AWESOME. Thanks for reminding me of that commercial. Exactly what we had in mind... but with magicVrach said:gigastar said:
But with magic
Incantor Kickstarter Brings Magic to Smartphones
- Thread starter Marshall Honorof
- Start date
Sorry to disappoint, but no. The concept was built on a conversation that started around one of those magic wand TV remotes and using that as a WoW controller...Cheesepower5 said:
Well all the best with the project, it sounds like a development lovechild rather than a money grab, which is always good to see in the businessMoveableCode said:AWESOME. Thanks for reminding me of that commercial. Exactly what we had in mind... but with magic
Two big questions though:
1) What kind of smartphones are we talking about here? The likes of iPhone, Samsung Galaxy II and such, or will any phone do? In other words, how much processing power would the game require?
2) What would be the price on the final product? From the looks of the article, it's 60$ for the peripheral and then some for the game. You do realise the implications of trying to sell a motion control smartphone game for more than the price of a triple A game (hate to sound discouraging, but I don't know which part of that sentence sounds less marketable
)? It's not like the peripheral you're making is something widely used, unless you're planning to throw some more functions onto it.Thanks for the vote of confidence. And you're right, it's totally a passion project for us.Vrach said:Well all the best with the project, it sounds like a development lovechild rather than a money grab, which is always good to see in the businessMoveableCode said:AWESOME. Thanks for reminding me of that commercial. Exactly what we had in mind... but with magic
Two big questions though:
1) What kind of smartphones are we talking about here? The likes of iPhone, Samsung Galaxy II and such, or will any phone do? In other words, how much processing power would the game require?
2) What would be the price on the final product? From the looks of the article, it's 60$ for the peripheral and then some for the game. You do realise the implications of trying to sell a motion control smartphone game for more than the price of a triple A game (hate to sound discouraging, but I don't know which part of that sentence sounds less marketable
1) Mid-range and up, iOS and Android. Since we aren't doing augmented reality with realtime 3D graphics overlays, the processor load shouldn't be too bad. I'm not sure what the base device will be, but we are aiming for any device released in the past couple of years to be enough.
2) The game is free to play. There are in-game items you can choose to buy, but you don't have to buy them to play the game. And yes, the peripheral will have some very cool uses outside the game, but we're not talking about that just yet
Hmmm... That is disappointing. Still, not a bad idea. Could be pulled off well.MoveableCode said:
Okay, the other thing I have to comment about is that if you REALLY want people to know about this, you need to make a video in the style of say, Harry Potter seventh book part two - a dramatic mass battle/one on one duel using your product with expensive looking production values (not necessarily actually expensive) and costumes, kind of like that one group that made those "realistic" street fighter videos with the choreography, not that you actually need that level of professionalism, just the impact. You ideally want something that potential backers could IMAGINE when looking at your product. Well, actually what you ideally want is a group that plays in public with video documentation and blogs in order to draw other people into the spectacle and get them engaged in thinking about your game, just demonstrating the actual systems and juicy bits in general. But, lacking that, you still need one GOOD video that cuts out the business chat and just straight up appeals to the heart of the matter.
With 21 days left on your project, you don't really have time to spare because the price to buy in is pretty steep, and isn't as well documented as the epaper watch which everybody seems to be in love with. You need to let people into your world and demonstrate what your idea means past a dispassionate youtube speech, especially because of that pricing.
On that note, it wouldn't really....hurt if you were able to start at a lower point of entry, like say, cheaper wands with more limited capabilities which are synced with the more expensive ones (they would interact through the same smartphone with the main wand acting as a hub, which means the lesser wands wouldn't have a display) which would allow groups to form with one person able to afford the full wand which the cheaper wands are allied with, enabling greater amounts of people to participate without forcing them to buy the whole thing right away.
As for audio, the problem with earphones is that they separate you from the actual experience. When you're being an "actual magic" user, that sound when you fire off or just make any kind of motions with your wand should be immediately accompanied by threatening or awe inspiring sound COMING FROM THE SOURCE, and not the phone. (I also noticed that your prototype only makes noise once the spell has absorbed the cue and triggers in a noticeable delay, instead of pulling forth like a bullet from a gun charged with otherworldly powers.) When you are holding an instrument of power, you want everybody to know who is in control (except for the silent casters, of course). In addition, it's also important for people in real time combat to be able to hear environmental sounds in general, both for the immersion, and to be able to perhaps pick up on some additional cue that their opponent is nearby. The only alternative I can see to that is generating simulated cues from the presence and direction of opponents, but that feels too....artificial compared to what you could be cribbing from real life for free.
On the colored LED thing....while it is one thing to hear magic, the other benchmark for magic is bright lights and flashes. Without it, you look like you're waving funny sticks at each other that make sound effects. The distinction here is that you have pretty good control over how the lights are operated, so you aren't just making it flash like a neon sign or a cheap mass produced toy, the lights will actually show stuff like energy converging into a single point, and then letting loose in a pulse.
With 21 days left on your project, you don't really have time to spare because the price to buy in is pretty steep, and isn't as well documented as the epaper watch which everybody seems to be in love with. You need to let people into your world and demonstrate what your idea means past a dispassionate youtube speech, especially because of that pricing.
On that note, it wouldn't really....hurt if you were able to start at a lower point of entry, like say, cheaper wands with more limited capabilities which are synced with the more expensive ones (they would interact through the same smartphone with the main wand acting as a hub, which means the lesser wands wouldn't have a display) which would allow groups to form with one person able to afford the full wand which the cheaper wands are allied with, enabling greater amounts of people to participate without forcing them to buy the whole thing right away.
