Game Developers Conference showcases the future of alternative tech

Global Business

The Game Developers Conference wrapped up this month in San Francisco. At the event, industry leaders showed off the latest in motion capture and artificial intelligence-driven technology.

Spectator’s got a look at some even more “experimental” technology that the market has never seen before.

CGTN’s Mark Niu reports.

At the Game Developers Conference’s alternative controller showcase, gaming takes on a whole new level of interactivity.

Clunker Junker is a game where players take control of the engineering bay of a spaceship, that’s literally falling apart.

“What happens when you are using the controller and things are breaking and you are actively trying to fix them at the same time?” asks Henry Lam, the Creative Lead for HNRY, which designed the game.

Yo, Bartender! gives players the chance to mix virtual cocktails for customers. But the customers keep coming and coming.

“You might say that, oh man I can do that, no problem. But once you actually get that… where’s that bottle? And where’s that bottle? It’s super stressful all of a sudden,” said Alexander Sjoberg, the creative director of Kraken.

Perhaps the most bizarre game of them all is Unicornelia. Players wear a horn strapped to their head and are forced to get down on all fours to imagine they are unicorns. You actually use your horn to select answers on a screen that in the end produces a life analysis report.
While Unicornelia leaves players introspective, the showcase winner Puppet Pandemonium promotes outward expression. Players put on a puppetry performance while playing video games with their audience. The game’s director Terence Tolman said the work combines gaming with performance art.

“It’s giving players the opportunity to be in the game and not players of the game. And, to be the actual content themselves,” he said.