Jan 21, 2010
French developers Arkedo was playing with an idea for Microsoft’s motion-controlled Natal system, but has since decided against it, and released the work they’d done on it so far.
Arkedo’s CEO Camille Guermonprez posted some mockups for their proposed brawler, “2-Finger Heroes.” Players would use their fingers to control the characters – flicking one’s fingers would make the character kick, for example. Other motions would cause different effects, like crossing arms would enable players to affect the environment, and in two-player mode, a bro-style fist bump would activate special powers.
So why’d it get canned?
“One of the design flaws of this, apart from the fact that it demanded some very precise pattern recognition from the Natal system, is that it would have been HELL to localize,” Gyermonprez said. “Yup, what can be understood as the victory sign in France, could be a terrible insult in the UK, for instance.”
Which is too bad, because the mockups look awesome.
Does Natal recognize individual finger movements? I thought it didn't.
Seriously - if that picture was bigger I'd have a new desktop background right now.
I like the other one with player 2 in the Electrojeans. Honestly this whole game just seems like a kick. I really want it to come out.
So again I have to ask, why would flicking fingers be better than pressing buttons? Why not use these gimmicky input methods where they're needed and not try to cram them in where they only make gamplay more awkward?