Irish surfing sim

[Aphra K]

Has anyone heard of this surfing simulation called ‘Surf Champ’ developed by ‘New concepts’ in Ireland for the Spectrum way back? Damian from NUIM and now also teaching in Carlow IT was telling me about it.

Aphra.

‘n the lounge, another contest was in full swing. New Concepts were offering a specially airbrushed surf board to the highest scorer in their simulation. Four televisions and rubber keyed Spectrums had been set up and knots of spectators cheered their teammates on. The on screen surfer is controlled by a keyboard overlay, shaped like a surfboard, which responds to the position of your hand in much the same way as a real board responds to body weight. So pressure on the side makes you turn. Norman told me there was no way the game could be played via traditional manes; twenty keys have to be read to calculate how you’re positioned and allow for stunts like trailing your hands in the wake of the board, I made a mental note: "Let your fingers do the surfing."

See full report at http://www.crashonline.org.uk/23/surfsup.htm

[Anonymous]

sounds like an ideal port to the wii :)

[Anonymous]

Just a bit more on this – the developer of this game is still teaching in IT Carlow. He kept a pretty complete record of all the different interface mechanisms (such as the surfboard), dealings, reviews, and previews of the games he developed, and had some very interesting stories.

The surfboard with the game was cool. Had notches on it to press different keys when the user presses on different areas. The surfing game apparently also featured some pretty heavy duty physics for the time. There were even some pro surfers on board (no pun intended) at the time, and featured in advertisments for the game in the games magazines of the time.

There was also a skiing game (using two skis placed across the keyboard in a similiar manner to the surfboard) and had a sailing game in development.

The sailing game was particularly nice. Norman (the developer) had actually built a small wooden boat, which could be plugged directly into the Spectrum. The wooden boat had a rudder and sail which you could twist physically on the boat, and would in turn control the position of the boat on screen. Very cool! All the projects were great examples of natural interfaces.

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