Nostalgia for Local Multiplayer
Oh, how we miss the days of local multiplayer! Those times when the game was a great excuse to meet up with friends, crack open a few cold beers, and chat about life while you wiped the floor with them in Mortal Kombat II, or cooperated to uncover the plans of Mad Cat in Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers. Nowadays it's all nice to play online with anyone, but we miss the human warmth, the company, the camaraderie, and, why not, the chance to laugh in the face of the loser who just fell victim to the most dishonorable fatality possible.
Luckily, there are plenty of DIY superheroes bringing alternatives to make our favorite hobby a face-to-face affair again. DOBOTONE (for TWO BUTTONS) is one of those tête-à-tête alternatives, and it comes from none other than VIDEOGAMO, the company behind the interactive art installation known as NAVE (which we've already covered on NeoTeo). And in these times of rampant individualism, where social interactions are often reduced to what happens on 2.0 networks, any of these ideas are welcome not only for being fun, but also for their attempt to create bonds beyond the virtual, forcing us to get off the couch, shake off the hermit inside us, and socialize like in the good old days.
According to Hernáz Saenz, who created the beast together with Máximo Ballestrini, DOBOTONE is "a video game console for parties. Players use joysticks that have only two buttons, no pad or lever, and the console has knobs to modify the games, which are stored inside the machine. The idea was to build a console with the durability of an arcade that could plug into a TV, a monitor, or a projector and that we could take to parties, friends' houses, events, etc." Having literally crossed the world with NAVE, the arcade of the spaceship that was a hit wherever it went, the folks at VIDEOGAMO understand very well the demands that a game must meet to earn a place at a gathering among friends. "For example, accessibility. Like NAVE, DOBOTONE seeks to make anyone at the party feel tempted to at least try it, whether or not they are a regular video game player. They should understand from the outside roughly how it works and think they are capable of doing it. It's very common to hear 'No, I'm terrible. I don't understand anything.' So we try to simplify as much as possible the basic way of connecting the player to the machine."
With seven games designed, plus five more about to be included, VIDEOGAMO hopes to soon have 20 games specifically designed for the party console. "I think my favorite is the one we call 'karate' (the games don't even have titles; everyone names them at their own discretion). It's a fighting game where you have to avoid being hit because with each hit, you lose part of your armor (in the style of Ghosts 'n' Goblins / NAVE) until only your skeleton remains, the last point of energy before defeat. Each button serves to move and hit the opponent at the same time, left and right. This game also shows very well the possibilities of modifying variables that the system has," says Hernán.
The console is proving to be a success wherever it appears. A few weeks ago, DOBOTONE was at GDC and its creators were very happy: "It went very well for us, we returned happy. It was the first massive test of the console and people from many different countries tried it. Several told us it was among the best things they had seen at GDC, so with that alone we are infinitely more satisfied than we expected. It also helped us get a much clearer idea of what the project is about and thus have a clearer path."
As for the hardware it uses, and since at NeoTeo we are super into DIY, we asked what was under the casing. Read this, you'll love it for its ingenuity: "Right now, the version of the console that exists is a prototype made of cardboard, completely functional. The next step is to build a more resistant version to truly test it at a party, without us having to be there. (...) The current version of DOBOTONE is made in Unity and works with a laptop hidden inside the casing. For communication between the console's buttons and knobs and the PC, we use an Arduino, and for the four joysticks, a small homemade board that Maxi put together. The score screens are two semi-hidden smartphones, and the buttons and knobs are standard, bought online or from electronics stores. This cardboard version was made a bit with what we had on hand at the time, trying to spend as little money as possible, just enough to see if the concept worked. Now we are preparing a new version of the console that looks very similar to the current one, but internally it will be a bit less precarious and more replicable." Pure creativity!
All very nice, but will there be any possibility of owning the machine for our own private parties? "We want there to be the ideal version with hardware and everything, but also a DIY cardboard version that can be made with tutorials, or a stripped-down version for Steam or tablets and phones." But for that, says Hernán, there's still time, as he is taking the development of DOBOTONE with the calmness that good projects deserve.
