The Quest for the Perfect ExerGame

This afternoon I had a leisurely look round the opening session of the Edinburgh Interactive Festival. It was a chance to try out some of the games before the conference starts in earnest tomorrow. There were a wide variety of genres of games on display including an ExerGame. What seemed at first very out of place was a cookery demonstration, particular as the appetizing smell was one of the first things that caught your attention as you entered the hall!! On closer inspection I realized it was an interactive demonstration of Cooking Guide for the Nintendo DS, part of the “Touch ! Generations” series!

One demonstration game that caught my eye was Sprog by Fishbowl Interactive. It basically involves moving side-to-side with the odd jump on a treadmill to either avoid or collect objects. You could play it either with a joypad or a dance mat. Needless to say I opted for the latter. Not having a problem with my left and rights, it was fairly straightforward at first until it went into “mirror” mode. I had an interesting discussion with one of the developers centering around the both the possibilities and the limitations of the dance mat as a games controller. Clearly the game has a lot of potential and offers an exciting way to explore step-based ExerGaming.