I am not an active gamer. In fact, the only two games I have been really into are StarCraft and WarCraft. Nevertheless, Mirror’s Edge really garbed my attention.
What I’ve found really interesting is the way the game designers solved various problems around concerns that players can get simulation/motion sickness
. If you don’t know what simulation/motion sickness
is, here is an excerpt from a Wikipedia article:
Simulation sickness, or simulator sickness, is a condition where a person exhibits symptoms similar to motion sickness caused by playing computer/simulation/video games. The most common theory for the cause of simulation sickness is that the illusion of motion created by the virtual world, combined with the absence of motion detected by the inner ear, causes the area postrema in the brain to infer that one is hallucinating and further conclude that the hallucination is due to poison ingestion. The brain responds by inducing nausea and mass vomiting, to clear the supposed toxin. According to this theory, simulation sickness is just another form of motion sickness.
Motion sickness or kinetosis is a condition in which a disagreement exists between visually perceived movement and the vestibular system’s sense of movement. Dizziness, fatigue, and nausea are the most common symptoms of motion sickness. Sopite syndrome is also a side effect of motion sickness. In fact, nausea in Greek means seasickness (naus means ship). If the motion causing nausea is not resolved, the sufferer will frequently vomit. Unlike ordinary sickness, vomiting in motion sickness tends not to relieve the nausea.
Pretty bad! In order to resolve these issues the game developers had to implement the following features into the game:
- Implementing a focal point. I guess it serves the purpose to direct the eyesight. The focal point is the point where the attention is focused.
- The 1st person camera is mimicking the eye rather then feeling like it has been attacked on the character’s forehead.
- The actual game is designed with very vibrant colors so that it does not feel too claustrophobic.
This subject is quite interesting. Again, we see the side-effects of our technological progression. For example, when the email system was created no one was even imagining that someone may use it for spams and scrams, two very big and complicated problems nowadays. The same is with everything else. For example, certain games might be able to modify our way of thought or even make us develop types of deceases which we haven’t imagined yet.
