate of change of pressure might be a useful metric of the player's emotional intensity. I know I've seen players jam the buttons both hard and fast during heavy-duty action parts of games. You're right, though; it would be quite informative to collect data on how players use the buttons.

[ghostangel.livejournal.com]

One of the HARDEST games i've ever encountered that made the pressure-sensitive buttons useful was Mad Maestro. Imagine having to *discern* between a hard tap and a soft tap and a medium tap, then trying to both keep track of the pressure, AND the button that the pressure is applied to. The game is nearly impossible to play.