How Mirror’s Edge fights motion sickness
Mirror’s Edge is an upcoming first-person adventure game which has you running along rooftops, sliding under objects and leaping between buildings (ala Prince of Persia or Assassin’s Creed) but all from a unique first-person perspective where you not only are seeing out of your characters eyes, but you realistically can see Faith’s arms and legs as she goes about her acrobatic feats.
So that may leave a lot of people wondering how the developers plans to combat motion sickness (or rather, “simulation sickness” since you aren’t actually moving) since the game looks so realistic. And EA has provided an answer…
They added a white dot in the middle of the screen. That dot turns blue when it’s charged for the slow motion action. So what is the purpose of said dot? EA said that DICE had interviewed ballerinas to see how they can perform spins without feeling sick. The trick they use is to focus on a certain object or spot on the floor while they spin, which inspired them to add the dot. That way players can focus on it as they run around. Although if you find it distracting or annoying, you do have the option to turn the dot off.
They also removed the head bobbing that you could see in footage from the Game Developer’s Conference, since they realized you are supposed to be seeing out of her eyes, not her head. They also made it so the sides of the screen provide a sense of peripheral vision in the game, although they haven’t decided whether or not to use letterbox widescreen for 4:3 resolution TV’s.
Via Joystiq
This is fascinating!
I remember people getting ‘Doom Sickness’ when that first came out on the PC; a sense of vertigo akin to the feeling of stepping off a treadmill…and I love that they spoke to ballerinas about it…great thinking!
22 July 2008 18:20astrotriforce
Haha! Yes I do remember that about Doom too! It always sounds funny to me that people can get simulated motion sickness from games, since it’s never happened to me.
Although I must say watching the videos from E3 2008 of Dark Void did it most to me. Since you can actually fight UPWARD using your jetpack and use the sheer edges of cliffs as your cover. And the view gets all crazy.
But yeah it’s definitely very interesting. And no better way to learn about motion sickness than to talk to ballerinas! So much kudos to them.
