CONTROLLERDESIGN

Daniel Cox, Sebastian Elmes, Nate Gurian, Brandon Hackett, and Thomas Hoffman

Assignment 2

Full Sail University

ABSTRACT

This presentation will cover a design proposal for a one handed video game controller. Detailed diagrams will present the controller idea. Three games that the controller will be best suited for will be discussed. A simple prototype will be built along with playtests and analysis of the prototype by all team members.

DESIGN PURPOSE

The topic that is going to be discussed will be a design proposal and prototype for a one handed video game controller.

INTRODUCTION

This controller is specifically designed for gamers who suffer from circumstances causing them to only have the use of one hand.

INSPIRATION (DANIEL COX)

“After a few ideas worked less than well, I focused on the mouse my brother uses for his gaming PC, a Razer Naga Hex (Razerstore) and realized a mouse would work great for the situation. So, I worked on a layout to the basic model of mouse Razer uses. I also wanted to make sure it would work for the common mainstream console, so I used the button layout of an Xbox One controller as an example of what I’d need to have.”

-Daniel Cox

INSPIRATION (SEBASTIAN ELMES)“The inspiration for my one-handed controller design came from the PlayStation Move controller (Hardy, 2010) ergonomic design. I think that with this controller, the placing of the buttons feel much more naturally since they are located right where the thumb, index, and middle finger rest, while maintaining a firm grip with the ring and pinky finger. When thinking about the most important design feature for a one-handed controller, it all came down to how comfortable the controller has to be, since it’s very likely that the user is going to spend long periods of time holding on to it. I also think that restricting the amount of buttons to 3 keeps its simplicity and helps to ease new players in to try it out.” -Sebastian Elmes.

INSPIRATION (NATE GURIAN)

“The inspiration for my one handed controller design came from holding my phone car charger one day (Casio Commando Charger, eBay). I went to plug it in but before I did, I noticed how well it fit into my hands. I immediately thought that this would make a good controller. After thinking about it, I decided to place the button right where the fingers rested. This would make it easier on the player and little manipulation would have to take place. While I feel the charger itself might be too clunky, with size modifications this could be a functional controller for a one handed player.”

-Nate Gurian

INSPIRATION (BRANDON HACKETT)“ The inspiration for my one handed controller came from the Wii Remote (Nintendo, 2015), and the Rock Band guitar (Whitaker, 2007). The wii remote is one of the most innovative controllers ever made that can be used with one hand while also being very diverse on how it is played, and because of that I felt that simplicity and motion controls were the way to go. As for the Rock Band guitar I felt that the longer buttons on the top were easy to press when gripping around the neck of the guitar so I felt that could be implemented into my one handed controller design as well.”

- Brandon Hackett

INSPIRATION (THOMAS HOFFMAN)“My inspiration for the came from the Xbox One Media Remote (Xbox, 2015). I believe that adding the side buttons to the controller will make a more sleek one-handed design. This will allow the user to play a game that would require the use of two hands, but only use one hand. I think using this remote would give the player a very capable one handed game controller and a superb media remote.”

–Thomas Hoffman

DESIGN METHOD

To make our design for a controller together, we all decided which of our assumptions we could agree on and designed something new taking that into consideration.We used Nate’s inspiration as a baseline for the shape of the controller, and worked from there.

We came up with this after finding a place for every button we wanted. Sebastian ended up making sketches for a proper looking version after Daniel finished putting together a rough sketch in Google draw (picture).

We mostly had the same features in our designs, so it was easy to make the button layout for the final design. The layout was mostly Brandon’s work, while the placement of the D-Pad specifically was Thomas’s work. We were originally going to use Sebastian’s trackpad in place of a joystick, but decided that games for the console we were designing for would be better off with a joystick.

EXAMPLE –SCHEMATIC DIAGRAMS

Front View

Analog Stick

Start button(indented)

Status indicator

Directional Pad

Home button

Headphone jack

EXAMPLE –SCHEMATIC DIAGRAMS CONTINUED...

