Review: Shadowrun Returns

Let me just say this right off the bat: Shadowrun for Super Nintendo is my all-time favorite game. All time. It was great. Set in a future cyberpunk theme urban sprawl, you are basically a gun for hire. Or at least you were. You wake up in a morgue back from the dead with no memory of your life. You spend the rest

Review: Rainbows End

I went into this book not knowing much. Well I heard it was set in the future, and was recommended on some internet forums. So that was enough to pique my interest. After listening to the 14+ hours of the audio-book, I’m not sure I can say I know anymore. OK, I will be blunt. I don’t think I enjoyed this journey. It

Review: Remember Me

Remember Me is an action-adventure title recently released by Capcom (developed by Dontnod). It is set in a futuristic Paris, and follows a “memory hunter” named Nilin. Basically, in the future people can erase (or alter) their memories, and there is a big evil corporation profiting off the situation. Nilin is part of the resistance, called Errorists, that fight the corporation.  Nilin starts

Review: Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX 11

Frank Luna’s DirectX series has been the go to book for DirectX development for many years. Although there are other great resources, Luna’s writing is both informative and approachable. The book also covers a broad range of topics from the basic lighting, texturing, and blending, to terrain rendering, normal and displacement mapping, geometry and compute shaders and more. He even tackles some tough topics

Yet Another VR Treadmill on Kickstarter

There is now another omni-directional treadmill project on Kickstarter, this one called the Wizdish. It’s a passive design, similar to the Omni, however it does not allow the user to lift their feet. It works by wearing special shoes with low-friction tiles on the bottom. This allows you to slide your feet back-and-forth easily without the need to pick up your feet. I

Review: 3D Game Engine Architecture

In preparation for my 3D game engine, I have been trying to read all I can on 3D engine design and architecture. Although there are some good books out there, it’s very difficult to find a text that will walk you through everything you need to know. That said, 3D Game Engine Architecture: Engineering Real-Time Applications with Wild Magic by David H. Eberly gives it

Force-Feedback Vest on Kickstarter

Looks like there’s yet another virtual reality project on Kickstarter. Well, I guess this is not strictly a VR thing, but it certainly could be used as such. Basically the ARAIG is a vest that you wear while gaming, and it provides force-feedback when you are getting hit in the game. While it does include vibration (like current controllers), it also has direct

Building a DIY Data-Glove (Part 2)

  The above video is demonstrating a 4.5″ flex sensor made by Spectra Symbol that I got from Sparkfun. Hooked it up to an Arduino and had it print the values to the serial monitor. Since I don’t have a tripod, it was going to be difficult to demo with only one hand, so I ended up taping the sensor to my finger.

Virtuix Omni Kickstarter Funded

The Virtuix Omni Kickstarter campaign was fully funded within hours of the doors opening this morning. If you haven’t heard of this device before, it’s basically a passive treadmill. It allows you to walk in any direction inside a virtual world, without actually moving in the real world. At the time of writing, they are sitting on over $454,000 with 47 days left

Building a DIY Data-Glove (Part 1)

  For quite some time I have been waiting for a good data-glove to hit the market for use with virtual reality applications. So far the only consumer product that has come remotely close was the P5 glove, which was probably one of the biggest disappointments in my life. Although better data-gloves have existed since the 90’s, they have been so expensive to