Earlier this year, I began thinking about video game controllers that were more like meta controllers - devices that could turn other objects into game controllers. If there were such objects, the gameplay itself could also have this meta-level, where players are actively looking for objects and interfaces in the environment to bring into the play and transforming them into gaming devices.

In the traditional game experience, designers craft an experience that is consumed by players, think Zelda where solutions to puzzles are pre-defined. Meta controllers can enable an Open Design approach to the game experience, where the designer provides tools with which the player can shape their own experience. In this case, I could give you a tool that allows you to turn anything you want into a game controller, and part of the play is in the expression of your own creativity in finding the most interesting objects to play with.

FluxBits are my first attempt to describe these meta controllers in a tangible form...

FluxBits are wearable game interfaces that transform the objects around you into controls for a video game.

FluxBits are worn on the body and accompany the player throughout the day. Game play can take place anywhere and anytime, at the player’s discretion.

The individual FluxBit pieces form an ad-hoc network, communicating with a central mobile device, which would be used as the display during game play.

The FluxBits wrist cuff attaches to an object in-situ. This act turns whatever object it is into a game controller.

FluxBits translates the movement of the object into directions for the video game and sends this to the display device. Here the player is using a bus strap to play Pac-Man with her Nintendo DS.

As the player walks through the city, everyday, non-digital interfaces now become possibilities for play. The FluxBit cuff can be attached to any number of things, transforming them into game controllers.

Once a player has played an object, she can mark the object with a sticker to describe to other players how it might be turned into a game interface. In the above graphic, the player puts a FluxBit sticker on a bus strap, indicating where a FluxBit can be attached for playing.

To support this markup play pattern, FluxBits also offers a location-based gaming service. Each sticker that is attached to an object has associated with it a scorecard, listing who has played here and their hi-score. This scorecard is accessed with a mobile phone, using a tracking ID or RFID tag on the sticker itself. When players find a sticker, they can see who has played there and what are the hi-scores to beat. By playing a game at this location, the player’s own records are updated on the scorecard. Dedicated players can request a map of the city with tagged gaming locations and spend a day seeking out these locations to play.

FluxBits can enable massively multiplayer city games. There are environments in the city that cater to tens and hundreds of people all at once, such as a parking lot, or a train carriage. If a group of FluxBit players descended upon these spaces, they could take part in a single, networked game using the interfaces available. Imagine a parking lot full of people playing games with the door handles of cars… This calls for the design of new types of action games that could accommodate many simultaneous players. In the graphic above, I am describing a caterpillar game where players control individual legs on a giant caterpillar and must co-operate to race other teams.

If we are giving players the open possibility of exploring new interfaces they would like to play with, then these explorations could also affect the video game itself. Reconfigurable play is where choice of the interface object will affect the tools being used in the virtual game. In the above example, imagine a simple game based around Mary Poppins. On a rainy day, the player might use their opened umbrella to play, and correspondingly, Mary Poppins would travel through the game using a flying umbrella. On another day, the player could be using a down-turned, closed umbrella, and likewise Mary Poppins’ mode of transport changes to a scooter, a vehicle that corresponds to the user’s physical action in playing the game.

There are more possibilities here in terms of the form of these FluxBits. I'm not so satisfied right now with my rather abstract images of the fashion accessory handcuff.

Right now prototypes exist as hardware clamps:

These things clamp onto things and lets people play video games. In fact, here's a picture of Gillian Crampton-Smith playing a game with 2 tables. One controls the vertical movement and the other one controls the horizontal. She must flap them about to move her little character on the screen. The game she playing is Devil Dust Bunnies, a Pacman derivative I made for an earlier investigation.

See my thesis introduction for a general overview.

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