Directional Pad

Analog Stick

Home button

Headphone jack

Y button

X button

B button

A button

Side View

Start button(indented)

EXAMPLE –SCHEMATIC DIAGRAMS CONTINUED…

A button

B button

X button

Y button

Home button

Analog Stick

Directional Pad

Back View

DESIGN ASSUMPTIONS (DANIEL COX)

When making the controller I designed for the Week 1 Discussion, I took into mind several requirements, all on the assumption that this would be compatible with the three big modern consoles:

• 2 devices functionally similar to joysticks• A D-Pad and at least 4 face buttons• 2 ‘trigger’ and 2 ‘shoulder’ buttons

These were all intensely important to my design. No gamer would buy a product that was missing essential functionality, even if it was all that was available to them.

DESIGN ASSUMPTIONS (SEBASTIAN ELMES)

When coming up with the design for my controller, I wanted the controller to reflect 3 core features:

• Comfort• Simplicity• Intuitive

I deliberately decided to not include an analog stick, and instead have a trackpad. The trackpad allows the user for the swiping functionality, which adds a layer of versatility to the controller.

The addition of the motion controls also factored in the decision to make the controller feel natural, as a Game Informer editor praise its accuracy and said “The Playstation Move is a intuitive, natural feeling way to play games” (Marchiafava, 2010). The main idea behind the controller was for players to feel they have control of their game without having to think about it.

DESIGN ASSUMPTIONS (NATE GURIAN)

When designing my controller, I felt that there were certain fundamentals of a controller that were pretty standard. Some of these assumptions were

• There had to be a joystick• There had to be 4 buttons• The controller had to be symmetrical for the use of both

left and right hand

For me, the joystick was essential because of its place in controller design history. The joystick has been around since Atari had incorporated into their design in the late 70’s. The joystick has proven its worth over several generations, consoles, and other gaming platforms (Lu, “Evolution of Video Game Controllers.”)

DESIGN ASSUMPTIONS (BRANDON HACKETT)

When designing my controller, I felt that the controller required specific features in order to be able to compete with the standard two handed controllers while also being available to a wider audience. So my assumptions for what features the controller needed were:

• An Analog stick symmetrically place so that both left handed and right handed players could play.

• 4 wide face buttons and 1 home button.• Motion controls for more diverse play.• More cylinder shaped for a more comfortable grip.• A strap to secure controller to player to prevent harm to people or objects.

Many major companies have some sort of motion controls like Microsoft’s Kinect, Sony’s PlayStation Move, and Nintendo’s Wii Remote. That being said I believe that motion controls won't’ be going away especially since the industry is heading towards virtual reality like Sony’s Project Morpheus (Wawro, 2014), and virtual reality will require some motion control if they want it to be as immersive as possible. That is why I feel that motion controls are essential in control designs.

DESIGN ASSUMPTIONS (THOMAS HOFFMAN)

When I was designing my controller, I determined that there are some key features that must be present.

• There must be an analog stick and directional pad.• There must be four action buttons present.• The controller must have the proper buttons to

control the Xbox One.

In my opinion, the directional pad or “D-pad” is the most important part of the controller. All games require some form of movement, and this is the original industry standard. The D-pad was originally created for Game & Watch in 1980. The D-pad has been present in almost every game controller since then. (Lu, “Evolution of Video Game Controllers.”)

Game Description 1:(New Super Mario Bros U)

New Super Mario Bros U is Nintendo’s modern answer to one of their most beloved platformers. Because it was made to feel like an NES game, it only uses a few buttons to function, which is fortunate.

According to Super Mario Wiki, a player using the wiimote uses the D-Pad, A button, and 1 and 2 buttons to control their character, as well as simple motion controls (Super Mario Wiki). This functionality is not lost with our controller. The player will simply replace the A button with the topmost button on the back, and the 1 / 2 buttons with the two bottom buttons. The motion controls, which are simply shaking the wiimote, will be replaced by mashing the second button from the top.

Game Description 2:(Mario Kart 8)

Mario Kart 8 is a simple go-kart racing game played using everyone’s favorite Nintendo characters. Players race against one another to finish first. There is one trick though, players can pick up blocks which gives them special moves to help or hinder their opponent.

