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I think this is the first time I've been genuinely impressed with a Chrome Experiment. They've recreated Super Monkey Ball entirely inside the browser, with th

by zerovox 14y ago

I think this is the first time I've been genuinely impressed with a Chrome Experiment. They've recreated Super Monkey Ball entirely inside the browser, with the option of using a device as a controller. Certainly an interesting concept for multiplayer gaming, imagine Chrome running on a Smart TV(Chrome OS TV?) and a couple of friends can hook up their mobiles as controllers, and play some casual party style games like Monkey Ball or Mario Party.

Kiro 14y ago
Yes, that's what I've been dreaming of ever since I first saw a smartphone. I'm very surprised it isn't as obvious to other people how cool it would be. The smartphone is the perfect game controller. For example a strategy game played on a TV together with friends where each phone is not only used for controls but also showing (private) game data and more!
- andypants 14y ago
  No, it's not a perfect game controller. A convenient one maybe, but not perfect, not even good. It has the same problem that you would encounter if you tried touch typing on an iphone keyboard. It has no physical feedback so you have no idea if you are pressing the correct button (or any button at all) on the phone screen unless you are actually looking at it. Which means you won't be able to look at the TV screen at the same time.
  - Kiro 14y ago
    So you think it would suck or what?
    - andypants 14y ago
      I think it would suck compared to a traditional game controller, if it were to be used as a traditional game controller. As say, a motion device, it could probably work just as well as any other controller. But there are of course ways to improve the experience. For example, you could show the visual feedback on the TV itself, so you can see where you are touching relative to the display. Similar to how the Kinect shows where it thinks your hands are.
  - cgislason 14y ago
    Don't you think the reality is some middle ground? It's a perfect game controller for some games.
    - vrek 14y ago
      I agree. It is perfect for games which rely on the idea of positioning your hands. It's really just a tool for the idea of moving the world with your hands. In this case it's perfect.
    - andypants 14y ago
      Yeah, you're right. I was thinking in terms of a traditional console game controller. A phone has other features that could be used like speakers, microphone, accelerometer, etc. As a motion device it would be great, definitely.
  - pondababa 14y ago
    When my iPhone 3G's screen broke, the bottom part of the LCD broke--just enough to cover the keyboard. I was abroad, so for the month until I got home, I learned to touch type on my iPhone.
  - AndyJPartridge 14y ago
    I feel for what you mean here. Personally I hate the PS3 controller as it's too small, I much prefer the xBox 360 controller and especially if it has the keyboard attached to it. Also, on the iPhone I dislike 99% of the games that use a virtual joystick on the screen, I just can't get on with them. But for touch interface games, what the parent post says is a joy I look forward to experiencing: A game with discreet information on the hand-held device. A touch screen certainly isn't for 60fps twitch-gaming in my opinion.
    - mkr-hn 14y ago
      > But for touch interface games, what the parent post says is a joy I look forward to experiencing: A game with discreet information on the hand-held device. Isn't that the whole idea behind the WiiU?
- psbp 14y ago
  The smartphone is also the perfect portable mouse. I wouldn't be surprised if the new Motorola phones are built with this in mind.
candl 14y ago
While I can't test the demo as I don't have an iOS or Android device around I don't think this is anything special. It's been done already, see for example: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brassmonkey.controller&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brassmonke...
- tomchristie 14y ago
  > It's been done already This is kinda different in that the mobile device doesn't need a custom app on it to act as the controller (as in your Brass Monkey example), but can act as the controller directly within the browser. No extra installations, just hit up the website and go.
  - endergen 14y ago
    Hey guys, I'm the CTO at Brass Monkey. We definitely experimented with this approach of using a webpage and websockets to communicate, it is nice that it doesn't require installing an app but it communicates via relaying messages out to the internet and back and so generally has latency in the 100ms+ (<10FPS) range and usually worse. See early video I made at a previous Company using HTML5 for controllers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE8-TntjYB4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE8-TntjYB4 With Brass Monkey we decided to instead make a single master controller app that used a trick we discovered to communicate over LAN between your phone and PC, this way it's blazingly fast. Can be more like 10-20ms (100-50FPS) instead and more consistent. You only have to install it only once and then you can play any Brass Monkey experience seamlessly, including auto-pairing tech that detects other instances of Brass Monkey enabled web pages on your network. Note: There are still major advantages to the web based approach such as bypassing Apple's approval process. It's hard to have controller side code executed unless you bake into your app as Apple doesn't allow dynamically loading code into native apps. But we decided to go responsiveness for our initial focus and are trying to figure out how to bring in some of the other benefits the web page as controller approach takes. Would love some feedback on our App if you are games, orSDK if any of you are Javascript, Flash, and/or Unity developers. francois@playbrassmonkey.com
jfoutz 14y ago
This one is pretty neat too. http://stripenight.com/racer/ http://stripenight.com/racer/ i'm sure it has been posted on HN before
- pudgereyem 14y ago
  Definitely neat. Thanks for posting.
JeremyKolb 14y ago
YOu need to take a second to think about what Google is doing here. Again, Google is being clever about getting data from you. Take a moment and ask yourself why they're doing this... Google want to connect your browser information with your phone information. And they're doing a good job.
- DGCA 14y ago
  This is not new. As an Android user and Chrome user, it's very convenient.
greggman 14y ago
You mean like this? https://code.google.com/p/powpow/ https://code.google.com/p/powpow/ (see video) There's also this https://github.com/greggman/octopus https://github.com/greggman/octopus

by zerovox 14y ago

Kiro 14y ago

Yes, that's what I've been dreaming of ever since I first saw a smartphone. I'm very surprised it isn't as obvious to other people how cool it would be. The smartphone is the perfect game controller. For example a strategy game played on a TV together with friends where each phone is not only used for controls but also showing (private) game data and more!

