SegelBootePusten is a game installation where up to four players have to steer cooperatively a small sailing boat through different challenges. Steering happens by blowing into four rotors (one for each cardinal direction) that are placed around a lying screen. The players can play different levels where they have to steer through a parkour, explore a labyrinth or collect small yellow rubber ducks. In each challenge they have to play as a team and communicate to succeed, to finish the level and at the best case beat the high-score.

Our huge interest in alternative controls and microcontrollers brought up the idea to make a cooperative game where the players can actually blow a boat over the screen. From the beginning on it was clear it should be something totally different than what you can buy in a store. You have to come together around a physical playing device and have a control-system you never had on a computer game before.

After testing a lot of devices to measure the speed of air while blowing, we decided to take some small motors (working as generators).With the rotors we get the most accurate data and the players get a visual feedback while blowing. The Arduino measures the voltage produced by the motors and feeds the values to the game application. With that construction the players are able to control the hole game (menu and in-game) with just blowing the right direction. The game is developed in Unity3D and the hardware items are designed and crafted by our own.

Involved Persons
Tabea Bratzke – Game Concept, 3D- and 2D-Art, Hardware

Kajetan von Hollen – Programming, Hardware

Soft- und Hardware Unity3D, Arduino, Blender & Autodesk Inventor

Date Summer 2018

The game was nominated for the Creative Gaming Award 2018 in the category “Most Innovative Newcomer” at the Play18 Festival in Hamburg! (https://playfestival.de/category/nominees/)