Games Controlled By An Exercise Bike

Fidigit writes "I know that most people reading this won't be _that_ interested in exercise, but given there's tech with it ... What do you think about computer games controlled by an exercise bike in your house? It sounds crazy, but it might just work." Update: 01/14 00:14 GMT by T : An anonymous reader points to another example of the same concept.

Not news

[OldMiner]

This has been done several times before. For instance, there is this SNES/Sega/PC/whatever else you want bike [hypermax.com] which is basically a fancy looking controller and then there's this SNES specific bike, the Life Cycle [fitego.com] which I recall being issues in some back issue of Nintendo Power. I think there was even a Pacman-esque game that was supposed to go with it.

Nothing new...

[sjehay]

See here [cateye.com] for a commercially-available product for interfacing turbo trainers and Playstation (2)s that has been around for a while...

It's called DDR...

[Tidan]

It's calld Dance Dance Revolution or DDR for short. Seems to be a growingly popular thing at college, as there are crazy people that form clubs and hold weekly meetings.

Read more about it here [ddrfreak.com].

-Bryan

This has been around for a while..

[andres32a]

I have been using the http://www.exertris.com/>Exertris [slashdot.org] for over a year know... Its Great. I personally find exercise quite boring but this does help me get through. The problem is that the number of games are limited.
You can take a tour at the website to see if one is right for you...

Prop Cycle

[kisrael]

I've always dreamed of a home port of Prop Cycle [coinopexpress.com]...kind of like N64 PilotWings that the guy mentioned. I like the idea of exploring, it seems like races are too dependent on wherever the computer decides to handicap you.

Somebody buy the guy a dictionary...

[MarcoAtWork]

I don't comment on speling errors or typos, but consistently using peddle for pedal really got on my nerves: unless the game the guy played was 'how to peddle a pedal videogame to the slashdot crowd' I do believe he had them all wrong.

Anyways for a more sophisticated 'game' check out the computrainer, pricey but a lot of pros swear by it.

from m-w.com (snipped)

One entry found for peddle.
Main Entry: peddle
Pronunciation: 'pe-d&l
1 : to sell or offer for sale from place to place : HAWK; broadly : SELL
2 : to deal out or seek to disseminate

Main Entry: pedal
Pronunciation: 'pe-d&l

Function: noun
1 : a lever pressed by the foot in the playing of a musical instrument (as an organ or piano)
2 : a foot lever or treadle by which a part is activated in a mechanism

Function: verb
intransitive senses
1 : to ride a bicycle
2 : to use or work a pedal
transitive senses : to work the pedals of

Re:Prop Cycle

[Chmarr]

Prop Cycle was probably the first 'work hard' video game I ever played. I thought it was great... and I was the only one that played decently in my groupoffriends: I bicycle a lot, and have the stamina for it :)

Namco's "Prop Cycle"

[ewhac]

One example of an arcade game employing a stationary bike was Prop Cycle [namcoarcade.com] from Namco. You flew a pedal-powered flying bicycle around, running into balloons and flying through hazards to score points.

I thought it was whimsical and a lot of fun, but it never showed up at many arcades.

Schwab

Arcade..

[dimer0]

I know this story says *computer* games, but it appears some of the posters here haven't been to an arcade in a while..

There is a downhill bike game now, which is way fun. You get done, you're hurting.

Anyone ever see that two-person rafting game? .. That hurt too.

The horse-racing game? .. 8 of those horses side by side... Way fun.

The new motion-cap (I guess this is what you'd call them) games are WILD too -- there's this one that you stand in this one place and hold a gun - and to duck around corners to fire, well, you duck around a corner. If you need to drop to the floor to avoid gunfire, you drop to the floor. I didn't think it would be that much of exercise, but wow.

At home - I've fallen in love with DDRMax on the PS2. I have two of the hard dance platforms now -- it's the most exercise (aerobic) I've gotten in a long time. When my friends come over - it's turned on automatically - huge party hit. Mix beer with it, it gets really fun.

Ok - ramble stops now. I just love video games. :)

Re:Been there, done that...

[Majik Sznak]

I can vouch for that. I use DDR as my main form of exercise (of course, before that, I did nothing). An hour of marginally difficult DDR tunes is a great workout. There's lots of motion, balance, and jumping around like a dork involved. I recommend it to anybody who can't stand doing traditional exercise due to boredom.

As far as the bicycle gaming goes, I believe I saw a special VCR arrangement that would play at a video at a speed proportional to the speed you were pedalling at. This was about 10 years ago. I can't remember where I saw it, but basically, they would play a recording of a camera duct-taped to a bicycle.

Also, there's an arcade game called Prop Cycle where you are flying around on a winged, propeller-powered bicycle. You not only need to pedal a bicycle to control your speed, but you have to steer, pull up and down, and lean side to side (not sure about that last one, but it happens anyway!).

