Multimodal, Multitouch Gaming Gaining Traction 94
andylim writes "Several universities and commercial entities are developing multimodal, multitouch games, such as a card game using iPhones for individual hands and an iPad for public information, and an iPad Scrabble game that lets you use your iPhone to see your letter tiles. Of course, it's an extremely expensive setup right now, but over time it will become cheaper. It's also pretty cool, so why wouldn't you want to play board/card/strategy games like this?"
And the politics get started again (Score:5, Informative)
In the interest of truth, how about the commenters in this thread start by telling us if they own or have used at length an iPhone, Ipod Touch, or an iPad. I think that if we pay more attention to the people who have something that they know to add we might discover something useful here.
I mean, sheesh - if you want to see people holding forth on things they know nothing about you can always tune in the Fox channel. We're better than that here, aren't we? This "I heard it was bad so it must be" nonsense isn't doing anyone any good. It's a product, not a philosophical statement - so get down off of those high horses and let's discuss this like men and women.
Are they really getting traction? (Score:3, Informative)
All this article seems to claim is that some people are making them. And most of the ones the article mentions aren't even out yet. It remains to be seen if they'll "get traction".
The overall trajectory of hyper-realistic computer versions of traditional games reminds me of an old SNL parody of virtual reality: you put on a headset, and engage in an immersive story world, consisting of a 3d-rendered room exactly like the one you're sitting in. You pick up a 3d-rendered book from the 3d-rendered table beside you, and can read it, turning the pages in beautiful virtual reality. Unfortunately only about 5 words fit per page, due to technical limitations.
Re:"Multi" touch? (Score:4, Informative)
The only multitouch demonstration on any of the videos was rotating the playing cards (to little effect anyway).
Why is "multitouch" specifically such a buzzword, and not just "touch" on its own? Multitouch has so far had weird implications on what sort of appendage/stylus you can use on the surface, whereas single touch does not. Plus, you can effectively do pinch/zoom on a typically single-touch panel, just not rotations.
simply, multitouch refers to a type of screen (capacitive in this case) that can track more than one point of contact simultaneously.
the other type of popular touchscreen is resistive, this is what is used on my htc touch pro2.
if you put three fingers on the surface of the screen, one after another (like how you'd press ctrl-alt-del), it would look like the following:
capacitive: _ _ _
resistive: _
on the resistive screen, whichever spot you touched first is "it".
Re:"Multi" touch? (Score:3, Informative)
I fear the answer is basically because it's the one thing that Apple did first, therefore it's touted as important.
I do agree with you. Touch works fine on my 5800, and lacking multitouch has never been a problem (indeed, I find it easier - one mouse button is simpler, remember?), and a resistive touchscreen has some minor benefits to make up for this minor loss. A well designed UI doesn't need multitouch, it can simply use better paradigms instead.
There are plenty of other touchscreen tablets and phones out there, that would also make perfect boardgame platforms, but we're not going to hear about them here. Expect to see a lot more of these "Doing X on the Ipad" stories, just as we did with the Iphone.