Last
week Hungry Hippo came to Microsoft
Surface. As a child I munched my way
through many a white plastic marble so I am fascinated to see how this classic
children’s board game takes to a digital makeover. A number of puzzles, board
games and arcade games have already been given the Surface treatment. Last
month the Microsoft
Surface Games Pack brought some classics to this interactive table, along with the
Tetris-like addiction of the all-new Tiles game. These games demonstrate some
of the amazing features of Microsoft Surface; multi-touch, multi-user, gestural
experiences which are playful, rich and immersive.
Touch
is important as consumers ditch controls in favour of manipulating digital
content using natural gestures. It's early days for touch and there is
understandably a novelty element around gestural interfaces so
despite many of the games being relatively basic, they are still engaging the
users. As we become more familiar with multi touch we won't be so easily
satisfied and will demand more.
Gestural interfaces are the future, and
wherever the future lies you'll always find gamers. Microsoft Surface is not
intended as a gaming device but emerging technologies such as Surface give
gamers a taste of where gaming can go.
Gamers are demanding types with an appetite for innovation so like many
of us they want to squeeze the most out of these technologies. And that takes
me to the point of this ramble. During demonstrations when I'm illustrating the
features of Microsoft Surface I am regularly asked why none of the games
utilize object recognition, why Microsoft Surface’s most compelling
feature, and the feature that sets Microsoft Surface apart from other touch
screen technologies is not used in any of the games so far?
Multi
touch devices recognize multiple simultaneous touch points. Natural user
interfaces enables users to interact in a far more natural and intuitive manner. Yet Microsoft Surface offers more than
this. It houses five cameras inside the
Surface unit which reads information from data (domino) tags and triggers events when physical
objects are placed on the surface. This is about
recognising the object, not just detecting the presence of an object. We have
seen object recognition used to good effect in many other Surface applications,
but not gaming. Surface has its limitations. It can't detect finger pressure
and it doesn’t provide haptic feedback. Surface needs to play to its strengths
and one of these is object recognition.
I'm
not advocating we implement frivolous object recognition as it needs to enhance
the experience. So whether it is as simple as an event occurring on the outcome of
a throw of a dice or a playing card being placed on the table the object
recognition must add to the experience. Take a look at Identity Mine’s Air
Hockey. This is a great illustration of
natural gestures and showcases the magic of blending physical and virtual
worlds, not to mention achieving complex events such as collisions and
acceleration. The success of this game is in its simplicity and naturalness,
but this is a game that clearly wouldn't benefit from object recognition.
Educational
games lend themselves well to Surface and we're already seeing some interesting
applications in this area. Object
recognition lends itself so well to child development as the technology can provide
a richer
sensory environment. For non-educational games we’re not seeing the same uptake.
The absence of object recognition is not a criticism of Microsoft Surface or
the talented designers out there but aren't we missing an opportunity to demonstrate the role of object recognition in interactions of the future.
I know
that there are plenty of creative minds out there so this is a challenge to the
Surface community to conceive a gaming experience which benefits from object recognition.
If you have any
suggestions on games or gaming events that would benefit from object recognition please
comment on this post or post a tweet to #surfacegame.