Looking into Kinect hacking

I came to the conclusion a while back that Microsoft's newest toy the Kinect was the way I wanted to go for my major project in the third year. I thought I'd do something different and create something actually physical and playable by anyone rather than doing yet another web page. I can do those any time.

After seeing some of the awesome hacks people have done with their Kinects, I decided that it was the path for me. I wanted something people could just jump in not really knowing what they were doing and instantly get a kick out of it and what better way to do that than with something with no buttons whatsoever?

The first hurdle, of course, is what. What can you possibly build using Kinect that someone hasn't thought of before? It needs to be something that everyone has at least a vague interest in, that would be fun or at least somewhat entertaining for the person playing as well as the other people and is generally just a solid, original idea.

It comes in the form of music.

I saw a few of them around before, back when the Kinect first came out, but it was really this dubstep one above which sold the idea to me. The person's left hand was controlling the reverb of the music in both the X, Y and Z axis. Anyone could jump in and affect the music. While it was a pre-made beat they were merely modifying, you could obviously see they were enjoying making something that sounded like it was straight out of any club chain's underground bar.

There's a more detailed video of a similar system done by a person going by the oh-so-DJ-sounding pseudonym 'Synaecide', showing how he interacts with the program making the sound:

See, now, I don't know all about this music scene. Of course, dubstep is a very specialised area and of course someone better's going to be better at it than I am. And I'd rather create something fun and enjoyable for all. Something more *Wii Music *than DJ Hero.

Of course I'm just brainstorming here, but dance games have always been a bit of a hit. One of the more popular Kinect launch titles Dance Central even comes as a demo when you buy the device. You just follow the person on screen and it tells you if you're awesome or not.

In this game (or of the little bit of the demo I played) you follow the instructions as they pop up on your right in simple – sometimes cryptic - drawings. If you're getting it wrong, you quickly know where by highlighting on the actual dancer the parts of your body that are flailing. It gives you plenty of time to get it right before punishing you, and also encourages other people to jump in and play rather than simply laugh at you in the background while uploading the same footage to YouTube.

Even if we go back to the likes of Dance Dance Revolution, people just love dancing to music and even more when their actions have some sort of impact on the music. Just look at the impact Guitar Hero had on the market.

So in summary, I think the route I want to go down is some sort of physical music making furore that isn't too challenging. Perhaps go a bit Rowan Atkinson, who knows…