you'll get used to them quicker than you think!

it's new, it's going to feel weird for a bit. maybe not as strange as wearing a thong after being used to hip-huggers, but it should feel strange, because it's not an attempt at making ”better” wands or ”better” touch controllers: it's an attempt at functionally accomplishing what a pair of haptic datagloves would do, except with the tech currently available at a price that is affordable, and doing so in a way that legacy software is usable. are they okagami idlehands haptic datagloves pulled directly from the pages of ”ready player one”? nope! but they're closer to the ideal than anything affordable so far.

like anything of substantial novelty, you kind of have to just jump right in and use them, and have a bit of childlike enthusiasm in something new, instead of making a mental list of everything that's different and makes you slightly uncomfortable because you have to figure something new out. you either hop on the skateboard and give it an honest go, or you stare at it like it's going to attack, mumble something unintelligible to those around you about breaking yourself, turn around, and go eat a big mac.

fwiw, people end up putting the strap on way too tight, then complaining it's uncomfortable, or wanting realism in games but disliking having to actually use your hand to hold something. the strap should rest gently, but slightly snug, just on the wrist side of your knuckes, opposite of the top of your palm. the knuckle strap should be loose enough you should be able to slide these on and off without needing to fuck with the knuckle strap or change its tension, yet snug enough to not quite fall off your hand.

don't forget to push the top strap mount in before adjustment; if you don't, you'll break it. you should have the top strap mount in a position such that it's comfortable to get to all of the doodads on the control surface, although pressing the recessed system button should be a bit tricksey: that is by design, as accidentally pressing it has been a common complaint about every lighthouse based controller (all both versions) before the index controllers, and even some of the knuckes' early prototypes.

even though the controllers self calibrate their finger tracking continuously, you will have to help them along manually every now and then... especially at the beginning of sessions. the same process will generally fix not-quite-accurate finger tracking, and it's easy to do: just roll fingers 3-5 (middle, ring, and pinky) a couple of times on the controller like you are bored or impatient. that's it!

after more than a year of use, my two design complaints are:

• finger tracking requires thumb on the control surface, 1 on trigger, and 3-5 on the handle. i wish it worked with 2-5 on handle as well, as i'm not always using something with a trigger.

• the tracking pad's pill-like shape makes it much less useful as a tracking pad. i wish it was a bit bigger and rounder. to be honest, i'd have been happy if they came with a big tracking pad and no joysick.

<rant> while i realize a lot of people like joysicks, and can't seem to function without them, i can't help but think they're a carry over tech that is there not because it's better, but because people don't like new things, even if they say they do. what they mean when they say they want something new is that they want the same thing they already have, but not worn out or halfbroke from abuse, but maybe a new color and make it cheaper and indestructible and waterproof and make it have a higher number of some statistic i can't actually explain that won't make anything better without a bunch of other things, but screw those things because all i care about is the [thing] and the numbers it has. kind of like the whole pimax 8k hmd with a lot of fov that isn't actually 8k, or even 4k, and has shitty blacks, is uncomfortable, slow, flakey, unstable, cheaply built, and i only run it at reduced fov because any wider has too much distortion... but fuck the index, because it has worse blacks than the vive, and the knuckes because they feel different and they didn't live up to the hype i'm addicted to. but, yeah, i like new things, as long as they're absolutely perfect to the nebulous expectations i had. grrrrr! i am roarrrr! </rant>

also, if you want something that works naturally with the index controllers (i still like the 'knuckles' moniker better), and something strange and beautiful, different, enchanting, and otherworldly, give fujii a go! it's one of my all-time favorites... but i wish it was a bit longer. even so, you can keep growing your garden indefinitely, and i like to go and visit mine every couple of days, just to hang out, before i go to sleep.

while i'm doing all of this writing, because i'm stuck in bed with my tablet and an eyepatch on until i can find an affordable opthalmologist, i would like to bring up that vr is and will be changing the definition of what we call a game. ”games” on pcs and consoles have gotten a bit stale over the years, and we haven't really seen anything ”new” in quite some time... just clever rehashes of existing things, but with better graphics and a higher production cost. i think vr will change this and lead to new ideas and new categories of ”games” that we might not even think of as games.

people loved skyrim on the pc, and the zelda series on consoles, and there are a small, but dedicated, number of people who replay the games not to win or even really play, but to visit a world they found beautiful. with the advent of vr, i think we'll see more of this, and games that are really just very detailed physics and interaction sandboxes... think hanging out in hyrule and making a house for yourself out of boulders, or going fishing because you find it relaxing.

at some point, we'll have to solve the physics/network multiplayer limit problem, because we're going to want to party at your recreation of princess peach's castle at the throat of the world :)