New Genres For The Revolution

Last week's Gamasutra question of the week dealt with the possibility of new genres for Nintendo's Revolution system. Some interesting answers from the industry, as always. From the article: "I would say the interesting part is not what new genres will come about, but how most existing genres will be transformed by this. For example, fighting games will no longer have to be about special moves and combos when you can simply put one controller in each hand and start punching and blocking like in real life (maybe strap one on a leg to kick). "

Combos

I absolutely hate fighting games that rely on memorizing combos to determine who is the better fighter. Even on the Gamecube, fighting games like Smash Brothers break this horrible standard and let everybody smash buttons and do every move with ease.

Re:Combos

and I don't want a load of ninja teenagers growing up over the next 10 years.

Even if they're mutant turtles?

Re:Combos

But esoteric fighting games are about learning how to play and getting really good at it. They're not designed as "authentic fighting simulators", they're just games, in much the same sense chess is just a game and not an "authentic war simulator". Minimalist fighting games can be fun too, but they aren't "better at being fighting games" (nor the other way around) or anything... Likewise, I don't think that the Revolution's controller is some "holy grail" for fighting games. It will lead to a bunch of fun ones, I'm sure, but they won't be something all previous fighting games were "trying to be".

Brainwaves...

I wonder if some brainwave sensors could help you release power blasts due to your use of "nen" (or other esoteric philosophy)... i.e. learning to achieve a certain neural state to gain power.

OTOH, i could see the warning on the packages:

WARNING!
Prolonged use of the brainwave sensor may cause nausea, headaches and mild hallucinations. Discontinue use on the first symptoms of schizophrenia.

Re:Combos

"Likewise, I don't think that the Revolution's controller is some "holy grail" for fighting games."

Agreed. And if you're allowed to match it up so that one person "moves" to execute their moves, while the other just pushes buttons....the one who's just pushing buttons will have a HUGE advantage because of the speed with which they can push them. That's why I've always preferred the PS2's joystick for Gran Turismo as opposed to the racing wheel....I can simply execute my moves quicker with the buttons than having to turn the whole wheel, etc.

*rolls eyes*

Yeah, isn't that terrible? Games that reward skill and experience! Heaven forbid! I mean, what's the point of a game where a newbie can't defeat a seasoned player by smashing the buttons really fast?

Re:Combos

It wont be the person with the better memory that wins, but the one with the most controllers duct taped to various appendages.

Please don't tell me what appenges you are thinking about, I just don't want to know :p

Nothing new...

Nintendo has been creating [ign.com] new [ign.com] genres for a while.

Re:Nothing new...

I love how people with little knowledge of history laud Nintendo as visionaries for things that have been done before...

For instance, Electroplankton was preceded by over 20 years, by things like this [llamasoft.co.uk], and this [llamasoft.co.uk], and this [llamasoft.co.uk], and this [llamasoft.co.uk] - and those are just by one guy, and those are just the ones I know about. Jeff Minter can't have been the only guy making this sort of thing, there's probably been a pile of them in academia too.

As for the virtual pets, ignoring Tamagotchi and whatnot there have been virtual dogs and more imaginative [wikipedia.org] or more prosaic [wikipedia.org] electronic companions for a while too - Little Computer People came out over 20 years ago as well.

Nintendo may popularise many things, but don't make the mistake of thinking they come up with them all...

For the fatties

If this is done well then I can see the revolution being used for excercise as well as fun. Much like what the Eyetoy was marketed to do, minus the rootkit.

Oh Joy!

My big fear is that the Revolution is going to over-popularize shallow physical gaming such that everyone starts doing it and suddenly cooking simulators and orchestra-conducting games are going to be popping up on all formats.

So what's next? I think Simpson's nailed it!
Bart: I want to go to the Yard Work Simulator.
Marge: But when I ask you to do yard work... *sigh*

Will I have to argue with my co-worker to get them away from their "Work Simulator"?

How does this work?

From the link within the article: "The Revolution controller can detect distances from the screen and even the angle of controller, and will be wireless."

How does it detect angle and position?
Is it ultra-sonic tracking?

One of the main reasons I don't like to play FPSs on the consoles is because the PC with mouse is far superior control. This new controller might change that. Although it is hard to envision this hand-held device being used to aim as well as for "mouselook". Hmm.
Interesting.

Re:How does this work?

