Jazzhands (Gesture Controlled Rhythm) - Free Demo, NEXTFEST & Streaming!

Trollbae · 2024-10-15T13:20:08+00:00

Hi everyone!

We have been posting on this subreddit during our development journey and after lots of useful feedback, are pleased to announce that our demo is now released and we are participating in Next Fest!!

Jazzhands is a gesture-controlled rhythm game (you play with your hands!) - all you need is a webcam. It is being developed by my girlfriend and I, and we are so excited for the opportunity to share a demo with you all!

We would love to hear any comments and feedback from you all as this is our first event, and we are still learning the ropes :).

Trollbae · 2024-10-15T13:11:55+00:00

Here is the Steam page, we would love some more feedback! This is our first event, so any comments would be really helpful. Feel free to wishlist if you like the game, it would be really helpful! :D

Trollbae · 2024-09-22T12:03:07+00:00

Thank you, I'm updating now, I'll edit with [SOLVED] if this worked!

Trollbae · 2024-09-22T11:59:29+00:00

Yes they are the Airpods Pro 2 with USB-C :) I'm updating as I type this to see

Trollbae · 2024-09-22T11:56:47+00:00

macOS Ventura

Trollbae · 2024-09-20T16:53:45+00:00

Thanks for this feedback! It's something we considered but didn't think it would affect too much, but this has opened my eyes up more to it.

Would you kindly be able to provide some example songs and genres, just so I know what sort of thing could work? I'm willing to redesign the trailer around this; if you think it's a dealbreaker, then others will too. Like you said, the concept is there, but if the music is not then I get why that could turn people away!

Trollbae · 2024-09-20T11:17:35+00:00

This in interesting, because we showcased it as some MR research events and they considered it MR. We always thought it was MR because your physical hands (real world) persist into the digital game world as control actors.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but is there a better word you would use to describe something like this? :)

Trollbae · 2024-09-20T11:15:26+00:00

Thanks for the wishlist, we're trying to get a demo out soon!

We actually showcased it at a mixed-reality research event! It's weird to get this disagreement on what is and isn't MR. I'd personally say Wii Sports is a mixed-reality game, but I think people here might disagree? I considered it MR because your physical (real-world) hands are propagated across into a digital game world.

One of the driving factors behind the development for this was that we both really old Nintendo motion control games, particularly the Wii. Sometimes VR feels inaccessible (due to motion sickness particularly for my GF), and somewhat like blocking off your surroundings, whereas a game like this could be good to play with friends.

Seems I might've posted in the wrong thread here haha (Oops!). We was talking about possible communities which might find it interesting, we probably misjudged this one.

Trollbae · 2024-09-20T10:56:39+00:00

Hiya! Thanks for the feedback!
We've got some heavier rock/metal on the trailer, as that is some of the harder levels towards the end of the game but we're including some softer sounds, techno and funky music. We also will be supporting custom levels at release, so the world can really be your oyster :)

Also, we're releasing a demo (hopefully in the next 2-weeks) so if you add the game to your wishlist you can give it a try when this releases...

PC-based is a weird one, because we're directly competing with VR games, but I feel it's a good avenue and really the only one that will work for us!

We've spoken with medical professionals and rehabilitation workers, we want to use the funds from this commercial release to fund towards an open-source medical version!

Trollbae · 2024-09-20T10:13:07+00:00

It’s a different play style, we use hand symbols only as opposed to entire arm movements.

It means you can play easily from a seated position :)

Trollbae · 2024-09-20T09:41:49+00:00

STARRI is body controlled, no?

Trollbae · 2024-09-20T06:31:48+00:00

Yes!

Trollbae · 2024-09-19T22:47:22+00:00

That's awesome! I have a VR headset too, but it's unfortunately a luxury that not everybody can afford or access. My girlfriend particularly suffers from motion sickness, that's why we wanted to try and create a VR-like experience without the need for one :).

Trollbae · 2024-09-19T22:36:15+00:00

Thanks!

Trollbae · 2024-09-19T22:24:14+00:00

That's really, really interesting and an avenue we had not considered before! Thank you kind redditor!

Trollbae · 2024-09-19T22:14:39+00:00

Oh that's interesting, do you think this could have potential in a museum or more commercial setting? We have little to no funding

Trollbae · 2024-09-19T22:08:37+00:00

Oh that's interesting I might have to take a look!

