Four sensory streams are fused
together simultaneously in the game to achieve remarkable realism. Called The
Lost Foxfire, the 10-minute game engages a player’s senses of vision, audition
(sense of hearing), olfaction (sense of smell), somatosensation (sense of
touch), and thermoception (ability to sense intensity of heat). Besides relying
on their vision and hearing, game players will also need to take cues from
their senses of smell and touch to successfully complete the game. Most
conventional virtual reality games use headsets and haptic bodysuits to mimic
and amplify sensory feedback, for instance, to deliver the sensation of a cool
breeze to match the visual scene of the moment. In contrast, the game set
researchers from Keio-NUS CUTE Center at the National University of Singapore
developed brings VR multisensory bodysuits to a new level where players use
real-time, life-like sensory feedback to make decisions that will directly
affect the outcome of the gameplay.
The entire game system comprises a
virtual reality headset that researchers paired with a configurable
multisensory suit that delivers thermal, wind, and olfactory stimuli to the
players in order to assist them in the game. The adjustable suit has five heat
modules that enable players to sense heat on the front, back, and the sides of
their necks, as well as on their faces. The thermal stimuli can be calibrated
and customized to an individual’s tolerance of warmth. When players encounter a
fox character in the game, they will catch a whiff of the scent of apples, a
favorite fruit of foxes. As players get close to fire in the game, they can
feel the heat it emits. The team comprising hardware and product engineers,
artists, technology researchers, and designers took nine months to develop the
experimental game—from its conception, coding, and building of special
hardware, to graphic designing and animating. They have filed a patent for the
technology behind the configurable multisensory suit.
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