[This unedited press release is made available courtesy of Gamasutra and its partnership with notable game PR-related resource GamesPress.]
The Tai Chi Elements game developers are celebrating the end of
their epic thirty eight days Kickstarter campaign having raised
175% of their funding target.
More than just a game
Tai Chi Elements is a computer game with a difference, it's not
just for entertainment but it's a training medium for students of
the ancient Chinese Martial Art of Tai Chi. The Kickstarter project
was initiated to provide funding for the main part of the project
which is to create an online 3d environment where you can 'learn
Tai Chi in the comfort of your own home'. The project is still in
development, but 'The Musket33rs' - a small indie developers team
based in St Just, Cornwall, UK - have already produced a working
prototype of the software which has been in closed beta for the
last three months.
The prototype software includes an interface currently in
development which allows you to view a 3d in-game model which
performs the Tai Chi sequences which have been motion captured from
a real live Tai Chi master. The interface allows you to play back a
variety of aspects of a real Tai Chi class including breathing
exercises, chi gung or Chinese yoga exercises, and of course the
familiar Tai Chi movement sequences. You can edit the playback
interface to set the length of time for each section you want to
learn in effect building up an entire Tai Chi class. Although there
will be aspects of a Tai Chi class that will be difficult to
recreate - say the developers on their
Kickstarter blog - this is offset by the
advantages of being able to train at home. Not everyone can make it
to a Tai Chi class, but the mushrooming growth of the internet in
the last ten years has meant that people across the globe are now
more in contact with each other than with their neighbours. This
means that people do not have to work around the logistics of a
traditional class where they have to meet once a week at a
pre-arranged class. The project reflects more the popularity of Tai
Chi in traditional China where it was a family Art and accessible
to people on a daily basis where they would train in the park or at
home together.
Chris Simpson project manager says:
You can log on to the teaching environment at any time of the
day or night, for as long as you like, and as often as you like.
You can be guaranteed to be in contact with a team of dedicated
individuals, teachers and advanced students who can give you
feedback and guide you along the path. Many of the in-game guides
are teachers who are highly qualified and experienced in running
their own real world Tai Chi classes so you can be assured that you
are in good hands. It's ideal for people who simply don't have
access to a regular evening class but want to go further than
looking at books and videos. It's also a comprehensive back up
resource for people who are training regularly but want some way of
checking they are doing the right thing at home. It's convenient,
it's easy to use, and it's extremely good value.
The project team are all experienced Tai Chi teachers and their
aim has been to reproduce as much as possible of the Tai Chi
training process online, however the project is supplemented by
real Tai Chi training days at courses in Cornwall. There will be
regular residential training weeks at Easter and in the Summer in
the picturesque Cornish town of St Just in the heart of Penwith, an
official area of outstanding natural beauty. These courses are a
way for people to make sure they are getting enough feedback not
just with learning the sequences of movements of the forms but with
the interactive exercises which are a unique and vital component of
Tai Chi training. They are also a great way for people to relax and
recharge themselves away from the rat-race. The developers are
concentrating on bringing the player as much feedback as possible
in the game by looking at several approaches including using the
Kinect, talking to teachers using voice over IP for example
teamspeak, text chat based approaches such as a user forum and
in-game chat channels, an in-game browser, and also using video.
Players will be encouraged to be assessed by teachers in the same
way they would in a normal class, they will learn the sequences
then video themselves on a smart-phone, web-cam or video camera
then upload this to the server. The video can then be viewed on an
in-game screen which is semi-transparent and can be superimposed
over the in-game animated models for comparison. The model can be
sped up or slowed down to synchronise the movements with the video
and the screen can be positioned to get exactly the right angle
either for side-by-side viewing or used as an overlay. As well as
being a useful way for players to get an objective overview of
their own progress it's also a way that teachers can assess them.
Once a player has learned the initial set of moves a teacher can
promote them to the next level where they can continue on to the
next set of sequences and so on, once they have learned enough
moves and other techniques they can even take the master grade
which will enable them to either become an in-game guide or if they
decide to take it further even set up their own real world Tai Chi
class.
Game elements
As well as being experienced Tai Chi masters the dev team are
also passionate about gaming. In particular online multiplayer
games. One of the key elements in the design is not just a Tai Chi
trainer for enthusiasts but a fully featured multiplayer game which
will show people some of the philosophy behind Tai Chi training.
