However, I've also been hung up for much of the last week with an idea raised in my Skylanders post: the suggestion that the game participation experience can be enhanced by bringing game objects into the physical world (using 3D printing). This captures some of the charm which is present with physical objects; charm which is missing when those same objects are represented on-screen.
I was discussing this with classmate (and all-round creative genius) Broady Blackwell, looking at the potential for this kind of thing as 3D printers get cheaper. (By comparison with the development of inkjet printers, these devices will likely drop to the stage where they are affordable for households within the next 5 years.)
Broady came up with a cracking suggestion which turned the whole thing on its head: instead of taking the game into the real world, why not take the real world into the game?
(It's interesting to note that these examples directly mimic the way that children play with toys in real life, but can expand it into a more dynamic virtual world. Toys are not games -- a ball is a toy; football is a game -- but perhaps there is an angle here where the game technology can be used to make a sandbox for toy-play rather than focusing specifically on game-play?)
Example #1: A kid builds a cardboard car; a Kinect-style device scans this in, and allows the player to control a 3D photographic replica on-screen in a driving game. The child could associate a dinner plate as the steering wheel and crudely-drawn buttons on the cardboard box as controls.It's not a totally new idea, but it does capture that elusive physical charm which is often missing with virtual objects ... in an unexpected way.
Example #2: A child grabs a washing-up liquid bottle and, also using Kinect-style technology, replicates it on-screen as a pretend spaceship navigating an asteroid field, using the real bottle's movements to control the virual one. Child fires laser bolts by shouting 'pyeow!'
(It's interesting to note that these examples directly mimic the way that children play with toys in real life, but can expand it into a more dynamic virtual world. Toys are not games -- a ball is a toy; football is a game -- but perhaps there is an angle here where the game technology can be used to make a sandbox for toy-play rather than focusing specifically on game-play?)
This development presents a problem. I need to focus my research more tightly, yet this has opened a whole new direction I could take, still focusing on similar themes but in a very different context.
Time for a chat with Josh, and a lot more deliberation...