We don't know exactly how it works, but we have some pretty good hints:

1. The controller is supposed to contain a gyroscopic sensor, like the one found in WarioWare Twisted. It may control more than one, since it's supposed to be able to detect pitch and yaw as well.

2. The console is supposed to come with sensors to place on the TV, so those can be used to not only figure out how large the screen is (useful in figuring out where on the screen the controller is pointed) but also distance through triangulation. That may be done with infrared or RF.

Re:How does this work?

Same way the LCD TopGun [lik-sang.com] does, I believe: there's an extra sensor-bar [lik-sang.com] that needs to be placed beside the TV.

This page [ign.com] specifically says "[The controller] interacts with a sensor bar placed above, below, or near televisions. The bar contains two sensors that communicate with the controller using Bluetooth technology."

Combos with the body (warning: may cause nausea)

For example, fighting games will no longer have to be about special moves and combos when you can simply put one controller in each hand and start punching and blocking like in real life

With our luck, we'll have the kids doing the Mighty Morphin' power rangers coreographic routines to activate the combos..

Huh (move) hah (move) hah (move) hoh!

(eew)

Permission to Think Freely

I believe that, best-case scenario, the Revolution's controller is going to give developers the "Permission to Think Freely," to borrow the term.

If conventional wisdom is correct, creativity in large game development studios is hampered by publishers' requirements: bring about a return on their investments by recreating past successes. (This means sequels and titles that stick closely to existing genres.) The smallest developers often follow a similar path: they want to start turning a profit so that they can actually eat lunch once in a while. So, they (the ones who are supposed to be doing all the innovating!) tend to stick to tried-and-true themes as well. Just look at all the Match 3 games out there.

Perhaps the Revolution's controller, simply by being completely nutty [google.com], is going to give larger development studios the impetus to ask what crazy things they can do with it? Publishers will not only allow this approach, but demand it. Their press releases will be filled with all the newfangled things a particular title will do with the controller.

Maybe.

I do lament the fact that, out of the Big Three [wikipedia.org], the platform that seems to court indies the most [xbox.com] is the one that has received such a lukewarm reception [xbox.com]. If Nintendo opened things up similarly, I'd love to be able to develop games for use with the Revolution controller.

But maybe that's just the lazy me talking. When I think about it, there's probably plenty of innovation we can pull out of the keyboard and the mouse.

Interactive Exercise Videos and Dancing

I would like to see games that helps or motivates a person to train their physical fitness with controllers hand-held and/or worn on the feet with an adjustable clip. With a controller on each limb I would imagine all sports that don't involve resistance could be developed for. Consider a game in which a player competes directly against a boxer or martial artist. Consider aerobic exercise a la Dance Dance Revolution.
-Anonymous

This was what I was thinking, in addition to the other standards (light sabers, wands, avatars):

Karate games (with pads on elbows, gloves on hands) - controller in dominant hand;

Dance games (similar);

Rave games - at first, like dance games, later it will interact with external lighting pods and change the music itself (feedback loops), and multiple players will make it behave differently - in advanced forms it will be used for online parties, dance competitions, and mini-raves for teens;

Karaoke games - the controller will have a voice mike expansion for this, and as you move it and press buttons, different karaoke effects will kick in - again, will borrow concepts from Rave games above - really annoying if you have bad singers, of course, and likely to show up on Police Blotters;

Inevitable FPS variants - Be The Cop, Be The Grunt, Be The Spy, Be The Warrior, Be The Gerbil, whatever. But more fun than the ones they crank out now ...

Online games like Sims 3: The Revolution where people literally interact with the game - also at home versions.

One such new genre is...

... Massively Multiplayer Online Solitaire

John Madden is booked to be the announcer in a series that will surely take the market by storm.

A little bit of imagination is needed...

Think of controlling...let's just say for common reference point, controlling a Macross style Veritech fighter in robot mode. You can make the robot go in any direction in any time by moving the controller in that direction. This ALONE would actually provide much more control than any other single controller that I've ever seen. Full 3-d axis control. Put on top of that the ability to change the angle of reference by pointing the controller in a different direction. It would probably be foreign for about..10 minutes? Then it would become comfortable. After a few hours, then it would become natural. After a few days of play, assuming a top-notch level of responsiveness, you'll be amazing yourself with the feats that you can perform.

Wait, wait, wait...

Click on that link. That picture is not the Revolution controller I've seen. Has there just been a revision?

