Humans can go without sight or sound - but not without touch

One of the things that make games fun is feedback.  In my post about gameplay and fun, seeing the feedback from various interactions is fun.  What is underestimated is how much a small interaction makes a difference.

For instance, when you depress the mouse button, you can feel it “click.”  What if you pressed on a mouse and you couldn’t hear or feel it click?  The small “click” makes a difference in feedback.  On a keyboard, I can type up to 110 words per minute.  But if you put me on a touchscreen where I cannot physically feel the keys depress, I will suddenly drop in speed.  Little tangibles make a difference in gameplay experience.

One of my favorite games to play in the arcade was the original Time Crisis.  It had a gun that when it fired, the breach would fire back like a real semi-automatic pistol.  I didn’t notice how much this little feature made a difference in the experience of the game until the home version of Time Crisis came to the Playstation One which came with a light gun.  After feeling the vibration from the arcade version of the game, the boring light gun just didn’t give quite the same experience.

When the PS3 came out and the first generation of Dual Shock 3 controllers came out without a rumble pack, there was a serious uproar.  The vibration features of a game made a serious difference in how people played because you could “feel” the game and removing the rumble feature was like removing one of your senses – specifically touch.  There was a huge relief to gamers that Sony quickly returned to putting rumble back into their controllers.

In fact, one of the major complaints of the iPhone in competing against the Nintendo DS and Sony’s PSPs is that there are no tangible buttons.

The big news from this year’s E3 is Microsoft’s “Natal” – a sensor that allows you to play a game with no controller – or rather as your whole body as a controller.  What I love about this is that Microsoft and Sony have taken a cue from Nintendo and started focusing less on pushing polygons and more on enhancing the gameplay experience.  Natal is an impressive piece of technology, and I am in awe that we are in an age of science fiction gone reality.

But where I think Natal goes wrong is because there is no controller – there is nothing tangible to hold, manipulate or use.  Imagine a driving game where you have to pretend that you are using a steering wheel.  Wouldn’t your arms tire out without holding onto a real steering wheel?  And even with game systems that have steering wheels to use with their controllers, isn’t the element of feeling the road and feedback missing?  The draw of arcade games is that those bulky machines can give you those sensations.

A Place to Make-Believe

In my rush to recreate one of my favorite arcade games “Afterburner”, I forgot that one of the major elements of fun for that game is the fact that I got to sit in a seat that looked like a fighter plane cockpit with a flight stick.  The cockpit would elevate according to the way I pushed the flight stick and it allowed me to feel like a fighter pilot.  When I tried to translate the same tangibles to keyboard and mouse, I quickly realized that I had made a mistake, but forced myself to finish Strike Eagle.

Where the Wii-mote has advantages is the fact that it is a controller – something you can touch.  You can swing it like a tennis racket.  When you strike the ball, it can vibrate and make a noise.  With Natal, without some sort of prop, you’re just swinging wildly.  Even when my son likes to pretend he is swinging a sword, holding a stick or a spatula makes a big difference thank swinging with nothing but air.

It’s these tangibles that make a big difference.