Working in Movement

Computers are interactive, and the normal way that we interact with them is through keyboard, monitor and mouse. But there are other ways available, and one of them pops up in a computer game for Windows and Mac called The Journey to the Wild Devine. Achieving Balance in Body, Soul and Trigger Finger reviews it.

Journey seemingly uses the autonomic nervous system to control the game using a biofeedback device to link the player to the playing environment. This probably isn't easy at first but, thanks to the plasticity of the brain, it's probably not hard to learn. I've written previously about plasticity and computers. As Andy Clark puts it in that post, "plastic brains can learn to treat well-designed new tools as if they were parts of the person."

Still, and though I haven't played it, Journey seems more than a bit "new agey" to make much market penetration into the gamer world. If the review is any indication, the game's sound track doesn't help matters, described as music that "sounds like Pink Floyd with all the cynicism and talent removed." Now, there's a descriptive phrase!