Æther
(Æther description courtesy of Dwight Tejano) With the advent of the new technological age, we’ve gotten used to a simpler way of interacting with technology. Multi-touch interfaces and accelerometers have truly brought about a new beginning for how we think about tech. After flailing around our arms with the Wiitm Remote, spinning our fingers around the iPhone, tilting with the Sixaxistm, and strumming with Rock Band, an question struck our collective minds (well, mostly Spencer’s): Could we create a gaming platform that required a no-touch interface? Games had moved beyond the down-downright-right+punch button combos to something more intuitive, but you still need something to interface with your system. Is it possible to create a system that quite literally anyone can play — a platform that let anyone jump in with no learning curve at all? If such a system did exist, then is it possible to create a game so compelling and so fun that it would universally accepted by all?
Questions instigate even the most fragile and lazy minds. The Æther was officially born.
It was time to move away to a non-controller interface. Starting with a vague idea revolving around capacitive sensors, a table, and a projector pointed at a piece of paper, “the project,” as it was called at the time, evolved in stages, while still keeping its spirit. Capacitive sensors became ultrasonic — greater range, more linearity. The table became a tabletop device — more compact, more portable. The projector became an LCD screen — cheaper, higher res.
As the hardware changed, so did the games. Originally starting with ideas revolving around Utopian hot potato societies, the game concepts evolved into the realm of addicting abstract gameplay. Hot on the heels of highly-acclaimed abstract games such as Rez, Boomshine, and Portal, our cooperative color-matching Artemis and our solo sound-manipulating Synaesthesis incorporates some of our best original ideas using our innovative no-touch platform.
