The outdoor COVID-safe instant gaming . The way I see it.

 I like the photo I have found today.

This is the next step for outdoor instant gaming offered by NVIDIA  on the basis of its cloud gaming platform GEFORCE NOW.  

What is great here?

1.  The gaming system is positioned outdoors.

2. You do not have to go to the arcade club or so.

What causes problems?

1. You still need  a special game controller.

2. One can play alone only. There is no space for two for comfort gaming inside the cabin.

3. Onlookers and bystanders  have no possibility to watch your gaming. But this was a key feature of  the classic  arcade gaming !

4. Social distancing and COVID sanitary still matter😠

Though we see the epic battle between NVIDIA and GOOGLE cloud gaming platforms, they are pretty much the same with the  hardware specifications.

As to me,  the outdoor instant gaming  is most of all hypercasual arcade gaming with simplified gaming and game control. Keeping this approach in my mind, I created an alternative idea of the outdoor arcade gaming . All you need is to  take your gadget , go outdoor with your friends and find your favoirite meeting point with embedded game controllers and wireless  access point. General scheme is desribed below as in my patent application.

My foot-operated game controller  may be made weather  resist and vandal proof. Several prototypes are already tested .

  With animation it may looks like this. Of cause , it is better to use tablet :).

 The gaming computer ( or at least  local ETHERNET I/O module ) maybe installed inside  the vending machine and serviced by  the vending machine's owner.

  The gaming video can be streamed through WiFi for all  onlookers  and bystanders  for watching at any gadget.

The arcade games in this project must be very simple as all hypercasual games do. I have tested several of them. Of causee the first one  for men will be the "Football"!

 

 I suppose that girls will like some kind of dancing arcade.

 

 

 

#cloud gaming, #outdoor gaming, #NVIDIA, #GEFORCE NOW, #STADIA, #instant, #InstantGaming, #Instant_gaming, #outdoor_gaming, #arcade_cabinet

The "spherical" game controller made from scratch

 Now every player has three global choices for game control: a keyboard, a gamepad , and a joystick. With keyboard , one has a lot of buttons but  no analog axes . With joystick you get analog axes but a limited quantity of buttons. With gamepad you get analog axes and buttons, but half of your fingers are out of operation  because they hold gamepad.It wiil be great if all ten fingers  will  be used for the game control. 

 Inventor's brain works like a huge blender which makes a mixture of  existing ideas and adds something new.

I did the same. I took and idea of  a spherical keyboard from US patent and modify it with elements of  a classic joystick and  a gamepad.
 I took an old  plastic salad bowl , a piece of  plywood and a part of broken LED lamp for the housing of a prototype.  The electronic part contains Arduino  modules .

The small OLED display is now used for test purposes, but there is an idea to leave it at the top between upper buttons. In my case all fingers are positioned at the button's caps and there is no need to move them from one button to another . I hope this will help to play faster.

Analog axes are   made from Arduino accelerometer module. This part already works OK .Now I need to connect buttons to Arduino input pins.

 To be continued...

#spherical , #joystick , #DIY , #altctrl, #HMI, #HCI, #gamepad, #ergonomic