Philips amBX: For Ambient Gaming

JamesO writes "Philips has announced amBX, a technology which is said to extend the gaming experience out into the real world. amBX, developed by the Surrey based Philips amBX Group, is a technology that will take gamers a step closer to a full sensory experience, with amBX enabled games providing gamers with the ability to use light, colour, sound, heat and airflow in the real world during gameplay. The technology uses a scripting language to enable games to send signals to compatible hardware such as lights, fans, heaters, and even furniture. This means that in a game the lights in your room will match up to the environment you are gaming in. E.g. Green for jungle and blue for the ocean. Strobes of while light could simulate a lightning storm and a burst of air from a fan could make huge jumps feel more realistic." Finally, my master goal of a game called "Bacon Fryer" can be brought to the level I've always: wafts of pork smell in the air, grease burns on your hands for bad flipping. And just wait until you have to pour the grease out of the pan!

3D screen

[trollable]

Sounds cool. However, you better be alone in the room. OTOH, I'm quite interested by the new 3D screen [sharp3d.com]. That should really enhance your game experience. And it is available today.

Re:

[Artifakt]

You may notice that the TV commercials for this product all show it being used on a matte white painted wall. If you'll give me my claim that a lot of pro-high tech early adopters who like 'cool-looking' TV devices that show themselves off, rather than finding them intrusive, are also just the sort to have really decorated their favorite viewing area, how many people right now, that pass all the other tests to become customers, are thinking it won't work as well with their paint or wallpaper?
        Our media room has burgundy sound absorbing cloth, actually salvaged from an old movie theatre, covering all the forward walls. I can't imagine how that scene from Return of the King where the witch king's fortress suddenly lights up with that icy green glow would look on one of these, but then I can't really imagine what it feels like to be run through a sausage grinder alive either, and I don't want to get any better at imagining such things.

Actually, it could help visually-impaired people

[Flyboy Connor]

I once discussed designing games for blind people with a woman who did research in this. She was mainly working with sound, and used a specially-designed touchpad for the gamer to interface with the game. The games she created were fairly stupid, such as recreating sound sequences, and 'whack-a-mole' like exercises.

I suggested that you could also use a couple of big lamps. A blind person could feel the heat of a lamp when it was switched on. I then suggested creating a Thief-like game, which would play in a world of blind people with monsters that could see infra-red. So, when you would be in the full light (you would feel the heat of the lamps), you would be invisible, but in the dark (lamps off) you would be highly visible. Combine this with 3D-sounds, and a pad which would represent walls in the environment by raised buttons (which she already had available), and IMHO you can create a challenging, story-like game for the visually-impaired.

The point is, of course, that people who can see well enough don't need more than what they can see on a screen, but being able to address other sensory inputs may open up the world of computer games to people with certain disabilities. But the games need to be designed around the extra gadgets, and the gadgets should not only be used as an enhancement.