Multiple Controllers per player the REAL revolutio

Not only does the controller appear to have a large number of degrees of freedom, all the ideas for having one player use multiple controllers magnifies this immensely. The genius is that it will be *intuitive* to use multiple controllers. One in each hand is the obvious bit, and the article suggested strapping one to a leg for kicking in a fighting game. One person suggested making a headset for "free-look" type uses. You could have a fighting game with one controller in each hand to punch/block, one on each leg for kicking/moving, and one on your head for ducking/dodging etc. 5 controllers all for one person might seem inane, but if they made alternate controllers that had no buttons but just the positioning detection with little velcro straps, you would no longer feel like an idiot strapping one to your ankle. Now, once you imagine this little "mini" controller sans buttons, there's all kinds of interesting new directions. I don't know how many of these can talk to the Revolution hardware simultaneously, but if you could get 12-16 going at once, you could have all kinds of fun with "home motion capture." Imagine a movie making "game" where you act out all the parts in motion capture. Imagine a totally new style of dancing game, where you *really* dance. Or imagine a dance instruction "game" for two people. You and your partner strap on ankle bracelts, wrist bracelets, and maybe something around the shoulders, and really dance. Add in a scoring mechanism for accuracy, toss in an online component for competition, and you're in a whole new world. Now you're really talking about a revolution.

However, this also illustrates the biggest challenge to be faced by Revo developers, IMHO. In all current games, your characters have canned animations to represent your moves. You press the A-button or whatever, and the sword swipe animation playes. It's pre-rendered, beginning to end. Revo games will have to do realtime skeletal animation, so that you can begin swiping your sword, check it mid-stroke, and block with your shield. If you use physical movement to trigger canned animations, it will feel surreal, and you'll quickly give it up because it won't be responsive. You'll start to swipe your sword, and the game won't respond for .5 sec while the animation finishes. In effect, now you're just talking about mouse gestures in 3D space. If the on-screen avatar doesn't track your movements accurately, smoothly, and convincingly, then you're just memorizing gestures to trigger a move--and that would be physically tiring with not much reward, and we'll go back to pressing buttons.

In my opinion, this is a good thing. For *years* what we've needed is better physical modelling, not better graphics. Better physics and better AI are really the key to better gaming. Graphics have been mostly "good enough" for 5 years, while physics and AI have only changed marginally since 3D games became ubiquitous. AI's a tougher nut to crack, but we have to have physics to make our virtual worlds interactive. So hopefully developers will target the older demographic that Nintendo is after. They don't really give a rip about better graphics (to a point), but make the controlls unresponsive, the physical simulation overly simplistic, or otherwise make the experience jarring, and you'll lose them in 5 minutes flat, never to return. Win them over, though, and I think you'll have a license to print money.

If anybody has the guts to try something really radical, there are interesting times ahead. We shall see...

Controller changed

Looking at the picture in the referenced article it looks like Nintendo changed the controller a bit and it looks like that it may either be an analogue or a digital joystick. It also has two underside buttons, vs the one in the initial version. Compare:

    - original: http://things.wordherders.net/archives/revolution- controller-at-a-glance-20050915061358181-000.jpg [wordherders.net]
    - article: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060215/rev-con trol.jpg [gamasutra.com]

This leads me to believe that Nintendo is still tweaking the controller and that we may see some more changes in the final version.

New genres won't survive without arcade publicity.

Everyone is harping about the new posibilities for physical interaction in Revolution games, but it is safe to say that most gamers (US anyway) are not fond of anything more physical than pressing a button. I know what you're saying... what about DDR? I own a copy of DDR and the dance pad, it is a nice departure from the button mashing nature of video games, but in truth it is the social / competitive nature that gives it popularity. Nintendo might be in a position to cash in on the dwindling arcade industry if they adopt the unique technology for arcade use. I only bought a console version of DDR because of the competition at arcades. In fact, that is the same reason I own a console version of Time Crisis. People stopped going to arcades when console hardware caught up to arcade hardware, but Time Crisis and DDR still pull in profits for many arcades because they draw in crowds of spectators and long lines of people waiting to play.

Most of the games in arcades that use traditional control schemes are never touched where I live. Time Crisis, DDR, and some of the aging SEGA racing games draw the big crowds. Nintendo should encourage developers to develop games that capatalize on the one aspect of arcade gaming that is still profitable. That said, the duality of arcade and console titles does not mean that the game could not survive solely as an arcade or console title, but they certainly seem to sell better.

I still don't think people get this controller

There are so many people still talking about gesture-based controls. I'm of the opinion that gestures will be the bane of game players for a while to come.

