The Nintendo Wii video game console has achieved unexpected success, among the public all over the world, thanks to the innovative game mode characterized by remote control, interactively with what is happening on the screen. I remember that when I put my hand on a webcam for the first time, many years ago, on the CD provided, there were several games that, basically, were very similar to those distributed with the Wii today.
They were games in which their webcam image interacted with the background graphics of the game and, for example, they had to hit the head of the soap bubbles.
The gameplay was bad and it worked very randomly ...
UPDATE: the tool described in this article no longer exists.
But there is something better, AirConsole for playing on PC or TV with a smartphone (like Nintendo Switch) .
An application similar to Camspace is eViacam which allows you to control a computer using the head from the webcam .
Now, however, some Wii-inspired developers have improved that game system and the experience has been completely different and amazing !
Camspace has been out for 3 days, before it was in beta and available on invitation only, yesterday I managed to try it.
CamSpace allows the gamer to use any object placed in front of the webcam as if it were a joystick and then to play remotely and wirelessly as it happens on a Nintendo Wii that uses motion sensors.
On Camspace, motion sensors are virtual and software driven.
The installation of the CamSpace program is particular, after launching the executable, that is the .exe file, during the installation Camspace installs the drivers of a virtual joystick .
Windows warns several times that that driver may not be compatible with Windows itself but obviously you have to ignore these warnings and always press "continue".
After installing CamSpace, connecting the Webcam and restarting the PC, you notice that the program starts in the backgroud with the start of Windows, this is because Camspace has been designed to work, potentially, with any game that exists for Windows PCs.
At this point you need to make sure you have good lighting in the room and start the CamSpace application which recognizes the webcam and shows its image.
Now let's prepare the joystick, any object with an elongated shape like a pen can be fine but with a lighter, large model, you get the best result.
When the application starts, a message appears saying to hide the object that will function as a joystick from the camera and press a padlock; once the lock is closed, the lighter must be framed and the program automatically recognizes it as a joystick.
At this point, you can start trying CamSpace with the small games that have been installed together with the program (there should be a folder with the games on the Desktop); with a double click on one of the games, the Wii experience begins and you find yourself in a science fiction film "Minority Report".
With many games it is possible to play even in two by recognizing two virtual joysticks, for example, in the game "soccer" you have to make goals to the opponent by throwing a ball on the goal with the virtualized lighter.
