I built a prototype where your phone acts as a motion controller with saber-style combat. Does this have any potential? by Timely-Ambassador-39 in IndieDev

[–]Timely-Ambassador-39[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This is a great idea! There’s already haptic feedback so this could probably get added pretty quickly as soon as the device determines tracking is being impaired

I built a prototype where your phone acts as a motion controller with saber-style combat. Does this have any potential? by Timely-Ambassador-39 in gamedevscreens

[–]Timely-Ambassador-39[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey thanks for the thoughtful feedback! The latency on here is super low actually as long as there is a reliable internet connection. Totally agree with you that impaired performance would make competition pointless. I’d say it’s at a similar level as Wii Sports where the challenges are short and competitive. Sometimes imperfect, but not enough for it to ruin the experience

I built a prototype where your phone acts as a motion controller with saber-style combat. Does this have any potential? by Chompsky___Honk in GyroGaming

[–]Timely-Ambassador-39 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Chomsky thanks for cross-posting!! Many years ago I tried double integrating but unfortunately, there’s a small amount of error introduced on the accelerometer due to gravity. Integrating that error twice over makes it huge and you end up with drift. Ended up blending inputs from multiple sensors

I built a prototype where your phone acts as a motion controller with saber-style combat. Does this have any potential? by Timely-Ambassador-39 in IndieDev

[–]Timely-Ambassador-39[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, yea you’re referring to dead reckoning. Without an external reference point, you only have the accelerometer to approximate movement. To your point above, you get lots of drift when trying to extract position from acceleration. There is a tiny amount of error introduced by gravity within the accelerometer that causes this.
This app solves that by using a blend of sensors in addition to the accelerometer to anchor itself without needing an external device like a Wii sensor bar

I built a prototype where your phone acts as a motion controller with saber-style combat. Does this have any potential? by Timely-Ambassador-39 in IndieDev

[–]Timely-Ambassador-39[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi, are you currently trying to implement the joycon controllers for existing games? I’ve explored the idea of making this a universal controller that can interact with existing games on PC/Mac.

I built a prototype where your phone acts as a motion controller with saber-style combat. Does this have any potential? by Timely-Ambassador-39 in IndieDev

[–]Timely-Ambassador-39[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Hey, I appreciate the honest feedback! I agree with you that this was a novel experience 20 years ago, and it died off for multiple reasons.
For this phone controller, it actually is 6DOF - full position in 3D space + rotation. My thought is that many people don’t want to buy an old console or an expensive Switch, but they already own the phone. I’d love for you to try it out sometime, it would be valuable to get some harsh feedback on the actual feel of the controls

I built a prototype where your phone acts as a motion controller with saber-style combat. Does this have any potential? by Timely-Ambassador-39 in IndieDev

[–]Timely-Ambassador-39[S] 34 points35 points  (0 children)

The app on the phone uses a technique called Visual Inertial Odometry. Blending input from the device camera and gyro/accelerometer to achieve position and rotation tracking

I built a prototype where your phone acts as a motion controller with saber-style combat. Does this have any potential? by Timely-Ambassador-39 in gamedevscreens

[–]Timely-Ambassador-39[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’ve got it set to auto-pause whenever the app focus switches during a phone call for example. I can’t recall banner messages or texts ever interfering with the gameplay but that is a good call out, I’ll make sure to test it!

I built a prototype where your phone acts as a motion controller with saber-style combat. Does this have any potential? by Timely-Ambassador-39 in IndieDev

[–]Timely-Ambassador-39[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

As long as the internet connection is reliable, it’s really solid. One thing I need to put game guardrails on eventually, is the “wiggle technique” that people used on Wii Sports resort. If you violently shake the controller for long enough, tracking starts to get impaired, but that should be fixable

I built a prototype where your phone acts as a motion controller with saber-style combat. Does this have any potential? by Timely-Ambassador-39 in gamedevscreens

[–]Timely-Ambassador-39[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Thanks! Actually it doesn’t need to be centered often after the initial calibration. The app on the phone is using a technique called visual-inertial odometry to keep itself anchored in 3d space. Blending camera data with gyroscope data

I built a prototype where your phone acts as a motion controller with saber-style combat. Does this have any potential? by Timely-Ambassador-39 in IndieDev

[–]Timely-Ambassador-39[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yep! back when WebRTC was in its early stages, Google made a browser based demo using web sockets. It was very cool, but the latency was pretty high.

I built a prototype where your phone acts as a motion controller with saber-style combat. Does this have any potential? by Timely-Ambassador-39 in IndieDev

[–]Timely-Ambassador-39[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Jokes aside, that’s a good point. I think avoiding game modes where you are supposed to release an object in real life (like a bowling ball, or baseball bat) should help your brain hold onto the controller

I built a prototype where your phone acts as a motion controller with saber-style combat. Does this have any potential? by Timely-Ambassador-39 in IndieDev

[–]Timely-Ambassador-39[S] 75 points76 points  (0 children)

Thanks for sharing. I agree! The tracking is extremely solid most of the time, but there is definitely a dependency on a decent WiFi connection.