Badminton VG

For those who bothered to read my profile - you would have noted that I only have 2 interests written down. One is badminton. The other is video games.

Now for some reason, these 2 hobbies seem to be mutually exclusive. Almost every other sport seems to have video game versions available - eg Football (Fifa, Winning Eleven), Tennis (Virtua Tennis, Top Spin), American Football (Madden, Blitz), Basketball (NBA Live, NBA 2k), Golf (Tiger Woods, Panya) etc and so forth. The list is almost endless. Even table tennis has a video game (more than 1 in fact!). Even for sports which don't have commercial video games available, you will often find several flash versions available online somewhere.

However, trying to find a badminton game is almost impossible despite the fact that badminton is the second most popular sport in the world (Football is numero uno). So if badminton is so popular, how come no one ever made a badminton video game?

Well, fret not sports fans cos the Meister has you covered! I was finally able to locate a badminton flash game (actually, I got sent the link ages ago - but hey, same diff. Besides, I needed some time to master the game).

Unfortunately, after playing it, I think I can understand why badminton games are so rare.

The problem is depth perception. In badminton, you need to be able to tell instantly whether the bird is flying high or dropping low (or in english, whether the shuttle is a high clear or a drop shot). Unfortunately, due to poor depth perception in video games (which are inherently 2d), it is very hard to tell this onscreen. Go ahead and try out the flash game if you don't believe me.

So whats the solution? To be honest, not sure. The first idea I had was to make the game slower so you had more time to judge the flight of the shuttle. However, this seems to defeat the purpose of badminton (did you know that shuttles have clocked in at over 200mph?!).

Another idea I had was to have the viewpoint low down and just behind the player (in effect, simulating what you would see in real life). Unfortunately, this wouldn't work either as you often have to run up and down the court in badminton. Can you imagine how frustrating it would be if you lost sight of the shuttle everytime the opponent played a high clear when you are at the net?

My last idea was to have the viewpoint low and far back ie behind the court. Unfortunately, I'm not sure this would work either. Unlike tennis, the net in badminton is very high. If you have the viewpoint far back, the net would basically hide your opponent which would make it very frustrating during net play situations.

So basically, my conclusion is that a video game version of badminton (that is fun to play!) is impossible. Hence none have ever been made.

I told my friend the above story but he had a different conclusion. His conclusion was that I should stick to playing games and leave the game design to professionals.
:p