I picked up a Leap Motion at Indiecade, and decided to build a little game for the Leap Motion Game Jam to get acquainted with how it works. I decided to look at one part of the hand, the fingertips, and build a fairly simple arcade game using the hand’s ability to have five points (somewhat) independently controlled, resulting in the game “Five Fingered Fleet:”

You can download the game here: http://itch.io/jam/leapmotion3djam/rate/13315

I’m pretty impressed with the Leap (we have hands now!) – The arcade-y take on the above game is part of my thought experiment – image a parallel universe where the standard arcade cabinet didn’t come with a Joystick, but with a gestural sensor like the Leap. Similar to how mobile games now rely on touchscreens, an entire industry’s output is molded by a standard, and in many ways arbitrary input device. While there are many reasons why the joystick, mouse & keyboard, and touchscreen caught on, their adoption has impacts on our digital experiences, subtle and otherwise. We can also get stuck with them – I think we’ll still be using the QWERTY layout on keyboards for several tech generations to come, something I’m more baffled about in direct proportion to the amount of thought I give to it.

This particular project also gave me an opportunity to revise my “game jam kit” – an empty project that has a basic title, options, etc. That is to say, a project holding everything but an actual game. Many, many times I have a pretty good game with none of the menus, serialization, or even decent way to handle a title screen attached. This can be very problematic to add in later on, especially when a deadline is looming, so having a “blank game” is very handy when you want to build something quick, but then show it to the public.

The blank template is something I plan to use for the upcoming Procedural Game Jam – I need to get back to preparations!