andypants 14y ago
No, it's not a perfect game controller. A convenient one maybe, but not perfect, not even good. It has the same problem that you would encounter if you tried touch typing on an iphone keyboard. It has no physical feedback so you have no idea if you are pressing the correct button (or any button at all) on the phone screen unless you are actually looking at it. Which means you won't be able to look at the TV screen at the same time.
- Kiro 14y ago
  So you think it would suck or what?
  - andypants 14y ago
    I think it would suck compared to a traditional game controller, if it were to be used as a traditional game controller. As say, a motion device, it could probably work just as well as any other controller. But there are of course ways to improve the experience. For example, you could show the visual feedback on the TV itself, so you can see where you are touching relative to the display. Similar to how the Kinect shows where it thinks your hands are.
- cgislason 14y ago
  Don't you think the reality is some middle ground? It's a perfect game controller for some games.
  - vrek 14y ago
    I agree. It is perfect for games which rely on the idea of positioning your hands. It's really just a tool for the idea of moving the world with your hands. In this case it's perfect.
  - andypants 14y ago
    Yeah, you're right. I was thinking in terms of a traditional console game controller. A phone has other features that could be used like speakers, microphone, accelerometer, etc. As a motion device it would be great, definitely.
- pondababa 14y ago
  When my iPhone 3G's screen broke, the bottom part of the LCD broke--just enough to cover the keyboard. I was abroad, so for the month until I got home, I learned to touch type on my iPhone.
- AndyJPartridge 14y ago
  I feel for what you mean here. Personally I hate the PS3 controller as it's too small, I much prefer the xBox 360 controller and especially if it has the keyboard attached to it. Also, on the iPhone I dislike 99% of the games that use a virtual joystick on the screen, I just can't get on with them. But for touch interface games, what the parent post says is a joy I look forward to experiencing: A game with discreet information on the hand-held device. A touch screen certainly isn't for 60fps twitch-gaming in my opinion.
  - mkr-hn 14y ago
    > But for touch interface games, what the parent post says is a joy I look forward to experiencing: A game with discreet information on the hand-held device. Isn't that the whole idea behind the WiiU?
psbp 14y ago
The smartphone is also the perfect portable mouse. I wouldn't be surprised if the new Motorola phones are built with this in mind.

candl 14y ago

While I can't test the demo as I don't have an iOS or Android device around I don't think this is anything special. It's been done already, see for example: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brassmonkey.controller&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brassmonke...

tomchristie 14y ago
> It's been done already This is kinda different in that the mobile device doesn't need a custom app on it to act as the controller (as in your Brass Monkey example), but can act as the controller directly within the browser. No extra installations, just hit up the website and go.
- endergen 14y ago
  Hey guys, I'm the CTO at Brass Monkey. We definitely experimented with this approach of using a webpage and websockets to communicate, it is nice that it doesn't require installing an app but it communicates via relaying messages out to the internet and back and so generally has latency in the 100ms+ (<10FPS) range and usually worse. See early video I made at a previous Company using HTML5 for controllers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE8-TntjYB4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE8-TntjYB4 With Brass Monkey we decided to instead make a single master controller app that used a trick we discovered to communicate over LAN between your phone and PC, this way it's blazingly fast. Can be more like 10-20ms (100-50FPS) instead and more consistent. You only have to install it only once and then you can play any Brass Monkey experience seamlessly, including auto-pairing tech that detects other instances of Brass Monkey enabled web pages on your network. Note: There are still major advantages to the web based approach such as bypassing Apple's approval process. It's hard to have controller side code executed unless you bake into your app as Apple doesn't allow dynamically loading code into native apps. But we decided to go responsiveness for our initial focus and are trying to figure out how to bring in some of the other benefits the web page as controller approach takes. Would love some feedback on our App if you are games, orSDK if any of you are Javascript, Flash, and/or Unity developers. francois@playbrassmonkey.com

jfoutz 14y ago

This one is pretty neat too. http://stripenight.com/racer/ http://stripenight.com/racer/ i'm sure it has been posted on HN before

pudgereyem 14y ago
Definitely neat. Thanks for posting.

JeremyKolb 14y ago

YOu need to take a second to think about what Google is doing here. Again, Google is being clever about getting data from you. Take a moment and ask yourself why they're doing this... Google want to connect your browser information with your phone information. And they're doing a good job.

DGCA 14y ago
This is not new. As an Android user and Chrome user, it's very convenient.

greggman 14y ago

You mean like this? https://code.google.com/p/powpow/ https://code.google.com/p/powpow/ (see video) There's also this https://github.com/greggman/octopus https://github.com/greggman/octopus