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If I wanted to get some exercise I wouldn’t be playing vidya games

Oh my giddy aunt! It’s the next great innovation in computing technology.

In case you can’t tell what’s going on here, you can strap your phone to your ankle and walk in your VR games. So in case you don’t look quite stupid enough inexplicably waggling your head back and forth and waving your arms about, you can now do it while you march in place like a first grader doing the Horsey Dance. Score!

The program is called Natural Locomotion and it’s a tenner on Steam. Those who gave it a thumbs up said it made the motion sickness cease and open world games like Skyrim became super immersive, but you owe it to yourself to hit the link for the video of what it’s like to watch someone use it.

This has to be the biggest disconnect between what-it-feels-like-to-experience-a-thing and what-it-feels-like-to-observe-a-thing-being-experienced since public sex.

I’ll have to download the demo and give it a try. Natural Locomotion, not the other thing.

Comments


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 5, 2022, 6:20 pm

True story: I once threw up violently during the Horsey Dance in kindergarten. I am forever grateful for the quick thinking and observational skills of Miss Whatsername, who maneuvered a trash can in front of me before I delivered.


Comment from Uncle Al
Time: April 5, 2022, 6:29 pm

I wonder how often somebody using this gizmo forgets that they’re supposed to be walking in place and instead end up walking into walls and furniture, or tumbling down a flight of stairs.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 5, 2022, 6:37 pm

When you fire it up, the first thing you have to do set up what’s called a Guardian – a boundary of your play area – by “spray painting” a line on the floor. If you move outside it, your game stops and the headset switches to an image of the room you’re in, thanks to the built-in cameras.

This is the right idea, but in practice, it’s often wonky. More often by making the boundary to small than too large in an excess of caution, I suppose.

An immature technology, as I’ve said.


Comment from Jon
Time: April 5, 2022, 6:48 pm

That’s even sillier than you described because it’s using your hands as feet. Make me smile for how stupid it looks. I can barely get by when using an actual controller or mouse, let alone waving it around in the air like a certifiable person.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 5, 2022, 8:14 pm

Hands are the option in the video, but you can strap your phone to your ankle. Which somehow strikes me as even funnier.


Comment from OldFert
Time: April 5, 2022, 8:30 pm

The Horsey Dance? I am culturally deprived. Even looked it up and couldn’t come up with anything definitive.
Ya got me really curious. Have a link?


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 5, 2022, 9:24 pm

Goodness, no. All I remember is we formed a circle and pranced. I only remember what it was called because I yakked up in the middle of it.


Comment from BJM
Time: April 6, 2022, 12:28 am

@stoaty…that might explain Pony Play…er not. NSFW or kiddoes…nothing explicit just way too weird.


Comment from Mitch
Time: April 6, 2022, 1:53 am

Stoaty is turning into the Lawnmower Man.

I pwned today’s wordle:
Wordle 290 3/6

🟨⬜🟨⬜🟨
🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩


Comment from ExpressoBold
Time: April 6, 2022, 2:17 am

I pwned today’s nerdle:

nerdlegame 77 3/6

πŸŸͺ⬛⬛⬛πŸŸͺβ¬›πŸŸ©πŸŸͺ
⬛⬛πŸŸͺπŸŸͺβ¬›β¬›πŸŸ©β¬›
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 6, 2022, 10:09 am

I’ve had three guesses and don’t have today’s Wordle yet. I’ve picked some lousy start words lately.


Comment from ExpressoBold
Time: April 6, 2022, 1:26 pm

I agree with the wordle assessment, Stoaty.

I got “shawl” like a bolt of lightening but “natal” had to be midwifed. Today’s word is still a mystery. All I’ve got are vowels!


Comment from Anonymous
Time: April 6, 2022, 2:50 pm

Wordle 291 3/6

β¬›β¬›πŸŸ¨β¬›β¬›
β¬›πŸŸ¨β¬›β¬›πŸŸ¨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

I’d rather be lucky than good…..

Oh and the classic game Myst has been redone for VR….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WDdE9DR4j0


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 6, 2022, 3:12 pm

I got it in five today. The humiliation!

Yes, I saw that. I never played the original Myst. Is it good?


Comment from Some Mystified Vegetable
Time: April 6, 2022, 5:24 pm

Myst is a steampunk game where you wander around and solve puzzles. You need to open various locks, control panels covers and doors, and figure out how to operate various pieces of steampunk machinery in order to travel from level to level. You spend your time walking and operating the various switches, levers, and valves. You’ll need to perform various operations in a sequence to advance to a level . Occasionally you will climb stairs or a ladder; more occasionally as a reward for solving a multistep puzzle, you will get a ride in an interesting steampunk vehicle of some kind. Thereis almost zero human et al interaction. Since it is a “world” your progress from level to level (or really area to area) is non-linear. It’s complex and a lot of people keep a book of found answers as you can’t predict when you will need them. The scenery in the world is quite beautiful in my opinion making it a cool place to wander around. Having said that it’s an old game but having said that it has been very recently updated and rereleased – I just got it (not in VR) as it is one of few games that my new AirBook can run. I assume that the graphics load is fairly heavy since it’s the only thing I have found, so far, that makes the AirBook heat up.

I am not much of a gamer to be honest so I can’t speak to its value or interest level compared to much newer games. However it you like a good walk in the park spoiled by wandering into old buildings and caves et al and screwing around trying to get machines to run by fiddling around with the controls, you might take a look at it.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 6, 2022, 5:50 pm

Thank you, Some Veg. I remember the hype around it back in the day. It was Apple only for years, wasn’t it? It looked pretty, but I’m ambivalent about puzzle games. If they’re hard, they piss me off.


Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: April 6, 2022, 10:45 pm

No, I’ve never owned an Apple and I played Myst all the way through on a Microsludge operating system PC.

Some of the scenery is haunting in a non scary way, although the word lonely comes to mind, which is quite appropriate if I remember the story line, roughly.

MYST II featured a place called Dunny, which knowing some colloquial use for the word I found very humorous, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first one.

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