On the underuse of microphones in gaming - a shower insight

I’m back! (Who the hell cares?!) As I know I will not be able to finish my Nanowrimo on time (which doesn’t mean I won’t finish my book [I hope]), I decided to come back to my beloved game blog. Plus, I had an insight for a theme while taking a shower (the place and time where most of my ideas occur). Microphone and games was the theme and while soaping and unsoaping (and spending some delicious time just feeling the drops of water hit my body [which I believe is one of the most underrated tactile sensations]) I came with two and a half ideas on how to implement microphone use in games. One pretty obvious, one and a half not so much. Let’s get the obvious things out of the way first.

Brothers In Arms: Earned In Blood (I never played but I guess it illustrates my point)

Well, this one is so obvious that maybe someone already did it and I don’t know (you see, I’m not a fps type of guy). Anyway, some fpses have a platoon type of gameplay where you’re among a bunch of AI guys fighting your way through hordes of whatever. Some of these games give you the ability to command your electronic comrades to perform certain tasks, take strategic positions/formations, attack, retreat etc. Generally these commands are activated through menus, navigated using controller buttons. And even if there’s no menu, the player have to reach the D-pad or other button input pattern that’s different of that used in the main shooting scheme. Whatever the case may be, giving orders to the troop cuts the player off the action. And in fpses I believe that’s bad gaming. But (I know you know what I’m about to say, that’s why I said it was obvious) with the Kinects and Playstation Moves around, both having microphone input, the player could easily scream away their orders to the group while simultaneously shooting foes on the latest zombie-mode DLC of the week. People think microphones is only to talk to other people, but people (and I mean developers now) should also consider microphones as game input devices. Command fellow AI in a fps is just the top of the iceberg though. A pretty obvious usage of mics. I’m listening to Kid A (Radiohead) right now. Just to mention. :P

As my mind tends to build a thought up the orther towards absurdity, my shower insight got me into a more mic derived game play idea. To make things simple, let’s imagine the game is a 2D sidescroller. Instead of button pushing, you give voice commands. Say “walk” and little Mario walks. Say “run” and the guy stampedes. While running/walking, you say “jump” and - ta-dah -  you hit that question mark. Upon landing he continues to run his way until you say “stop”. Oh, but the mushroom hit that pipe and is running in the opposite direction; you sure gotta get it. “Turn” (or “left” or “right”, multiple words for the same action would be definitely cool and useful in moments of despair), then “run” and you’re now big Mario. And we can spice things up. Imagine time is running up. “Run” is not enough, so you say “faster” and Mr. Mustache accelerates. But it’s still not enough, just five secs left. So you say “faster, faster, faster!” as Mario gets increasingly high-speed. “Jump” and you’re at the top of that flagpole amidst fireworks.

Scribblenauts

As you see, it’s possible to emulate a platformer like Mario guided only by voice (obviously with the necessary adaptations in pace and required precision). That was just the second floor of the thought building. We can get a little more “scribblenautic” (by the way why Scribblenauts doesn’t have voice recognition as an input option? Looks so awkward to tick those tiny letters [never played DS {shame on me, shame on me ((but games are darn expensive in Brazil))}]). We can imagine a game where the player decides what action to perform in order to surpass the obstacles/puzzles/challenges. Just to name some that popped in my mind: shrink, stretch, float, fly, disintegrate, shout, shoot, roll, spit… And what if the game was sensitive to volume or pitch? Like if you say “fire” the guy will shoot an average laser. And if you say “FIIiiIIIReeeEEE!!” it will send a super-ultra-beam. Or if you murmur it, it will send a beam weak enough to disrupt the circuit without destroying it. Or if you say an all girlish “fire” it will shoot a pink ray that kills pink enemies more effectively and if you “fire” James Earl Jones style you shoot a black-Darth-Vader-esque ray that destroys the whole universe. Or something. Point in fact is that, as you can see, possibilities abound. I would love to tell my Sims what to do by actually speaking to them. There’s a whole new level of power to be felt when you command those little bastards with your own voice (like your boss does to you, ya know).

I know speech recognition is a reality. Like that horrible automaton phone calls that “listens” to you or software like this http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/product/587538/review/nuance_dragon_naturallyspeaking_11_professional.html . So now that most systems have mics, I hope developers see them as a useful input device to enhance game play, not only a channel to trash talk someone that’s too far away to punch you in the face.

I know calibrating speech recognition might be a hurdle to players so if I could I would press the hardware manufacturers (Sony, Nintendo [my beloved Nintendo] and Microsoft) to be the ones asking for the calibration (as well as to provide the speech recognition software to developers), so the player would only have to do the process once for each avatar and so would be set for every “voice-game” on that console.
Yes, I like to take a good shower (as much as I like Nintendo and Björk :D ). Gosh if I could write this fast on my book… But it will come. Yes it will. Be prepared!