The Singapore-M.I.T. Gambit Game Lab (“gambit” for gamers, aesthetics, mechanics, business, innovation and technology) brings together computer geeks of Cambridge and computer geeks of the Asian city-state. The point: to develop video games for the global market from the outset, not translate them from one continent to another.
Eitan Glinert, there as a master’s candidate in computer science, got to thinking about one market lost in translation. “People with disabilities were being left out of progress in the gaming market,” says Mr. Glinert, 26. For his master’s thesis, Mr. Glinert wanted to make a game that would work equally for the visually impaired and for the seeing, so they could play together.
A team of seven other students at the lab and a professor from the National University of Singapore pitched in. The result, Audi Odyssey, can be played with a keyboard or Nintendo Wii remote (to download, go to gambit.mit.edu/loadgame/audiodyssey.php).
The game stars a D.J. named Vinyl Scorcher whose objective is to get the people in his nightclub on the dance floor, by playing great music. “Choosing music as our central game theme works perfectly since both sighted and nonsighted users are equally familiar with music,” Mr. Glinert says. But it wasn’t enough to make the game playable by both groups; both groups had to have the same experience.
“You listen for clapping beats while the song is playing,” he says. “Your task is to match these clapping beats.”
If you hear a clap to your right, swing the remote to the right in time with the music, or hit the right arrow key. With a “beat” matched, the player adds more tracks, and more clubbers dance. “The more complex the song gets, the more crowded the floor gets,” he says. One obstacle: overexcited clubbers might bump into his table. And onward to advanced levels of play.
Since the game came out last summer, Mr. Glinert has founded Fire Hose Games, in Cambridge, to develop video games with a positive social impact.
He wrote his thesis on his AudiOdyssey research. He got an A.
Source: New York Times
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