I'd take Prop Cycle over an exercycle any day!

Re:Been there, done that...

[Sparr0]

Prop Cycle, which came out under a couple of other names too, was my favorite excercise game. I used to play it a lot at the local arcade. Much more fun than any other excercise I have gotten. By far the best arcade game with serious excercise involved. Too bad it didnt include a multiplayer mode, deathmatch (with little guns on the cycle) would have been amazing fun.

Re:Not news

[yo303]

I wrote part of the SNES software [retrogames.com] for the LifeCycle when I worked at Radical Entertainment [radical.ca].

The Exertainment System is the first truly interactive system that combines aerobic exercise and video entertainment. It consists of a Lifecycle 3500 aerobic trainer, one of the world's most popular computerized exercise bikes, and a Super NES, the world's most popular 16-bit video game system.

While riding on your Lifecycle 3500, you can use the system to monitor your biking activities (rpm, distance, calories, etc.) or set up a long-term fitness program in the "Program Manager". You can also choose to participate in the game "Mountain Bike Rally". Choose from several riders, several terrains, and several different bikes to have a truly interactive experience.

It didn't sell very well, but mostly because it wasn't marketed properly. You still see the systems in a some fitness clubs (if you do, enter your name as "ronaye" to see an easter egg picture of my girlfriend at the time.)

The new system in the article is multiplayer, which should make it a little more fun. It didn't seem to have any feedback to make the pedalling harder, however. That is essential to making the exercise interactive.

I think systems like this will take off, once they're done right. I mean, plain exercise bikes are already a substitute for real biking, and those are accepted now. "Virtual" exercising systems are just trying to be a step closer to reality.

yo.

Re:Not news

[Voytek]

You haven't heard of computrainer [computrainer.com]?

I personnaly use a fluid trainer and spinervals videos [spinervals.com].

My experience with the Eleton SimCycle

[langles]

This was an idea that I always wanted to try. The first model I bought was the CycleFX [cyclefx.com] DirectControl for CycleFX ITS (PCs). It connects to your PC via a serial port. You can run the included "bicycling" games, but not any other games - unless you want to write a joystick driver for it. I didn't. The higher end PlayStation2 model looks like it should work nicely.

The second model I bought was the Eloton SimCycle [eloton.com] along with its GameBox accessory. This lets you plug the SimCycle into a gameport as the Y-Axis, shared with another gameport controller. This finally offered the experience I wanted.

It's a matter of trial and error to find games that let you configure the Y-Axis as your speed or throttle. The reaction of the PC to changes in your pedaling speed is not instantaneous. I'd estimate there to be a .7 seconds delay. So it's best to use it in games where you are usually going forward but you would like to vary the speed. That generally means racing and flight sims. With a FPS like Unreal it's just not precise enough.

Some of the games I've found to work well are:

• WWII Fighters
• Red Baron 3D
• Falcon 4
• MS Flight Simulator series
• Rowan's Battle of Britain
• Mig Alley
• Panzer Elite
• F1 2002
• Papyrus' NASCAR series
• Need for Speed series
• Driver
• Midtown Madness series
• MechWarrior 3
• RalliSport Challenge
• Superbike 2001

Most importantly, it works very well with Battlefield 1942, controlling my forward motion whether I'm an infantryman or driving a vehicle. In fact, because Battlefield 1942 is such an addicting game, I've been getting a lot of exercise lately! I like it a lot.

Cycle interface contenders. modern.

[quiddity]

try
eloton [eloton.com] - minimal
exergame [hypermax.com]
fitcentric [fitcentric.com]
cyclefx [cyclefx.com]
velotron [velotron.com]
graber [graberproducts.com]

reality keeps interfering with my plans for world domination.

looks like we're still an integration of all the required variables away. close though. 1 year maybe. (ignoring that this still includes no tilt sensing, and no force feedback. ahem)
well, we still don't have pc's capable of playing unreal within the myst world. so...

i-Magic turbo trainer

[doghouse41]

The i-Magic virtual reality cycle turbo trainer has started appearing in the cycling press over the last year or so. Details at:-
Tacx web site [www.tacx.nl]

This is not aimed at the game player, and rather more at the hard core cyclist who wants to train in the winter, but the principle is the same.

Re:Not news

[John Harrison]

I actually purchased a LifeCycle and began to reverse engineer it. I figured out the signals coming from the alternator control board but I don't have the EE type knowldge that I need to make a serial port controlled device to send signals to the control board.

Anyhow, once you have such a device you could do all sorts of things. Making the pedalling harder would be very simple. My initial plan was to hook it up to the open source version of TuxRacer and have it get harder when you go uphill. A simple version of a MarioKart type game could also be fun on multi-player. The interesting think is that if you had a control device it would be very easy to retrofi any existing LifeCycle to work with such a system.

Imagine a gym in which you can "race" against the person next to you or against a person across the country.