Play Portal with Microsoft Surface

[TimeLord]

So can a touchscreen replace a mouse or controller interface? Well that technology is closer than you think.

Personally I think that bar a VR simulation, this is as immersive as it can get, especially used in an FPS! But maybe with a better button layout.

Can touchscreen controls ever replace?or even closely match?control input from a gamepad or keyboard and mouse? This demonstration of Valve's Portal and Microsoft Flight Simulator played on Microsoft's experimental Surface platform offers hope that it might.

Building on Mark Micire's DREAM (Dynamically Resizing Ergonomic and Multi-touch) Controller, University of Massachusetts Lowell Robotics Lab student Eric McCann hacked together an on-screen joystick driver that makes touch-based controls feasible for flight sims and first-person shooters. A perfect replacement? Not exactly. Even at double the playback speed, it's clear that Surface controls could easily be outperformed by more familiar interfaces.

But hardly shabby for a week's worth of adapting the already impressive DREAM Controller's touchscreen-based interface. Cooler still is that the DREAM interface dynamically re-sizes itself to a user's hands and can be moved anywhere on the Surface's screen.

The UMass Lowell Robotics Lab folks are teasing "more fun to come" that's likely StarCraft related on their YouTube channel. Can't wait to see what they come up with next.

Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/5633376/portal--microsoft-flight-sim-purely-touchscreen-controlled-with-microsoft-surface]

 

[mad825]

in a FPS/TPS?...no, never.

 

[Bigsmith]

no no no no no no no no no no thank you. Ill stick to my keyboard and mouse.

 

[Ldude893]

Can't...touch...the cake....dammit


Seriously though, I think they're better off making strategy games for Microsoft Surface. Master Chief and Gordon Freeman don't fight aliens looking down at a table.

 

[Lacsapix]

Star trek simulators here we come!
I rather stick with a conroller in my hands but for simulation game's it is perfect!

 

[The Cheezy One]

I would love an FPS with this, provided its done right. Could be a mix of the smaller motions that ZP goes on about for immersion, while still feeling like you are actually controlling the character 1 to 1
Clenching the fingers on your right hand to pull a trigger? Immense!

 

[TOGSolid]

They were playing Settlers of Catan with this thing at PAX. It looks awesome for that sorta shit, but pretty meh for FPSs and what not.

 

[SuperNashwan]

In an FPS everything would be fine until things you want to shoot QUICKLY end up underneath your hands. Especially if you havent actually seen the thing you need to shoot quickly, and its now busily chewing your kneecaps off and you're going to be dead by the time you have dragged the interface to the top of the screen.

Yeah I think I will stick to mouse and keyboad for now, until they give me that VR immersion suit and my own e-gun

 

[Aedes]

Hmm... no.
Maybe on a strategy game, it might be more interesting to use while you select units and such but anything else seems out of place.
Not to mention the hands all over the screen blocking your view.

 

[hmar9333]

Those controls look PAINFUL.

 

[TimeLord]

Nah, less effort for a mouse/keyboard. But if I the money, I'd get one of those thing's that Tony Stark had, that lets him mould shit from a hologram, in Iron Man.

That's what I meant when I said VR in my OP

Imagine that playing an FPS xD