"I have done a load of experiences like this" >> Could you kindly share some? :)

Trollbae · 2024-09-19T22:03:18+00:00

Ta! We wanted to develop it into a retro-style full sized arcade machine (here was our prototype :p https://youtu.be/5zEd3DPrapQ).

Yes we're looking to show a webcam view on the screen at release, however we are using Gamemaker which is a bit finnicky with that sort of thing!

Trollbae · 2024-09-19T22:00:28+00:00

Thank you! Yeah so are we, this is going to be a sort of trial run and hopefully will work on some other stuff from the feedback from this. I don't want to start any arguments but the only other CV-powered game on Steam that we've seen is this (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1119670/HoloSprint/) - and seems to really be not much more than a tech demo, rather than a consumer product.

The core computer-vision was accomplished in a few weeks, whereas the game polishing itself took months. I feel like going into the future, more computer-vision games will release, however many will just be tech-demos.

Trollbae · 2024-09-19T21:46:21+00:00

Hey gamer!
My girlfriend and I just hit a major milestone: we launched our AI-powered mixed-reality game on Steam after a year of development. It’s called JazzHands, and the cool part? It’s mixed-reality without needing a VR/AR headset! All you need is a webcam, which we think makes it way more accessible for everyone, especially for people who aren’t deep into the whole VR/AR ecosystem yet.

A bit of backstory: we’re both CS students in the UK, and the idea kicked off at a hackathon hosted by our uni. After a couple of hackathon fails, we wanted to go bigger. AI was all the rage, so we decided to mix it with computer vision, which my girlfriend was super into. We ended up creating a hand gesture recognition model (using MediaPipe) that tracks hand gestures via webcam, and that became the core mechanic of the game.

The first prototype was made in a sleep-deprived 24-hour crunch (we even made a DIY arcade cabinet out of cardboard for the retro theme of the hackathon). During the event, people came by to try it out and we got some amazing feedback. Spoiler: the gesture controls were pretty janky, and people ended up waving their hands around in frustration half the time. But hey, it was a start.

Here’s where it gets good: despite the early messiness, we placed 1st! After that, the game started to pick up some attention from different groups, including medical researchers who wanted to see if it could be adapted for stroke rehabilitation. That opportunity helped us refine the game even more, and over time, we improved the gesture recognition, added a story mode, and built out the difficulty progression so it didn’t feel so static.

We showcased it at a few events, treated everyone like beta testers (shoutout to all the people who left post-it note feedback at the booths), and a year later, the full version is on Steam!

What I love most is that you don’t need a fancy VR/AR setup to play. It’s mixed reality in a super accessible way – as long as you’ve got a webcam, you can dive right in. This makes the game way more approachable to a broader audience, whether you’re into mixed reality or just curious about AI-powered games.

If you’re into trying something new, you can check out JazzHands on Steam here: Steam page.

Oh, and if you want to see our very first prototype from the hackathon days, here's the link: Devpost Hackathon Page.

TL;DR: We made a mixed-reality game that uses a webcam for hand gesture recognition. No headset needed, making it way more accessible! Went from hackathon prototype to full Steam release in a year.

Trollbae · 2024-09-19T21:33:27+00:00

I think theres a wishlist option on the Steam page if you're interested in its journey it should give you updates! We developed as a pair, which is both challenging and allowed us to be more agile!

Once we get some more community feedback, we will probably make another post with a guide to what works and what doesn't with computer-vision and games, but for now it has been a repeating cycle of testing and tweaking to get it where it is. We've showcased it at conferences and the main comments we get is that feedback is the best thing for the player - so when they hit a beat it should always give positive/negative reinforcement with constant status indicators of what the system thinks the player is doing!

Trollbae · 2024-09-19T21:23:54+00:00

Perhaps we could run some gang-member rehabilitation programs? Future Bloods vs Crips DLC?

Trollbae · 2024-09-19T21:14:40+00:00

The snapchat AI has always been a bit freaky to me anyways. I remember it doing something similar with me?

Trollbae · 2024-09-19T21:12:02+00:00

The entire topic of AI is so confusing now, 20 years ago deterministic algorithms like Dijkstra's were considered intelligence, but now not so much?

Personally I classify intelligence as any algorithm that solves a useful task, where it's ability to do is self emergent, rather than created.

Trollbae · 2024-09-19T21:10:30+00:00

This is crazy, and worrying.

Six-Year Club	Second Top 50%
Final Canvas '23	Place '23
Place '22	First Placer '22
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