As for audio, the problem with earphones is that they separate you from the actual experience. When you're being an "actual magic" user, that sound when you fire off or just make any kind of motions with your wand should be immediately accompanied by threatening or awe inspiring sound COMING FROM THE SOURCE, and not the phone. (I also noticed that your prototype only makes noise once the spell has absorbed the cue and triggers in a noticeable delay, instead of pulling forth like a bullet from a gun charged with otherworldly powers.) When you are holding an instrument of power, you want everybody to know who is in control (except for the silent casters, of course). In addition, it's also important for people in real time combat to be able to hear environmental sounds in general, both for the immersion, and to be able to perhaps pick up on some additional cue that their opponent is nearby. The only alternative I can see to that is generating simulated cues from the presence and direction of opponents, but that feels too....artificial compared to what you could be cribbing from real life for free.
On the colored LED thing....while it is one thing to hear magic, the other benchmark for magic is bright lights and flashes. Without it, you look like you're waving funny sticks at each other that make sound effects. The distinction here is that you have pretty good control over how the lights are operated, so you aren't just making it flash like a neon sign or a cheap mass produced toy, the lights will actually show stuff like energy converging into a single point, and then letting loose in a pulse.
@weirdguy: Thanks for the detailed post.
We went back and forth on the video. We didn't want to over produce it because we are not a huge studio (yet!) ? this really is a passion project that we are building a business excuse for. We also didn't have the budget, but that's probably not a surprise.
The price point is tricky as the first run wands will be made in limited quantities which drives the cost of the electronics waaaay up. We have a lot of tech crammed in there to make it all work, but we plan on selling the wand at close to our cost. However, just the bluetooth radio in low volume is $3-5, so you can see how a low end wand would basically have to have nothing in it to be appreciably cheaper than the final production wand.
I agree with you about earphones. It's been an ongoing debate within the team with a fairly even split between earphones versus speakers in the wand. The issue with the latter choice is that the quality of sound is lousy unless the cost goes up dramatically. We do have some ideas we are working on to solve that though.
Please keep in mind that everything you see in the video is _early_ prototype. We are showing it in a single cut, no edits, so you can tell it's not faked. Some people (see Hookah at the top of this thread) were pretty sure we couldn't R&D a motion controller from scratch for $100k, so we wanted to be very clear that the work on that part has already been done. The Kickstarter raise is for software development around the hardware we've already put together.
But this is alpha hardware and not even the beginnings of the final game app itself. It is a technical demo showing that the wand transmits motion data that gets recognized and triggers a response. The on screen graphics, wand gestures, sounds etc are all placeholders.
Not to get in to too much technical detail, but the principle reason for the lag you see is the Bluetooth profile we are using. We are using a standard profile that has a relatively low data rate, so it takes a while to transmit to the phone. The production wand would use a profile with a higher data rate thereby reducing lag.
Totally agree that the sound should be synchronous with the casting (and the inflicting for the recipient). The wand will also have haptic feedback, so it will vibrate like a dualshock to give you clues about being targeted, the state of your wand, cooldowns etc.
Also agree on the LED. Done right it could be cool. Our principle concern is that it needs to be visible in daylight though and that gets tough from a cost and power consumption point of view. Superbright LEDs are relatively expensive and they'll drain the batteries pretty quickly.
We'll be doing a more detailed post on how to play the game and the tech in the next few days. We'll put it on YouTube as well as Kickstarter...
We went back and forth on the video. We didn't want to over produce it because we are not a huge studio (yet!) ? this really is a passion project that we are building a business excuse for. We also didn't have the budget, but that's probably not a surprise.
The price point is tricky as the first run wands will be made in limited quantities which drives the cost of the electronics waaaay up. We have a lot of tech crammed in there to make it all work, but we plan on selling the wand at close to our cost. However, just the bluetooth radio in low volume is $3-5, so you can see how a low end wand would basically have to have nothing in it to be appreciably cheaper than the final production wand.
I agree with you about earphones. It's been an ongoing debate within the team with a fairly even split between earphones versus speakers in the wand. The issue with the latter choice is that the quality of sound is lousy unless the cost goes up dramatically. We do have some ideas we are working on to solve that though.
Please keep in mind that everything you see in the video is _early_ prototype. We are showing it in a single cut, no edits, so you can tell it's not faked. Some people (see Hookah at the top of this thread) were pretty sure we couldn't R&D a motion controller from scratch for $100k, so we wanted to be very clear that the work on that part has already been done. The Kickstarter raise is for software development around the hardware we've already put together.
But this is alpha hardware and not even the beginnings of the final game app itself. It is a technical demo showing that the wand transmits motion data that gets recognized and triggers a response. The on screen graphics, wand gestures, sounds etc are all placeholders.
Not to get in to too much technical detail, but the principle reason for the lag you see is the Bluetooth profile we are using. We are using a standard profile that has a relatively low data rate, so it takes a while to transmit to the phone. The production wand would use a profile with a higher data rate thereby reducing lag.
Totally agree that the sound should be synchronous with the casting (and the inflicting for the recipient). The wand will also have haptic feedback, so it will vibrate like a dualshock to give you clues about being targeted, the state of your wand, cooldowns etc.
Also agree on the LED. Done right it could be cool. Our principle concern is that it needs to be visible in daylight though and that gets tough from a cost and power consumption point of view. Superbright LEDs are relatively expensive and they'll drain the batteries pretty quickly.
We'll be doing a more detailed post on how to play the game and the tech in the next few days. We'll put it on YouTube as well as Kickstarter...