Oh, they all laughed at me when I first said I was getting a Kinect. It was the middle of the christmas season, the Kinect had just hit the shelves and I singlehandedly bought every dance game known to man in the hopes that I would somehow gain a sense of rhythm I have long since been denied. They all laughed at me, telling me the only thing my Kinect was good for was house parties and fitness games where Joan Michael kept reminding me what an out of shape couch potato I was. Oh, and Zumba, which is an odd combination of both.
They told me it was useless, only good for party favors and those moments when you feel like randomly breaking it down at 3 in the morning. But whose laughing now?
Today, Team Dakota at Gamescom 2013 in Germany unveiled several new features for a super innovative project, codename “Project Spark.” This ambitious project aims to use the power of the Kinect to immerse players into a game like never before. Using the Kinect’s technology, players will be able to capture their own personal facial animations, body motions, and create custom attacks. Using the Kinect microphone, players will also be able to use their own voices and sounds to create custom character animations, voice dialog, and even trigger cinematic cut scenes.
If you’re not already foaming at the mouth, rendered immobile from sheer disbelief, or laughing hysterically as you do the dance of victory with your Kinect, do carry on.
Voice and Motion Capture on the Kinect would allow for users to apply their face to in-game characters, create custom attacks via full body motions, and record audio and modulate sounds in a variety of ways. The result of these three features (and the combination of face + body + and sound) is what would allow players to star in their very own cinematic cutscenes.
According to Team Dakota, the official beta launch for Project Spark will begin sometime in October 2013 for Windows 8 devices and January 2014 for the fly folks with the Xbox One console. If, by this point, you’re feeling enough hype to register for the beta, run on over to the Project Spark website for more info at www.joinprojectspark.com. I’ll be joining you shortly, just need to go ahead and tell my folks my life is practically over.