Swinging the controller for ball and raquet sports is not going to to work, because you have no reference point for the ball. I play table tennis, and I'm pretty good at it for an American. I have played an arcade table tennis game where you swing plastic raquets to hit the ball on screen, and it was unplayable. Why? There was no ball to hit. It ends up as yet another unintuitive indirect control method.

Don't even get me started on lifting the controller to jump and crap like that. I'm as excited about the Revolution as anyone, but there are going to be a heaping load of bad control schemes if developers convince themselves that they can sacrifice accuracy for "intuitive" gestures.

Awesome.

So, finally, after all this time, jerking the controller frantically *will* actually help Mario jump over a pit.

What if you have Parkinson's?

Well?

New Genre

Ever seen robot combat anime? The stuff in space?

Imagine two people actually manipulating controllers in space and trying to destroy each other.

Initially it will be pretty free form, just orientation but no real way to make their motions somewhat realistic.

Eventually some mechanism for making the players not act crazy, then you can simulate dogfights with hand held little planes AWSOME!

Hopefully this works for them...

Last time someone tried that (Sega w/ Shemue being the genreFREE (Fully Reactive Eyes Entertainment)), it didn't end up so good. The game did have boring parts, but it was a good concept and more of an "interesting life simulator" then your typical game. Although with the DS and probably the Revoluion, Nintendo has been making different kinds of games that are pretty hard to fit into any other genre.

Break away from "genre's"

My main hope for the Revolution is to get as freakin far away from genre's as possible. Genre's are bullshit easy pidgeonholes for developers, marketers, and the rest to use and abuse. Many of the best games always are labeled as "genre-defying" or some such in the media. Electroplankton, Nintendogs, Katamari Damacy, Spore, Animal Crossing, and many others. These are the truly innovative titles and none fit squarely in a "genre."

Moreso than trying to apply old stale bystanders to a radically new device, try thinking outside the box and go in new paths. We've all played enough Fighters, Sports, RPG's, etc. Let's actually move in new directions and get back to the single genre: FUN.

Not new genres so much as expanding on old ones...

...when you can simply put one controller in each hand and start punching...

That doesnt sound like a new genre to me, more like just expanding and improving on current and old genres. Dont get me wrong, expanding and improving is obviously how video gaming continues to grow, but dont lable it as creating new genres when it isnt.

Another brilliant idea

Europeans: too embarrased to dance around fighting
Japanese: house too small to dance around fighting
Americans: too fat and lazy to dance around fighting

Oh Nintendo, have you really forgotten the PowerGlove?

Actually, I think the controller is generally a good idea. N will come up with some interesting games for it. But most 3rd party developers won't have a clue what to do with it. I predict that the European and US consoles will start to ship with ordinary controllers, even if only 3rd party ones in a bundle, after one month on sale.

I got yer controller right here, pal

Hmm, how about a Strap-On Genre?

ducks

Dancing games?

I can't wait to buy Dance Dance Revolution Revolution!

Re:Fighting games?

Resident Evil 4 is a kiddy game that Nintendo tried to censor? Resident Evil Remake? Resident Evil Zero? Killer 7? Eternal Darkness? Metroid Prime? BMX XXX? Gun? Medal Gear Solid? Splinter Cell (and every other Tom Clancy game)? XIII? There are many other M rated games that are on the Nintendo Gamecube. And then, of course, there are the many, many T rated games. I know, I know. Don't feed the trolls.

Re:Fighting games

Unfortunately, American football (or even soccer) is not violent enough teach true hand-to-hand combat that occasionally break out in European stadiums.

Re:Fighting games

Yep. To learn that kids are going to have to play hockey.

Re:Fighting games?

and soon will be third in the handheld gaming market.

Whoa! Theres a third handheld out there? I thought I was just the Sony PSP vs the Nintendo DS and GBA. I'm pretty sure the Ngage has fallen off the charts already.

Re:Lionhead

He said My big fear is that the Revolution is going to over-popularize shallow physical gaming such that everyone starts doing it and suddenly cooking simulators and orchestra-conducting games are going to be popping up on all formats.

Sounds to me like Lionhead feels contested in the shallow physics simulation business.

This may come as a surprise to you...

I mean, I guess it would be nifty to be able to find a sparring partner in the computer, but still, might as well hit a real human.

This may come as a surprise to you, but some people prefer not to have their heads bashed in. Even non-lazy ones.