Tinycade is a platform designed to support game designers in making Alt Ctrl (alternative controller) games in which the interface can be easily fabricated by hand. Players can build the alternative controllers themselves with everyday materials, such as cardboard, toothpicks and rubber bands. Tinycade uses computer vision and simple crafting approaches to make this platform accessible to as many players and designers as possible.
 

Publications

Peter Gyory. 2022. Creating Platforms to Support Craft and Creativity in Game Controller Design. In Creativity and Cognition (C&C '22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 708–710. https://doi.org/10.1145/3527927.3533733 (June 20-23, 2022—Venice, Italy).

Peter Gyory, Perry Y Owens, Matthew Bethancourt, Amy Banic, Clement Zheng, Ellen Yi-Luen Do. 2022. “Build Your Own Arcade Machine with Tinycade,” In 14th ACM conference on Creativity & Cognition, (June 20-23, 2022—Venice, Italy).

ACME Lab   Tinycade Site

 

Associated Researchers

Ellen Yi-Luen Do
Ellen Yi-Luen Do
Professor • Director, ATLAS Partnerships & Innovation • ACME Lab • DESIGN, TANGIBLE INTERACTION, HAPPY HEALTHY LIVING • COMPUTER SCIENCE
Peter Gyory,
Peter Gyory
Lecturer • GAMES, XR, TANGIBLE INTERACTION
ATLAS Institute
Perry Owens
Perry Owens
Creative Industries Master's Student • BS, CTD–Creative Technology and Design '22
ATLAS Institute
Allison Palmer
Allison Palmer
Undergraduate Student
Computer Science
Jenna Rothe
Jenna Rothe
Undergraduate Student
Applied Mathematics and Computer Science
Dylan Turner stands in front of a brick wall.
Dylan Turner
Summer Intern • BS, CTD–Creative Technology and Design '21
ATLAS Institute

In the news

Two hands playing on tinycade cardboard consoles
ACM C&C'22: Creating Platforms to Support Craft and Creativity in Game Controller Design

June 20, 2022

ATLAS PhD student Peter Gyory's research aims to bridge the gap between game developers and Alt Controls through the use of everyday materials and crafting techniques.

Two hands playing on tinycade cardboard consoles
ACM C&C'22: Build Your Own Arcade Machine with Tinycade

June 20, 2022

Tinycade is a platform designed to help game designers build their own mini arcade games by hand. With this platform, one can craft functioning game controllers out of everyday materials such as cardboard and toothpicks. In this pictorial, the authors discuss the functionality of Tinycade and showcase three games that demonstrate the variety of controls possible with this platform.

cardboard controls for gaming
ACME LAB @ ACM C&C

June 2, 2022

Researchers from ATLAS Institute’s ACME Lab will present one pictorial and two Graduate Student Symposium papers at the 14th ACM Creativity & Cognition (C&C), which will take place June 20-23 in Venice, Italy. The theme of this year's conference is "Creativity, Craft and Design."

A Tinycade console with a hand gripping a "claw" controller
Tinycade empowers novices to design and build arcade-like games

Jan. 13, 2022

Limited by materials available at home during the pandemic, ATLAS PhD student Peter Gyory and a team of ACME Lab researchers developed Tinycade—a platform for DIY game controllers that anyone, including novices, can use to design and build arcade-like games using household materials such as cardboard, mirrors and hot glue.