Implementation of an Intelligent Force Feedback Multimedia Game

Abstract

This paper presents the design and programming of an intelligent multimedia computer game, enhanced with force feedback. The augmentation of game images and sounds with appropriate force feedback improves the quality of the game, making it more interesting and more interactive. We used the Immersion Corporation's force feedback joystick, the I-FORCE Studio computation engine, and the Microsoft DirectX Software Development Kit (SDK) to design the multimedia game, running in the Windows NT operating system. In this game, the world contains circles of different sizes and masses. When the circles hit each other, collisions take place, which are shown to, and felt by, the user. When the circles hit together, the overall score increases; the larger the size of the circle, the higher the score increase. The initial score is set to zero, and when the game ends, a lower score represents a better performance. This game was used to examine the behavior of the users under different environments through their respective scores and comments. The analysis of experimental results helps in the comparative study of different kinds of multimedia combinations.