A History of Touch Games Technology

Next Generation has up a lengthy article about the history of touch interaction in games. Above and beyond the obvious, like the DS or the touch panel table demonstrated last year, they also explore concepts like physical interaction in adventure games like Myst. "The popular growth of videogames has been more or less tied to a minimization of distance, and an increase in tangibility; making the player feel like he can touch the world, and that doing so will matter. It makes sense, right? Make people feel actively involved, and they will actively involve themselves. As developers have piled on the abstractions - more buttons, more unspoken conventions, a more confusing perspective - and reveled in the already-existing distance, videogames have passively sunk into their niche, to appeal only to those familiar enough to overlook and accept the abstractions."

They missed the touch master games

[Joe The Dragon]

They missed the touch master games that have some cool games in them.

If they want to appeal to touch gamers...

[Samalie]

...the just need to offer a 3-dimentional touch interface with such classic titles as "Lap Dance Simulator", "Prostitute for a Night" and my personal all time favorite "Play with her Pussy 2: The Dream Genitals"

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[corsec67]

And then you could have a MMORPG based on Teledildonics [wikipedia.org]

Hunt the Pixel

[tepples]

Honestly I really miss the puzzle mouse-only games of Mysts, the Journeyman Projects, etc. They were great games with a good bit of exploration, puzzling, and brain power was needed to succeed. No button mashing here.

That's because a lot of them replaced button mashing with hunt the pixel [wikipedia.org].

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[KDR_11k]

Why are you discounting modern point & click adventures?

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[Is0m0rph]

Myst is coming to the DS with full touch screen support.

Dungeon Master

[Brad1138]

The popular growth of videogames has been more or less tied to a minimization of distance, and an increase in tangibility; making the player feel like he can touch the world, and that doing so will matter

I never felt more "in touch" with a game than when I played Dungeon Master [wikipedia.org] As games have become much more advanced, I still feel like you move through them with only a cursory awareness (or remembrance) of the surroundings.

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[seebs]

Gotta agree on that. DM was immersive in a way that many more recent 3D games couldn't touch.

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[johannesg]

Isn't that in part because much of the scenery in recent 3D games is throwaway material? Take Bioshock: so much effort went into making Rapture breathtakingly beautiful, but you never visit a location more than once. Instead you pass through, never to return. No wonder then that the place doesn't inspire: you never get the chance to bond with it, to make it your own.

Now look at its spiritual predecessor, System Shock 2: it had an inventive level structure that slowly opened up as the game progressed. It pro

Please tell me Trance is on the list

[r_jensen11]

Anyone [wikipedia.org]?

Touch screen discussion

[Gravatron]

and no mention of Tiger's Game.com?

That thing was way ahead of its time. Full touch screen, text based internet access, and several big series like resident evil and Duke nukem. It even had some PDF functionality in it. When the DS was first shown, all I could think of was "game.com 2.0". I find it amazing so few people seem to give credit to the little handheld, as without it there would be no DS.