Billy Idol
Legend
Thanks for the answer and the play.com hint!
EyePet
- Thread starter Gradthrawn
- Start date
Thanks for the answer and the play.com hint!
I think it's a big mistake to assume casual/kid title don't have to be deep and high quality. Good thing SCEA delayed EyePet. I hope they work their *sses off to polish this game.
I played Afrika. While it's okay as a title (It scared my kid when a Zebra charged him
). I also have similar feeling that Afrika would be a stellar game if the developers treat it like a full title instead of shallow mini-games, and limited actions.
EDIT: My wife joined us halfway in Afrika. Within 5 minutes, she told me she could tell this is a casual title because it's not as good as the regular games she saw me playing. Casual should not mean shallow or lousy.
I played Afrika. While it's okay as a title (It scared my kid when a Zebra charged him
). I also have similar feeling that Afrika would be a stellar game if the developers treat it like a full title instead of shallow mini-games, and limited actions.EDIT: My wife joined us halfway in Afrika. Within 5 minutes, she told me she could tell this is a casual title because it's not as good as the regular games she saw me playing. Casual should not mean shallow or lousy.
My wife loves showing guests Chapter 16 in Uncharted 2. It's her favorite bit of gaming so far by a mile. Should Naughty Dog ever decide to use this engine to bring back something like the Kings Quest series style of adventure games, I will have the ultimate casual game and finally something that my wife can and will play.
Heavy Rain though looks promising in this regard, as does the Playstation Motion Controller.
Heavy Rain though looks promising in this regard, as does the Playstation Motion Controller.
Yes, I show Chapter 16 to people too. The setting and graphics are just so mesmerizing.
As for your wife playing an adventure game, I like the mixed hardcore + casual co-op idea using the new motion controller. ^_^
According to one of the reviewers, Heavy Rain seems to be good for group gaming where one person plays while the others offer ideas.
For something like EyePet, people will be wowed by the technology but they may not feel involved in it like WiiSports. I hope Sony adds some multi-stage mini-games or meta-games inside (so there is progression for the users).
As for your wife playing an adventure game, I like the mixed hardcore + casual co-op idea using the new motion controller. ^_^
According to one of the reviewers, Heavy Rain seems to be good for group gaming where one person plays while the others offer ideas.
For something like EyePet, people will be wowed by the technology but they may not feel involved in it like WiiSports. I hope Sony adds some multi-stage mini-games or meta-games inside (so there is progression for the users).
Billy Idol
Legend
Finally played it...not impressed, maybe kids are.
Hope Sony is happy that they canceled Eight Days for this game...
Hope Sony is happy that they canceled Eight Days for this game...
Yeah, kids find it pretty funny. Even my two year old enjoyed it. It was incredibly qute watching her moving around the trampoline and she repeatedly looked down on her hand to see if the Eyepet actually was there.
Still this game is no competition to Lego Rockband in our home right now. That´s a very well crafted game towards kids in the range of 5-10 years and a game the parents can enjoy as well at the same time at a different difficulty. Feels far more constructive than petting virtual animals or shooting virtual zombies in my opinion.
Edit: I should add that I think Eyepet worked far better with the 480p camera than what I what I expected, I was expecting it look more low res than what it actually did, still a HD camera would be nice.
I also agree with Arwin that it will probably work far better with the upcoming wand, ti is pretty easy to accidentally tilt the card so the camera can´t detect it, that could easily be avoided with the wand.
Last edited by a moderator:
Billy Idol
Legend
Yeah, kids find it pretty funny. Even my two year old enjoyed it. It was incredibly qute watching her moving around the trampoline and she repeatedly looked down on her hand to see if the Eyepet actually was there.
Still this game is no competition to Lego Rockband in our home right now. That´s a very well crafted game towards kids in the range of 5-10 years and a game the parents can enjoy as well at the same time at a different difficulty. Feels far more constructive than petting virtual animals or shooting virtual zombies in my opinion.
Edit: I should add that I think Eyepet worked far better with the 480p camera than what I what I expected, I was expecting it look more low res than what it actually did, still a HD camera would be nice.
I also agree with Arwin that it will probably work far better with the upcoming wand, ti is pretty easy to accidentally tilt the card so the camera can´t detect it, that could easily be avoided with the wand.
We placed everything in a room with good light and tried to do everything right. But I have the feeling that at least my 'Sir Henry' does not react so good and I think that it is sometimes difficult to get the right 'perspective': trying to pet it until it fells to sleep was really a challenge because I did not know where I had to pet onscreen to really touch it...
at least, the game was not so expensive and is a nice show for (female) visitors ;-)
How well does the sketch recognition work ? I am not too concerned with the stroking and hand actions for the moment. You can use the new controller for hands. Alternatively, Sony can use it as a self-adjusting light source.
