An intuitive tangible game controller

This paper outlines the development of a sensory feedback device providing a low cost, versatile and intuitive interface for controlling digital environments, in this example a flight simulator. Gesture based input allows for a more immersive experience, so rather than making the user feel like they are controlling an aircraft the intuitive interface allows the user to become the aircraft that is controlled by the movements of the user's hand. The movements are designed to feel intuitive and allow for a sense of immersion that would be difficult to achieve with an alternative interface. In this example the user's hand can become the aircraft much the same way that a child would imagine it

Tangible Interfaces for Pervasive Gaming

With pervasive gaming, novel types of games have recently emerged. The idea is to apply pervasive computing technology- which embeds computers in real-world, everyday environments- to games. By bringing gaming back to natural, social interaction spaces, pervasive gaming aims to overcome some restrictions of conventional computer games: Players are no longer tied to computer screens and human-human interaction is not constrained by graphical user interfaces (GUIs), which is a crucial aspect of traditional non-computer games. Our approach to pervasive gaming also builds on tangible user interfaces (TUIs) where players interact with the game environment by physically grasping and moving real-world objects. In this paper, we propose a simple and cost-effective, but efficient and powerful approach to tangible and pervasive gaming based on Phidgets. The framework, as well as two example games, have been developed as part of a Game Design course at the ISNM