Tai Chi is based on the ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism and it
is down to earth and can be applied in a variety of real world
scenarios at work and at home. One of the central concepts of Tai
Chi training which is familiar to the Chinese but is alien to most
westerners is Chi. Chi means energy, it's like having a battery,
you can charge it up or run it down. The players' store of Chi will
be affected by three different variables in the game according to
the
Tai Chi Elements Kickstarter page:
- Personal energy development
- Enhancing the environment
- Forming groups and interacting with other players
The name of the game 'Tai Chi Elements' is related to the
Chinese philosophy of Taoism and the
Wu Hsing or five elements: wood, fire, earth, metal and
water. These are different to the western elements in that they are
more like stages in a cycle where each elemental energy adds
something to the mix and feeds the next. In the human body these
energies are associated with different meridians which are channels
used in acupuncture. This idea is very similar in terms of gaming
to accumulating a store of mana and the elemental energies are
similar to stats like strength, wisdom and dexterity that you might
find in any typical role playing game. Dungeons and Dragons players
first started rolling dice to create player statistics and go on
text based adventures back in the 1970's, but The Tai Chi Elements
developers want to take this concept a step further by basing the
strength of a player's elemental energies on the quality of their
actions and interactions with others. This will provide players
with real feedback about their development. A Tai Chi class is not
just a matter of doling out information, a good teacher is more
like a guide who shows students the path but doesn't piggy back
them along it. The greatest gift a teacher can give his students is
the skill of learning itself. The developers want to take this
philosophy further and not only apply it to the game play but apply
it to the actual game design itself.
Lead designer Chris Simpson says:
We see this game as a project, it's something ongoing and
something we hope to continue developing for a long time. In
typical role playing multiplayer games you often see high level
players who have dedicated themselves and become immersed in game
play suddenly disappear or even sell their characters online to
novice players, it's a terrible waste of a valuable resource. We
want to take the advanced player a stage further than the
traditional end-game, rather than ever bigger bosses we want to see
mobs piloted by experienced players. This is our aim, beyond
scripting to player driven scenarios. This all reflects the kinds
of interactions which we see in Tai Chi classes which are
spontaneous and involving students interacting with each other
rather than simply listening to lectures by the teacher.
There's a parallel here with the way information has become
disseminated on the net. In the old days users logged onto a
central server to download files, as the user load increased the
server became choked until it eventually ground to a halt or went
down under the weight of demands for information. More recently
with the advent of peer to peer networking users log on in the same
way as before but immediately start sharing information with each
other, the more users who log on the faster information is shared
across the network. It's the same in a Tai Chi class, every student
becomes a teacher and every teacher becomes a student, knowledge is
shared and a hell of a lot more gets done.
Work has started on developing a physics based approach to
combat inspired by the Tai Chi interactive training exercises. One
exercise called
sticky hands sees students testing each other's balance by
gently pushing each other, the exercise teaches students to yield
and avoid force against force. In the game there will be a similar
scenario where players will test each others skills, the
interactions online will not be key-press based scripted animations
but will use a real physical model of the way the body reacts to
external forces and maintaining balance. Players who block each
other and try to overpower the opponent will soon find their store
of Chi becoming depleted just like in real life.
The game will also teach people about how their actions can
affect the environment. The ancient Chinese art of Feng Shui
describes how the placement of objects affects the energy
environment. The energy flows through dragon lines across hilltops
and through valleys, and just as acupuncturists can affect the flow
of energy in the human body allowing it to accumulate or dissipate,
advanced players will be able to do the same thing in the
landscape.
The next step
Now that their Kickstarter project has been successfully funded
the team are turning their attentions towards a public beta test by
the end of January.
For anyone interested in participating in the beta test and for
more information, blogs, screenshots, artwork, videos and updates
about the project which is due for release on 5th April please
check out their website at
www.taichielements.com
The Musket33rs
The Musket33rs are a small team of independant developers based
in St Just, Cornwall, UK. They are all Tai Chi teachers with their
own classes and also games developers with skills in website
design, video production, software engineering, 3d art and design
and music composition. They are available for interviews please
contact the press officer.
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