When we play games, we typically rely on two of our senses: sight and sound. However Woojer is hoping that touch will be part of our gaming experience as the company has since launched the Ryg haptic vest on Kickstarter, where it appears to have been a success and managed to shoot past its $50,000 goal in a few hours.
For those who are unfamiliar with Woojer, the company had previously debuted the Strap, a haptic belt, and the Ryg is an expansion on that. According to the company, “With a built-in 7.1 surround card, the Woojer ryg has 8 location-specific haptic zones, each one representing 1 out of its 8 sound channels. And each zone has an ‘Osci inside’ – Woojer’s patented Oscillating Frame Actuator which is 3X more powerful than those used in our previous products, providing an immersive experience impossible to create with anything else.”
Basically this vest when worn will let gamers feel their games, and we’re not just talking about regular vibrations, but targeted vibrations where as the description points out, there will be eight different zones that can vibrate. As we’re starting to see games get more immersive with virtual and augmented reality options, the Ryg actually makes a lot of sense.
What’s interesting is that Woojer isn’t alone in trying to make gamers feel their games. Razer had last month announced a new set of headphones that also comes with haptic feedback.