prosthetic knowledge

Knightmare

Pioneering UK kids game show from 1987 utilizing green screen and CGI, a rare television programme inspired by computer games.

A team would go on a dungeon quest, with one member blinded by a helmet that would be guided by the others. Obviously the player could not see the CGI, but part of the tension from watching was how the team guided the player through the levels and puzzles.

I saw a repeat of this the other day, and felt it would be worth informing others outside the UK about it.

Some background, courtesy of the Knightmare website:

Spring 1985, and Tim Child, a journalist, reporter and occasional development producer for Anglia TV in Norwich, had a silly idea.

As a journalist, he’d taken to producing a regular weekly review of the fledgling UK 8-bit home computer games industry. The justification for Anglia was that much of this industry seemed to be originating from within its regional boundaries. Sinclair and Acorn were both in Cambridge; Commodore had its UK HQ in Northamptonshire.

Everywhere, people seemed to be coding computer games and spotty boys were becoming adolescent millionaires.

At the time, Tim’s elder sister was working as a middle manager for Clive Sinclair on the Spectrum computer range, and this contact gave him his first brush with home computers.

First, Ultimate’s Attic Attack, and then Hewson’s 48k interactive movie, Dragontorc, convinced the Anglia producer that if adventure gaming was possible in a machine as limited as a Spectrum, then the graphic power of modern television could capitalise on the idea and revolutionise the genre.

The idea for Knightmare was born.

Next, a number of key problems had to be solved. How to create a complex artificial world? How to populate it? How to experience it? How to explore it? How to make it work as television?

From the outset Tim Child wanted to use computer graphics to create his first dungeon, but the trouble was that in 1985, computer graphic imaging (CGI) was in its infancy. The Quantel paintbox had only just been developed (Anglia was yet to purchase one), and most computerised images were sadly disappointing compared to the real thing.

Tim knew what was needed, and it wasn’t the gaudy, crude 4-8 colour illustrations which current computer games were offering. What he actually needed, were the fabulous, atmospheric fantasy illustrations that decorated the outside packaging of said crude computer games. He found some examples, and called the publishers in a bid to identify the artist. The answer was soon forthcoming.

Here is an abridged complete version of a winning teams efforts (44 minutes long):

… but not everyone was so lucky … here is a compilation of many “deaths” in the game (and there were not game lives …):

More about the history of the show can be found here, and many more videos can be found at YouTube

Prosthetic Knowledge Picks: The Gaming Canvas

A collection of items from the Prosthetic Knowledge Tumblr archive and around the Web, taking a brief look at creative works that bring gaming literacy to the canvas plane.

View the whole submission here

for(){}; - projection mapped video game on canvas

Playable art by Brent Watanabe features acrylic hand-painted canvases mounted on wall, with sprites projected on surface - video embedded below:

In for( ){ };, there is no beginning or end to the game, just collecting and wandering, birthing and consuming, an arbitrary point system rising until your inevitable death and the birth of another generation. It is a game mechanism without the game. An addictive but essentially aimless experience.
The piece is a triptych of playable acrylic paintings, controlled by the viewer using a NES controller.

Link

NOTE: It has come to my attention that the paintings were put together by Seattle-based artist Cable Griffith, and was shown in his solo exhibition at Kittredge Gallery in Tacoma, called, “Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start.”

You can check out more of Cable’s work here

Bombermine

Massive multiplayer Bomberman clone playable in your browser.

Try it out here

Vector Exhibition: Other Worlds. @Interaccess.

Vector Games Art festival is about to kick off very soon, and I proud to say I have some (small) involvement with it. The festival itself is both thought-provoking and necessary:

vectorgameartfest:

Other Worlds (co-curated by Prosthetic Knowledge and mrghosty), is an exhibition which addresses digital space as procedural landscapes. Rather than creating games where prescribed routes and narratives directing player movement and action, the works of Other Worlds position the player as a digital flaneur; free to move anywhere within these worlds, while occupying the position of a detached observer.

Other Worlds features the Canadian exhibition debut of The Night Journey, created by Bill Viola and Tracy Fullerton.

Other Worlds features works by : Luis Hernandez, Alex Myers & Jeff Thompson, Lea Albaugh, Arcane Kids, Ed Key & David Kanaga, Alan Kwan, Cyril Lecomte-Languérand, and Axel Shokk.

You can find out more about the festival over at their Tumblr blog here

Minecraft Reality 

iOS Augmented Reality app lets you place Minecraft creations into the real world - video embedded below:

Minecraft Reality lets you combine Minecraft worlds with the real world! Using advanced computer vision, Minecraft Reality maps and tracks the world around you using the camera, and allows you to place Minecraft worlds in reality, and even save them in a specific location for others to look at. You can also upload your own Minecraft worlds at http://minecraftreality.com and place these in reality.

Minecraft Reality lets you:

- View Minecraft worlds tied to reality using advanced computer vision and augmented reality
- Find Minecraft worlds that others have placed in locations nearby
- Upload your own Minecraft worlds at http://minecraftreality.com
- Share screenshots of Minecraft worlds in reality to Facebook and Twitter

Powered by PointCloud SDK (http://pointcloud.io) which lets you map and track 3D spaces using SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping).

