Phenomenology in games

Task: Write about a game that made you feel aware of your body as you played it

With the growing use of attached (infrared) cameras and accelerometers in game controllers there is a lot of scope for the use of motion in games now. Kinect-based games and controllers like the Wiimote or Playstation Move seem to be less prominent now than a few years ago, but there are still games making use of these features in interesting ways. Flower (2009) is a game I played recently that made me very aware of how I was moving my hands and arms as a result of its accelerometer-based control scheme, and the flow from my movements to the game made the experience feel very coherent and light, flying around sometimes wildly if I didn't consider my movements. Tilt-based games in general I have found tend to make me play more actively, sitting up and really concentrating on my actions as opposed to button-based games, which (once I have grasped the control scheme) have me concentrating on the game itself rather than my own movements. Games which use devices such as the Kinect strangely enough don't replicate this effect in my experience, I think because we usually have visual feedback of our actions on the screen in the form of some kind of avatar or camera display, and because they don't usually require the same kind of fine motor control required for tilt-based games.