A message to motion gaming devs

With the new generation upon us and a new kinect and motion gaming in general being geared up I have some suggestions for the devs out there and would hope maybe even in passing they may see and possibly implement or consider these ideas if they haven't started already. I make these suggestions understanding the plight of the regular traditional core gamer and have identified these things as ways to eliminate the block they would have to motion controlled gaming.

1. Don't use tricks. Make the actions and results straight forward. With modern controller based games we are use to and comfortable with certain programming things that add immersion by making the game less easy like really fast QTE ques with short input times. As an example in Rise of nightmares when you open the door and the trap springs the queue to duck or step back and time to act is too short. This is new for gamers they are still trying to grasp this stuff and getting killed by things like that is very discouraging to them. Another example is Kinect Star Wars when in the sword fighting the enemy will sometime do the juke move so you can't telegraph were their attack is coming from. Let them telegraph and let the gamers connect like I said this new for lots of people. They can't sword fight for real so let them get comfortable and confident before you start trying squeeze them.

2. Make the gamer feel powerful. You want people to connect to the game and nothing does that better than making them feel like they are making a difference. So a fighting game shouldn't be about you throwing a million punches it should be about pulling off the right move at the right time. Make the results grand and over the top like if I kick someone send the flying through the wall or when I punch an enemy in the jaw they don't just recover in 1 second. Fable the Journey got halfway there you felt you could were strong but you still took several hits to kill an enemy and it was a lot of busyness to the actions that take away some of the feeling of power.

3. Make better tutorials. I have seen games that are really good get swept under the rug because the instruction don't give them what they need to play the game. Most of the information about all the intricate thing in Kinect Star Wars are explained in 2 second loading screen shots. This resulted in people not knowing how duels of fate actually worked or not knowing how to use all the gadgets in Pod racing or even basic combat in Jedi destiny. Also make the tutorial more like training. You could get through the Star Wars demo and not know how to use the force effectively, you could get through the Steel Battalion tutorial and have no grasp of the controls. Make these sections force the player to understand what the game is asking of them otherwise people are going to think it's the game and not them.

These are smaller suggestions that would make things better but may not be essential.

A universal menu system would be nice at least until the masses get comfortable with controlling kinect.

Design high energy games to work in short concentrated bursts. Not everyone is healthy enough for long intense play sections So in a fighting game don't have health bars 10 ft long. If you are making an endurance game let the player know this is an endurance game.

Be creative and exploit it. In game today people normally try to hide the best stuff so they can surprise the gamer... this is new and people don't get what is happening explain it. Example make a spy game and sell it with the advanced stealth stuff like in Rise of Nightmares, not moving or making a sound in the room aspect.

I am expecting great things from motion control this gen all the players have their formats from the start and should have enough power to make these input methods come to life.