Students use brains to control video game
EDMONTON — Your parents may soon be wrong when they say you’re spending too many mindless hours playing video games; the people over at NAIT have invented a game that’s much more cerebral.
NAIT students have developed a mind-controlled video game that responds to the gamer’s mental commands rather than a hand-held controller, said NAIT game-design instructor Armand Cadieux.
The game, called Project Vulcan, works using an electroencephalogram (EEG) headset, which was developed by an international neuro-engineering company called Emotiv.
“So you put this thing on your head, and you think, ‘Left,’ and it moves left,” Cadieux said. “It’s actually listening to your thoughts, it’s interpreting your thoughts, and relaying that into our video game as inputs.”
A group of about six students worked with Cadieux and game programming instructor John Winski to develop the first level of the video game last spring. Students and the instructors in NAIT’s two-year digital media and information technology program are now working on that prototype to develop more characters and levels, Cadieux said.
The role-play game takes place in a space station, he said.
“You’re out in space and you have to navigate through this environment and not be killed by enemy robots,” Cadieux said. “The way you get through is to use your mind control to take over enemy robots, then embody them and progress your way (along).”
Gamers have to first spend about 20 minutes calibrating the brain-scanning headset, which plugs into the USB port on a personal computer. The player toggles onto commands such as left, right, push or pull and then thinks the corresponding commands so the headset can record the brain information, Cadieux said.
“The device gets trained to your thoughts. So I’ll practise thinking, ‘Left,’ and it will record how I’m thinking, ‘Left,’ ” Cadieux said. “Then we replicate that in the game, so now it’s time to play and it’s time for action and you have to think, ‘Left,’ or think, ‘Up,’ or whatever that command is, ‘Shoot.’ So we have various commands.”
The students did what’s called “code mapping” to convert information from the controller headset into actions in the Project Vulcan game, Cadieux said. “It’s pretty neat.”
NAIT has been teaching game design since 2009, Cadieux said. Students and staff there are always looking for new ways to use emerging technologies in creative ways, he said.
“For example, our students have done some games for the Glenrose (Rehabilitation) Hospital where there’s a giant touch screen and patients are playing it to do physiotherapy on their shoulder or their elbow.
“It’s a medical rehabilitation application. We’ve done other games for crane operators, where we’ve simulated the cab of a crane so students can train in a safe environment.”
About 50 students graduate each year from NAIT’s game development course, Cadieux said.