TWO players sit across a table from one another, staring at a small white ball on a track between them. Both are wearing headbands and concentrating, trying to nudge the ball towards their opponent. All they can use is the power of thought.This is Mindball, an addictive "mind game" in which the winning strategy is to remain as focused and relaxed as possible in the heat of battle. The ball rolls away from the player with the calmest mind, as measured by sensors on their headbands.
The sensors are similar to those in an electroencephalogram (EEG), which probes brain activity by detecting "brainwaves" - tiny electrical currents playing across the scalp. Because EEGs are a non-invasive and near-instantaneous way to read brain activity, they have long been touted as potentially useful in gaming. It now looks as if that promise will be fulfilled, and not just in Mindball.
Several companies are developing hardware and software which they claim can detect brainwaves and use them in video games. If all goes to plan, the first of a new generation of games with mind control as a central feature will hit the high street this year.
"Several firms say their software can detect brainwaves and use them in gaming"
Mind gaming has its roots in the way new games are tested. Since 2004, EmSense, a company based in Monterey, California, has been using biofeedback to help game designers evaluate new products. Testers play a game wearing EmSense's headset, which uses an EEG to record their brainwaves, and also measures their heart rate and the sweatiness of their skin. EmSense then builds up a blow-by-blow profile of the player's emotional state and levels of arousal during play so the game can be made more engaging.
The basic technologies inside EmSense's headset are nothing new. Neurologists have been using the EEG as a diagnostic tool for nearly a century, while measuring heart rate with an electrocardiogram (ECG) has an even longer pedigree. Galvanic skin response (GSR), which measures emotional arousal via the conductivity of the skin - a proxy for sweatiness - has been a central element of lie detectors since the first world war.
Now, though, developers are finding ways to go beyond merely improving traditional games, and incorporating biofeedback into the games themselves.
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