The Question

Every arcade game feels different, and most of that feeling comes from the controller the click of a Box Blue, the resistance of a pressure sensor, the click-detent of a rotary encoder. But this is usually treated as a preference issue, not a research question. I wanted to ask it properly: does the physicality of the input change how present the player feels in their own body during play?

Rebuilding a canonical arcade game (Galaga) in Unity and pairing it with a custom controller gave me a clean way to isolate that variable.

The Approach

The controller is a laser-cut acrylic panel that pairs three distinct input types: Box Blue mechanical switches (clicky, tactile), an FSR-402 pressure sensor (continuous, resistant), and a KY-040 rotary encoder (detented rotation). All three run through an Arduino Uno R4 WiFi, into the Unity Galaga rebuild.

Six participants each played three conditions:

1. Standard USB gamepad (control)

2. Custom acrylic panel (physical variety)

3. On-screen touch (invisible)

After each session, participants completed a short bodily-awareness questionnaire and a semi-structured interview.

The Outcome

The finding is a single sentence: invisibility produces preference, physicality produces engagement. Participants preferred the touch condition (it felt "easy"), but they were more bodily present during the custom-panel condition described "feeling their fingers" and "being aware of the resistance" in a way the touch condition didn't produce.

The full write-up, ethics pack, Pecha Kucha presentation, and Harvard reference list were submitted as my Creative Making: Responsive Environments module deliverable.

Project Highlights

• Custom laser-cut acrylic controller with three input types

• Unity rebuild of Galaga adapted for research use

• Six-participant study with ethics approval

• Practice-based research methodology and full write-up

• Pecha Kucha presentation and reference documentation