Controlling the go-kart will be done with the analog stick. Acceleration will be controlled with the “A” button and braking with “B” button. Pressing the “X” button will activate drifting on corners. Players can make their Kart jump by pressing the “Y” button. Pressing down on the Directional Pad can use items that are picked up. Players can pause the game and access the menu by pressing the “Start” button. If a player needs to access the system’s menu, they can press the “Home” button to be directly taken there.

Game Description 3:(Super Smash Bros)

Super Smash Bros is a Nintendo fighting game where players can choose from a wide variety of characters. Players can go head to head or play in a free for all up to 8 players. Team matches are also an option. The object of the game is to inflict as much damage as possible to your opponent and launch them off the map and deplete their lives.

With our controller, the player will have the choice of using the analog stick or the D-pad to control the character based on preference. The A and B buttons will be used for different attacks for the player. Also, the player can create special attack combinations using the analog stick or D-pad and the A/B buttons. Since we do not have trigger or shoulder button on this controller, the X button will be used for blocking (shield). The Y button will be used for grabbing onto the player’s opponent. This way the controller utilizes all the buttons and gives the player classic feel of Super Smash Bros.

Prototyping

Prototyping Continued...

Prototyping Continued...

Prototyping Continued...

TEST RESULTS

Tester’s Thoughts

“It’s a pretty comfortable controller for a one handed controller, but would have prefered a trigger instead of four buttons on the bottom.”

“Being left handed I don't’ like how the analog stick gets in the way when trying to reach towards the directional pad, but overall it is pretty comfortable.

“This controller is like a nunchuck mixed with a wii remote only cooler, and pretty darn comfortable to handle minus not having a trigger.”

POST MORTEM

What went correctly:

The brainstorming session and analytical thinking the team participated in went very well. We were able to take criticism from each other and take everyone’s ideas into consideration when making the controller. Brandon successfully made the prototype, which looked close to the finalized design idea in his first attempt. This was accomplished due to the advice the rest of the team provided.

POST MORTEM CONTINUED...

What went incorrectly:

We removed features that are standard in controller designs in the interest of having something unique. For example, we removed the trigger from our original design and went with 4 buttons on the back. The testers later complained about the lack of triggers. They found that their fingers were looking for a trigger on the controller.

POST MORTEM CONTINUED...

What would the team have done differently?

Sebastian’s drawings looked much better than anything we could make in Google Draw. We found his artistic sketch to look more professional than the Google Draw, which also made it easier for Brandon to create the prototype. Google Draw can be used as an early design method, but we should not spend too much time with it. The hand drawn pictures were substantially better in quality.

REFERENCESCasio Commando Charger, eBay. (n.d). Retrieved March 12, 2015. from

http://www.ebay.com/bhp/casio-commando-charger

Hardy, M. (March, 2010). “Introducing PlayStation Move”. PlayStation.Blog.EU. Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. Retrieved from: http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2010/03/10/introducing-playstation-move/

Lu, W. (n.d.). Evolution of Video Game Controllers. Retrieved March 11, 2015, from http://web.stanford.edu/group/htgg/sts145papers/wlu_2003_1.pdf

Marchiafava, J. (September, 2010). “Move Hardware Review: Motion Controls Evolved”. Game Informer. Retrieved from: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2010/09/01/move-hardware-review-motion-controls-evolved.aspx

Nintendo. (2015). Retrieved March 12, 2015. from: http://www.nintendo.com/wiiu/accessories

Razer. (2015). Retrieved March 11, 2015. from: http://www.razerzone.com/store/razer-naga-hex

REFERENCES CONTINUED…Super Mario Wiki (2015). New Super Mario Bros. U. Retrieved March 12, 2015. from: http://www.mariowiki.com/new_Super_Mario_Bros._U

Xbox One Media Remote. (n.d.). Retrieved March 11, 2015, from http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/accessories/controllers/media-remote

Wawro, W. (2014, March 18). This is Project Morpheus, Sony's prototype VR headset. Retrieved March 12, 2014 from: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/213460/This_is_Project_Morpheus_Sonys_prototype_VR_headset.php

Whitaker, R.. (2007, November 28). Retrieved March 12, 2015. from: http://www.gamefront.com/the-ps3-rock-band-guitar-debacle/