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Hippos Gameplay Video
It’s still a work in progress, but I wanted to share the previously promised gameplay footage. Being such a simple game, there isn’t a great deal to showcase… but it certainly gives you a sense of how the game will work.
As you can see in the footage, you control your hippo by simply rubbing its back. The actual mechanic needs to be tweaked as it doesn’t feel quite natural yet, but it certainly works. However, there is issue with the texture of the surface itself. It’s slightly rough, which is great for general use… but it’s somewhat uncomfortable when you quickly rub your finger back and forth. I have a feeling we may need to reconsider a tapping interface, or we might actually introduce a physical object as the primary interface element.
We’ve modeled the environment and if you look closely, you’ll notice that we even animated the water. We still need to add some trees and shadow animations, plus I’d love to make the water respond to the actual gameplay… although I think that’s a little too ambitious for our initial release.
WOW! Get this out to the science center’s interactive space!
Fantastic work guys!
I said it before and I’ll say it again. Brilliant!!
[...] May 27 RT @gteehan: a little gameplay footage from our MS Surface experiment. http://www.teehanlax.com/blog/?p=1582 [...]
[...] clacking of those levers you had to push to get your hippo to dive for the marbles, right. Well in Teehan+Lax’s version, you control your hippo by rubbing its back. It’s just like a petting zoo, only cleaner and [...]
That’s amazing! Great job Lynchmob, way to bring back the retro hippo action! What’s next Mouse Trap or Operation?
@Brandon – you joke, but we actually considered a mouse trap-type game… the Surface allows for object interaction, which would have made for an interesting boar dgame mashup
Can I vote for Rock’em Sock’em Robots as your next project?
SURFACE – very cool. I develop online interactive publishing using a magazine paradigm, fonts that are readable on 1080p at a distance, scaled video, etc.
easy to get users to relate to the page turns with a finger ( did that on the HP already )
Looking to hookup with likeminded creatives on in-store and tradeshow type uses for SURFACE. as a way intense catalog interaction with useful drilldowns and more.
UI engagement IS everything to the sellpoints in this medium.
Regs
jeff j http://www.ctngreen.com
Awesome! I actually had the offline game of this one, never expected to see this classic back this way.
Is it just me or is the sight of four hands languidly stroking these phallic virtual hippos an entirely new interpretation of the game that I recall from my youth?
[...] started to bounce around. One cool project that some of our guys came out with is the Hungry Hungry Hippos game. Seeing this had me chomping at the bit to think of another killer Surface idea, but it [...]