GCG Readers Invent New Ways to Use Guitar Controller

Readers of Gamasutra's sister educational site GameCareerGuide.com have come up with new non-musical ways to (theoretically) use the Guitar Hero guitar peripheral as a controller. The ideas are the results of the site’s weekly Game Design Challenge. While many of the aspiring game developers who responded to the challenge tried to adapt the guitar as a gun, a few solutions that were more inventive and unique to the controller were revealed and given kudos on the site this week. One game concept was somewhat similar to Diner Dash, only it involved operating elevators. Another, called Siren has the player controlling little hordes of creatures, who are color-coded and are influenced by the responding colors on the guitar. GameCareerGuide also has posted a new challenge, which is accepting submissions through Wednesday, October 22. The challenge is to design a fantasy sports-style game about game development, outlining the scoring system, draft, and win conditions that will be used. Although the site and challenges are designed for aspiring game developers (letting them experiment with game creation problem-solving on a variety of topics), professional game developers are welcomed to participate as well, or to provide feedback to the community via the site’s forum.