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My principal interest in mobile applications is to push the boundaries of innovation to create uniquely mobile experiences. I hope my blogs excite and challenge developers to think 'outside the box'.

A Zero Button Game

coultonp | 07 September, 2007 15:48

I have been meaning to write this blog since the Champion day in Singapore (yes I know I am slack) as it sprang from a conversation I was having with Kevin Sharp over dinner.
Basically, we were talking about mobile interfaces and in particular the desirability of the one button game but when I was showing him the game my student Paul Gilbertson had just completed we realised it was in fact a no button game.
The game itself is called Tunnel Run and is designed to run on one of my favourite development phones the Nokia 5500. Those of you in the know will realise that this is the device with the in-built 3D accelerometers that I am so fond of. It builds on the Poppet framework we created for Tilt Racer and Paul has used this to create a Novel 3D driving game. The idea was to test the validity of ‘tilt’ as a valid input for mobile gaming we would not create a game that traditionally uses tilt as an input sucj as a marble game.

During the trials, we recorded the users’ comments and then got them to asses the merits of the tilt interface compared to the traditional keypad interface for game playing. One of the most usual comments when the users first started the tilt game was “that’s so cool” and “this is a lot more fun than the other one”. 

The unanimous opinion was that the tilt interface was the most fun and they all preferred it to the traditional joypad and a number of the users said it was “easier if you have big fingers”. Further, all of the users identified the problem with the tilting the game forward as a game design issue rather than an interface issue and were very impressed by the granularity of tilt control which appears to have been a significant problem when using the camera. 
Interestingly a number of users asked whether “this was a commercial phone” and “whether they will put the sensors in all new phones” which, along with the comment “this is great I don’t usuall play these types of game” should be encouragement to manufacturers to consider the incorporation of the technology to a wide range of devices.
You can see the game in action here and if more phones appear with 3D accelerometers maybe we will publish it one of these days.

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Comments

Re: A Zero Button Game

kevin_s2f | 07/09/2007, 19:41

kevin_s2f That is a seriously cool interface. And a great dinner conversation.

Re: A Zero Button Game

coultonp | 10/09/2007, 10:56

coultonp Kevin

Cheers. I recall this was but one of many interesting topics and i hope we get the opportunity again soon

Re: A Zero Button Game

biskero | 07/09/2007, 19:58

biskero Ciao Paul,

I recall that everyone in Singapore during dinner were super hooked by the game!
I would say, sell it !!!

Alessandro

Re: A Zero Button Game

coultonp | 10/09/2007, 10:58

coultonp Ciao Alessandro,

Thnaks for the support and as you say everyone who tries the game thinks its very cool trouble is that they dont have that phone model :( lets hope we see more accelerometer phones soon :)

Re: A Zero Button Game

hartti | 08/09/2007, 01:50

hartti To be honest, I am looking forward for more phones with accelerometers too. And with proper support for utilizing the sensors in your apps, independent of what language you are using (C++, Java ME, Python, Flash Lite). That would really jumpstart a new batch of games and entertainment (and also other applications utilizing the new input mechanism...)

Hartti

Re: A Zero Button Game

coultonp | 10/09/2007, 10:53

coultonp Hartti

I completly agree I am a huge fan of this phone as it has provide a large number of very interesting research directions for us. I have one more to come which will hopefully continue the theme.
Langauge independence is also very important and the daemon we created has allowed us to use J2ME which otherwise we wouldnt be able too and we are helping Jurgen use it with Python. I am crrently playing around with Widsets which would be nice to link to but nout sure how possible that is yet still learing

Re: A Zero Button Game

Mark | 04/11/2007, 07:31

Have you seen this project?
http://research.nokia.com/projects/activity_monitor

Looks like nokia is implementing accelerometers in other phones.. Since the n95 is a flag model, its far more popular than the 5500 and more people got it, i think. Would your application work in it as well?

Tunnel Run

Paul Coulton | 26/11/2007, 19:04

Mark Yes it will and we are just finishing the conversion so the graphics take advantage of the N95 screen

tilting and mobile gaming

spesho | 23/02/2008, 17:45

hello all,
I am a student in CS, now in grad school with games&media focus. I must find some decent papers on tilting and gaming, in contest of mobile devices.
Please anyone, can you recall stumbling upon such a paper or comprehensive-article for that matter?...

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