| WereKitten said: Going back to the example of ED, I still find that a puzzling one. With a device such as the vitality sensor you are tying the simulated "stress" of your character to your real life, measurable one. Let's say that in an horror game you discover something that is supposed to stress your character, but doesn't do anything for you, such as a note saying "remember Newcastle" that would be explained later. Or you turn a corner to see a giant spider in a cathedral, but it's your third replay so there's no surprise there in real life even though it's supposed to be a terrible shock for your character. Basically I can't see it being useful in games where the specific psychological involvement if your character is important, only in those games in which it's simply a control game mechanic (try and reduce your stress to have less shaking of your hand while defusing a bomb or performing surgery, or to reduce your oxygen consumption while swimming underwater). For horror games where your character's psychological state is important but is not necessarily yours? Not so much. It would only work for cheap scares of the "dog through the window" kind, and even then not all the time. And ED with its lovecraftian, slowly mounting horror is not a good example. |
This is a really important point i think and one of the reasons i'm not yet convinced that it could be successfully integrated into horror games. I guess another way to handle it would be do the inverse. Again using ED as an example the game would throw more insanity effects, increase the tempo of the music, generate more enemies etc for people who's heart rate isn't increasing in reponse to the normal gameplay parameters while giving a more sedate ride to those who are already excited. A problem though is that like the sanity effects in ED it could wear thin after a while.
Another more simple application i guess would be having the tempo of the games music linked to changes in your heart rate. It wouldn't be integral to the game but it might add a nice touch.
In the end i hope the vitality sensor is used for more than fitness or 'vitality' games and i'm curious to see if developers can come up with some novel applications.
