This page will be used to research and develop an original controller for use with the game
The controller has been designed as a wearable device - much like a glove - that shows the hand and its current form within the VR environment. Using a glove-like controller also ensures that hand exercises are completed properly in order to get full benefit from the physiotherapeutic gameplay. The controller design will be comprised of several pre-existing glove designs that exist to aid in osteoarthritis symptoms, and these products and their utilisation within the controller design will be discussed in this section.
Compression gloves (such as the ones shown in Figure Two) are "thought to remove extracellular fluid [...], possibly via the lymphatic system, thus reducing pain, stiffness and improving finger motion; and increase blood flow which increases warmth, and reduces pain and stiffness" (Hammond et al, 2016, p.214), although the extent of the gloves' effectiveness is not currently known. The style of these gloves will form an underlying design for the controller - compression gloves that relieve symptoms whilst making play comfortable.
Figure Two: NatraCure Arthritis Compression Gloves (NatraCure, n.d.)
Despite compression gloves proving combative against symptoms such as loss of function and physical activity, their primary function is not pain reduction, although this may occur as a result of wearing the gloves. Vibrating gloves (Figure Three), however, have shown to be capable of significant pain reduction; it is widely known that vibration has the capacity to decrease pain, and here "vibration serve[s] as a useful component to the gloves in reducing pain" (Jamison et al, 2017, p.1054). Integrating vibrating systems into the controller can provide a physiotherapeutic pain reduction apparatus, and may subsequently improve in-game performance and ability to play for extended periods of time.
Figure Three: Vibrating gloves (BrownMed, cited in Jamison et al, 2017, p.1045)
An overall picture can be painted for the base aesthetic of the controller - gloves that can be worn by the player to not only provide a physiotherapeutic experience with vibrations and pressure guided by play, but also to show the appearance of the players hands within the gameworld.
As will be discussed under the Gameplay section of Game Design Blog: Taming the Dragon, haptic feedback and adaptive triggers play an essential role in creating an immersive environment, but here they will be discussed objectively on how the controller seeks to integrate these, or similar, systems.
Haptic feedback and adaptive triggers featured on the Sony DualSense controller offer valuable insight into how the controller itself can provide a medium for immersion. In Spider-Man: Miles Morales (Insomniac Games, 2020), haptic feedback allows the player to feel each train track bump or provide a sporadic tingling when using his electric powers. **It allows the controller itself to act as a tool to immerse the player within the gameworld, and here we hope to utilise haptic feedback within Taming the Dragon to immerse the player within the VR gameworld.
Alongside haptic feedback is the use of adaptive triggers on the Sony DualSense controller. Although something similar was initially thought to be included in the glove design to provide something similar to the putty in Figure One, adaptive triggers would not feasibly work when integrated onto a glove style controller due to the mechanism required for it to work (Figure Four).