Game Critique: Samba de Amigo

Although I pretty much stopped playing video games, I have a soft spot for bizarre games, especially ones that allow me to do something I wouldn't ordinarily do in public. Samba de Amigo was released in 2000 for the Dreamcast system. It required players to shake maracas in time with music in order to score points. Here's a photo of some strangers playing the game and a screenshot, showing the sombrero-wearing monkey behind the circles and bubbles that players must follow when shaking. The maracas have sensors that detect shaking, and motion sensors in a strip placed on the floor can pinpoint where you are holding the maracas.

Players stand in front of the television with a maraca in each hand. On the screen is are rings in a circle. Each ring represents either right or left maraca and one of three positions: high, middle, low. When the music starts, small bubble-like spheres float from the center of the screen toward one of the rings. Wthe bubble hits the ring, you must shake the maraca in that position. So if the bubble hits the high left ring, you must shake the maraca in your left hand high in the air.

The bubbles fly all over the place in various combinations and at various rates of speed depending on the music. Sometimes you must freeze your position until you hear a bell.

It's a great game, largely because the activity is well-integrated with the theme. Most of the music is Latin, so shaking maracas fits in perfectly. Futhermore, you must shake in the rhythm of the music, so you are actually playing along with the band using real percussion instruments. Part of the problem I have with most computer and video games is that the mode of player input is so far removed from the actions depicted in reponse. Does it really make sense to push a buttom to jump, for example? The controller or keyboard usually adds a experiential layer that insulates a player from the game world. No matter how realistically rendered the characters or environment might be, interacting often comes down to the same thing: push a button to jump, hit a key to shoot.

Samba de Amigo as Interactivity

Using Chris Crawford's model of an interactivity, the two actors in Samba de Amigo are the program (game) and the human player (although two people may play simultaneously, it really amounts to side-by-side solo games). The computer "listens" to the player by monitoring his actions via the maraca and floor sensors. The player listens to the program by looking at the screen (where the bubbles are going) and hearing the sound effects that indicate successful and missed shakes.

The program "thinks" by processing the input, and determining success and failure according to its internal rules. The player thinks by using the visual and aural responses of the game to assess his performance. The program "speaks" by generating those visual and aural clues (red X's on missed bubbles, booing sound effects, etc.), and by adjust the player's score. The player "speaks" by adjust his playing (faster, slower, more accurate, etc.).

This constant adjustment of cues on the part of the program and of performance on the part of the player forms the cyclic process of listening, thinking and speaking that Crawford discusses in his essay. All three elements are important and equally weighted in Samba de Amigo, thus I would say the game has a high level of interactivity.

Using Mark Stephen Meadows' four-step model of interactivity, Samba de Amigo breaks down as follows:

1. Observation: The affordance of the maracas is to pick them up and shake them. A plastic mat on the floor has footprints that tell the player where to stand. The position of the maracas is indicated on the screen. This allows players to experiment with the correspondence between the position of the maracas on the TV screen and in real space. Once the game begins, a player must assess the situation quickly and constantly and adjust his performance accordingly.

2. Exploration: Shaking and moving the maracas in space constitute exploration.

3. Modification: Shaking the maracas correctly causes the program to register a success (and adds points); shaking incorrectly registers a failure (and subtracts points).

4. Reciprocal change: The game responds to success and failure with visual and aural cues. This continues until the song finishes or the player does so poorly that the game ends. Completing a song successfully allows a player to try another song, and in some cases unlock more difficult songs.