Trigger Happy
player must use her whole body to control the game. It consists of actually dancing, on a pressure-sensitive floormat, in time to pumping techno music blaring from the speakers. The screen simply shows a bunch of symbols floating downward, and they correspond to squares on the floormat that must be hit by the feet at exactly the right moment. This speedy techno version of Twister provokes the thought that the best videogame interfaces are indeed those that are most intuitive (an idea that will crop up later in another context). No one needs to learn how to stamp on the floor, just as no one needs to learn how to turn a steering wheel or shoot a play gun.
In general, cybernetic developments will always increase the possibilities of closer and more pleasurable interaction with a videogame. In just the same way that a motor-industry journalist might say one car “feels” nicer to drive than another, there is a particular pleasure to be had simply from engaging in a responsive control system, whether in videogames or in real life. It is no accident, then, that Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, widely regarded as the “God of videogames” (in Jeremy Smith’s phrase), not only designs software but actually designs the controllers
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