Cancelled Natal Game Was Hand Puppet Brawler

Tom Goldman

Crying on the inside.
Aug 17, 2009
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Cancelled Natal Game Was Hand Puppet Brawler



Arkedo Studio came up with a Natal game that was very different from the rest of the pack.

Camille Guermonprez, the CEO of Arkedo Studio [http://www.arkedo.com/], a French developer behind quirky titles such as Nervous Brickdown, Big Bang Mini, and XBLA's recent 03 Pixel, has released the concept work from an interesting but unfortunately canceled project for the Xbox 360's Project Natal. The game was dubbed Two-Finger Heroes and would have been a side-scrolling brawler controlled using finger motions and hand puppetry.

To move the game's characters, players would face their hand downwards and walk with two fingers. Gestures would cause the on-screen character to jump or kick as they took on waves of "really stupid" enemies. The strain on two-finger motions would have been broken up with segments that used hand or folded-arm motions. Two-Finger Heroes' "Check" power-up system used specific hand signals, like the naughty [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaka_sign].

As Guermonprez says, the accompanying screen is "bullshit," but was mocked up respecting technical limitations and being realistic in the sense of Arkedo's development tools. Two-Finger Heroes, which was only worked on for 12 days, was canned due to the requirement of "very precise pattern recognition from the Natal system" and localization issues. Finger gestures that could send a person to a death sentence in one area of the world are completely harmless in another, and Arkedo felt it would be a little too much trouble to sort out. I'm saddened, because Two-Finger Heroes is one of the first titles that actually has me excited at what creative people will develop for Natal.

Source: Joystiq [http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=19376188&postcount=200]


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Cherry Cola

Your daddy, your Rock'n'Rolla
Jun 26, 2009
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I doubt it would work that good anyway.

Actually, I think it would be crap.

Then again, I'm always pessimistic about these things. Ever since the Eye Toy frustrated me to no end when I was a kid.

[sub]Stupid thing sucks...[/sub]
 

Darktau

Totally Ergo Proxy
Mar 10, 2009
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Wow I actually like this, "canned due to the requirement of "very precise pattern recognition from the Natal system"". That sucks... well, I get to save some money.
 

Randoms

New member
Dec 11, 2009
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Project Natal now has lower expectations from me, because that game was canned because it was too complex as apposed to it being complete sh**.
 

Simalacrum

Resident Juggler
Apr 17, 2008
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Pretty interesting... lets hope that other titles will sound as cool as well, eh?
 

Radeonx

New member
Apr 26, 2009
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Hopefully the other games that are released are as interesting looking as that.
 

CyberKnight

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Jan 29, 2009
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On the one hand, it's a good sign there are developers that are thinking differently about the kinds of games Natal will be good for.

On the other hand, the "was canned due to the requirement of 'very precise pattern recognition from the Natal system'" comment, if I'm reading it correctly, is troubling. I already worried about having to over-exaggerate movements for Natal to pick up on them, making gaming a very tiring experience (the couple of games that used the Vision Cam, I couldn't play for more than 15 minutes or so before getting worn out, and that was after barely getting anywhere with the system unable to register what I was trying to get it to do).

"Minority Report interface" be damned -- I'll stick to using the controller or remote before I have to sweep my hand across my whole body to page through my Netflix queue.

I wonder if the elimination of Natal's on-board processing chip contributed to this?
 

Pingieking

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Sep 19, 2009
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Looks unique and original. Could be fun. Most likely one of those games that I play for an hour and say "That was pretty fun" and never touch again (sounds like most Wii games, actually).

As several people have noted, the "anned due to the requirement of 'very precise pattern recognition from the Natal system'" line isn't very assuring.
 

InsanityRequiem

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Nov 9, 2009
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I won't lie, if this game wasn't canned, I would have bought Natal for just this game. But alas, the fact that Natal's not up to the requirements needed make me sigh.
 

Dioxide20

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Aug 11, 2009
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I would have played this game, to bad it was cancelled. Definitely a new take on what Natal can do.