Super Street Fire Prototype at Firefly
What is Super Street Fire?
Simply put, it’s Street Fighter 2 only with the fire of a thousand suns (aka 32 flame effects). Set on a real-life version of Ryu’s classic stage, Super Street Fire sees two brave fighters duke it out for up to three rounds of ridiculously intense gameplay. The two players stare each other down while poised ten metres apart on their own elevated platforms. In front of them lie two rails of fire just waiting to be provoked. A Master of Games officiates each bout with play-by-play commentary, heartfelt cheering and the odd disparaging remark. As if this wasn’t epic enough, we then surrounded it all with a glorious ring of fire.
Before battle, both fighters are outfitted with motion-sensing gloves. The gloves are designed to capture every throw from perfectly timed blocks, to fierce right hooks, to deadly hadoukens. With each attack, a coloured line of fire hurtles towards the opponent as they scramble to retaliate or succumb to fiery damage. Still remember combos? Good. The stronger the attack, the greater the spectacle. As the countdown clock winds down, punches are thrown, life is lost and a victor is named.
Super Street Fire Stage Design
Super Street Fire Prototype at Maker Faire Detroit
How does it REALLY work?
The flame effect heads are propane-fed devices that emit a column of fire, or fireball, high into the air. They also dynamically change the colour of the flame so it’s obvious who dealt the blow and who stood there and took it. Flame effects are expressed as two rails, each comprised of eight computer controlled flame effect heads—one rail for the right hand gestures and one for the left. As well as the two rails between the players, there is an outer ring of sixteen flame effects that are triggered by special player move combinations and also controlled by the Master of Games for crowd engagement. The game system is computer hardware and software with an Arduino microcontroller that interfaces with the flame effect head solenoids to regulate both the intensity and duration of the flame.
The custom designed motion-sensing gloves that the players wear are modeled after traditional MMA grappling gloves. Similar to a Nintendo Wii-mote, the gloves contain inertial measurement units that capture a player’s actions. It then wirelessly sends this data to a game server that detects if those actions match one of the pre-trained game gestures. If the gesture is recognized, the game system gives feedback to the player by activating the flame effects.
Top Down View
Super Street Fire Prototype at Maker Faire Detroit
What makes Super Street Fire special?
Apart from the nostalgia-inducing, flame-throwing, arcade inspired goodness, Super Street Fire is a community project made up of volunteers from a variety of different backgrounds. It’s a great mix of art, engineering, software programming, stagecraft and game design. It creates a new way for participants to control fire beyond just pushing buttons. It encourages friendly competition and the ridiculous smack-talking that goes along with it. Best of all, old-school gamers will be delighted when they find that their live-action impersonations of a favourite video game character will light up the sky.
Game Gestures Examples
You can play Super Street Fire at Burning Man 2012!
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