Rick Tett's Contact Details

Rick Tett's Company Details

HoboLoco

Plano, Texas, United States • 2 Employees
Computer Games

Are there any activities you can think of where using your feet is taken for granted? Driving a car, perhaps? Playing a drum set? Flying an airplane? Why doesn't everyone just use their hands as we do in video game play? We're out to change that.HoboLoco develops game controller and virtual reality (VR) interaction devices that leverage the capabilities of our feet. Our products aim to overcome the drawbacks of current techniques and equipment used to control movement, travel and rotation in VR and other pseudo-virtual applications. Our venture began with the invention and patenting of a novel way of controlling movement using both feet inspired by the Hoverboard. Users apply slight depression of the heel and toe on each foot to glide naturally in a virtual world. Using feet instead of hands for controls has been shown to reduce VR sickness often felt by users. Our controllers allow more freedom in the virtual world, removing the boundaries without use of redirection, teleporting, or infinite treadmills. A patent has been granted to HoboLoco encompassing the use of independent foot plates for navigation in virtual reality including forward, backward, and turning; including as part of a rotating platform or chair. We've built prototypes that demonstrate the concept in both VR and first-person game play. We've expanded the controller's design to enable strafing, jumping, and other actions, as well as an application enabling a choice of game configurations. We like to say it is "feet-operated" rather than "foot-operated", because the key innovation is the combination of foot movements - not a single foot. Our configuration application enables users to pick a profile for one of many popular PC and PS4 games or to create a profile of their own and load it onto the controller.