(Thanks to Gary Riggins for the tip)
I had meant to post this on Saturday as a part of the Newsbytes post but became sidetracked with other necessary work…so let’s use this as an interesting way to start the day.
War of Currents Arcade Shown At SXSW – Long, long ago, back when this site was still in its infancy, we ran a story about The Painstation. It was an indie project that combined a Pong-like game with “Pain Execution Units”, which could include electric shocks to the player. It was never mass produced but we see a similar idea come along every now and then. Galloping Ghost’s Dark Presence is one example where they had looked into the use of very low-voltage/amperage shock bands to offer electrical feedback to poor performance in a fighting game (the game still hasn’t been released yet so it is unknown if that will still be a feature).
For the here and now, we have War of Currents – Tesla Vs Edison. Pitting the two electrical pioneers against each other in a Mortal Kombat type game, the real players have to play with more savvy than they might be accustomed to as you can send shocks to your opponent through the metal joysticks. Granted these would not be severe shocks but still, incentive to play better. Granted, the game itself looks rudimentary enough that you probably won’t see it used as an official EVO entry anytime soon but it isn’t appearing to be aiming for that level of play. Here is a story @ Dayton.com with more details on the project by Proto Buildbar; the trailer for the game is here:
Which two historical rivals would you like to see go at it in a virtual fist fight?
The same thing was going on with a hacked version of Tekken that would force you to take your hand off the controls every time you got nailed hard enough. I wouldn’t mind Mortal Kombat getting this as well.