More Here

PC Interfacing a GameBoy Camera 

A project to connect a Gameboy camera feed for interactive projects, via Instructables:

Here’s another past project of mine from a couple of years ago. At that time I was looking for a low-res camera for simple robotics image processing, and all I had experience with was PIC (12, 16, and 18) microcontrollers. So I didn’t really get to work on the images real time (not enough RAM or speed, and I could not find any suitable SRAM around at that time). I think I’ll revisit this project later on using my new TI Stellaris Board.

The system consists of a GameBoy Camera (Mitsubishi M64282FP Image Sensor with hardware image processing), an ADC0820 high-speed ADC to convert analog pixel values to digital (the sensor outputs pixels as 2.0V p-p analog values), a LM385-2V5 2.5V micropower voltage reference IC, a PIC18F4660 for processing the digital values to send them later on to a PC via the serial port (or USB with a RS-232 - USB converter).

The PC part of the project is a program (uses OpenGL to display the received image, the height of the pixels change according to brightness to have a fake 3D effect) written on Borland C++  Builder. I also still have the simple test programs written in Processing (brightness tracking, etc.). All will be attached.

A very technical account of how it was all put together can be found here

PS2 ends production run in Japan after 13 epic years 

End of an era for tech that brought many digital experiences to a wider audience - via DVICE:

After an incredible thirteen years, the mighty PS2 has ceased production in its homeland of Japan. Sony’s crown jewel amassed more than 150 million units, which works out to one PS2 for every fifty people on the planet. That incredible user base was broad enough to support some quirky games that, once given some room to breathe, ended up spawning some of gaming’s largest success stories.

More Here

DUNE II in HTML 5 

Dune II was a real-time strategy game developed by Westwood Studios in the 16-Bit gaming era, and a forerunner to the following Command and Conquer games.

While the controls don’t live up to modern RTS intuition, the game has been successfully ported to play on line, which you can here

Arboration 

Interactive game installation causes changes in a virtual natural environment based on harmonies played on a musical interface - video embedded below:

Arboration from Michael Allison on Vimeo.

Arboration is an experiment in virtual environmental game control that places the wellbeing of a digital forest into the hands of a performer using music (and music theory) as the control interface. Playing a capacitive sensing one octave piano keyboard either grows a forest or burns it to the ground depending entirely how its played. The fate of this forest is in your hands.

The idea behind this project stems from the desire to combine musical improvisation with dynamic narrative control. The physical action of playing the piano-like, touch-sensitive keyboard is translated via harmonic analysis into data that controls a 3D environment projected onto a screen. By analyzing the intervals between the notes being played by the performer we can determine if what is being played is harmonically consonant or dissonant which is sent through the programming to determine the visual output. This process allows music theory to be the core of the control structure, however musical form is not a factor allowing anyone to have the full experience, not just musicians. Music theory is the control, play is the vehicle, and visual/emotional response is the feedback system.

More Here

Paradis Perdus (Lost Paradises) 

High Definition low polygon game world to explore, only your path destroys the landscape - video embedded below:

The game is about not belonging. You are the bad guy, you are killing everything you touch. The world you are in is beautiful and green, but the moment you get into it, you start infecting everything, and the world starts decaying, until it eventually ceases to exist. You can choose to exit the world, and then it will heal itself, but then you don’t get to enjoy it of course, because you’re not there any more.

More information, with links to download the alpha for PC, Mac, and Linux, can be found here

Perspective 1.0 

The first-person 3D game to control a 2D platformer has been released today, freely available:

December 12, 2012

Dear Fans,

We’re excited to announce today that Perspective is available for download, free of charge.

Perspective was put together by some of the most competent, hard working, and passionate game creators I have ever worked with. From the very first line of code pushed to our mercurial repository, up until the moment the final build was uploaded, we poured our hearts and souls into the creation of this game.

None of us had the luxury of working on Perspective full-time. From overloaded six-course semesters at DigiPen to full-time jobs and internships, there were always other obligations pulling for our attention. Despite these distractions, we sacrificed sleep and sanity to make Perspective into what it is today.

Making games is hard, much harder than anyone who has never shipped a game before would expect. We hope you enjoy playing Perspective as much as we enjoyed making it. Thanks to all the eager fans who kept us motivated in shipping Perspective.

GLHF,

Pohung

Sega Rally Championship RC Cars Project 

Converting an old two seat arcade driving game cabinet to control remote controlled cars with cameras, developed for a tech event in Portugal (video embedded below):

From The Arcade Man:

The Artica guys are addicted to race games and Trackmania is only one of their favorites!!

They’re still addicted to race games but they don’t play them, instead, they prefer to create their own games.

They thought it would be cool to drive a remote control car using a steering wheel and pedals, and if the car had a wireless cam, the gamer could look at the screen and really see what the car was seeing in real time, just like an arcade game!

This was the proposal to Sapo Codebits! To have an arcade game where it would be possible to drive two cars and participate in a real race, without any simulations or complex algorythms, neither 3D graphics.. They want something real! Celso Martinho from Sapo was very excited with their idea, and by coincidence (or not) they were planning to have a retro gaming area at Sapo Codebits!!

More Here