EDIT:
The hand tracking problem in EyePet could be a lighting issue, or simply a bad (EyePet specific) algorithm for teasing out hand motions.
EDIT:
The hand tracking problem in EyePet could be a lighting issue, or simply a bad (EyePet specific) algorithm for teasing out hand motions.
The sketch recognition works pretty well with proper lightning.
I don´t know about using the wand to stroke the pet, that would take away some of the immersion, I agree with Billy Idol that the way it works today do feel a bit awkward, like when you are schamponing the pet, but as you say it may be light related, we have experienced some other issues that definitely are light related.
The way the pet moves around on the floor is almost flawlessly implemented, if they also could the get the shadow to point in the right direction it would be awesome. There are also quite a few acrivities/toys to experience, we´ve just done a fraction of them. I´ll leave them to the kids to explore.
Yes, for some actions like stroking, I think using bare hands is more natural and immersive. They should keep it that way. OTOH, the shampooing and the bubble blowing can be done with the magic card or the new controller. Now I'm glad they delayed the game till March in US. Can't wait to see the improvement.
I fired up Creature Feature for a bunch of kids on New Year. Eight of them crowded around the TV like zombies ! I was worried they might topple the set. All the PSEye could capture were their tummies, as they waved their hands wildly in mid-air. ^_^
Sony should also beef up the online features for this game.
3D displays and Natal-like tracking would be the ideal.
That´s a brilliant idea!
Sony could possibly use their ICU camera to capture a stereographic 3D image as well. That would be totally awesome, you´d get a total 3D perspective.
<- me wearing 3D-glasses.Then it would only be the tactile feedback missing, that would actually be a benefit of using the wand when playing with EyePet. It will be really interesting to see what they will come up with when the wand is realeased later this spring.
That'd be a valuable upgrade. With depth values, they could properly place the critter with occlusion. Then, assuming a 3D TV, the only thing missing (other then physical feedback) would be proper lighting. They should supply a silvered ball to take an environmental lightmap at the camera's position. It could be the creature's 'egg'. In fact go all WiiWaa with it and have a toy inside that you can interact with physically and control AU content on your 3D display properly lit to make compostion very convincing.
So checklist -
3DTV
3D camera system
Silver ball 'egg'
Fluffy toy creature
...
I thin I've just described Nintendo's next system!
I think it could be good enough, especially as this does allow you to get tactile feedback. And for a lot of activities like holding a shower, a sponge, a brush or whatever, holding something like the Wand actually improves the immersion.
To improve things for motions where you don't hold anything in your hand, I guess you could strap the motion controller to your arm (I presume on top would be best) using velcro. This should be more than enough to give the software a much better clue about where your hand is, and you could get tactice feedback thrown in in the process (vibration).
I also think that between face recognition and holding the Wand in your hand, they should be able to figure out most of the upper body. And with leds being so cheap, there's definitely also an option to sell tiny leds that you attach to your body here and there, including attaching them to a simple glove.
But that's pushing things - it's probably best to focus on maxing out what the Wand can do out of the box first and make really, really good software for it. And preferably something like the App Store or the Android Market in terms of ease of creating and publishing games.
Gradthrawn
Veteran
Interesting. Eye Pet's NA and JP delay was because it was being redone as a Move title. There is no longer a Magic Card.
Possible update for current the EU version:
Possible update for current the EU version:
Interesting they are considering giving it away for free, but you could read that as they will bundle it with a Move wand, so you pay for the wand and get the game for free, if you already have the game you already has PSEye..
I understand why they don´t want to make it a patch to the existing EyePet, because there are so many pre-recorded instruction videos that need to be redone with the Move wand, which probably involves many megabytes, possibly giga-bytes which would make it quite impractical as a downloadable patch.
It is kind of both. There are a bunch of activities that are organised over a number of "virtual" days. You are the training the Pet to sing and stuff, it becomes more capable.
Is the Tank mini-game in EyePet at all ?
It is infinitely more interesting than the draw-a-plane and draw-a-car features in the EyePet trailer. In the original Tank demo, I could play with my own tank in a "regular" shooter mini-game. That's where the magic is. As I understand, I could only control the toy car and plane aimlessly in EyePet.
It is infinitely more interesting than the draw-a-plane and draw-a-car features in the EyePet trailer. In the original Tank demo, I could play with my own tank in a "regular" shooter mini-game. That's where the magic is. As I understand, I could only control the toy car and plane aimlessly in EyePet.
EyePet featured on the US Blog (Video interview with Creative Director, Nicolas Doucet):
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2010/05/12/playstation-move-developer-diary-eyepet-for-ps3/
It shows rudimentary hands and motion controller actions.
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2010/05/12/playstation-move-developer-diary-eyepet-for-ps3/
It shows rudimentary hands and motion controller actions.
