If you aren't the type to physically lean as you play driving games but want that immersion factor, turns out you can just zap your brain to "make you fall in that direction."
Streamer, content creator, and owner of a Master's degree in psychology, PerriKaryal, recently took to TikTok to show off her latest device. It can "shift your balance by passing a current through your head in different directions controlled by a joystick."
Using a technique called galvanic vestibular stimulation (or GVS), it applies electrical currents to a nerve in the ear that helps maintain balance. When that nerve is manipulated, it can make you lose balance, and PerriKaryal has managed to map the feeling of being pushed to one side by moving a joystick in the same direction.
Before taking it to games, she tested it outside and ran in a straight line, only to have her camera person physically control her with a game controller. As her running outside was presumably filmed for a TikTok, we don't quite know much embellishment there is, but it is technically possible, and a good visual way of demonstrating what the tech is.
As she says in the TikTok's description, "Naturally, my first thought was man, I wanna play Trackmania with this." Trackmania, being a more arcade-style racing game, is an ideal choice for hurtling anyone from side to side. The in-game testing was streamed on Twitch (from 02:30:00 onwards), where PerriKaryal showed off some of the code, plus the placement of the device on the back of her ears.
Actually using the device for a game quickly goes awry, though. "Am I supposed to be seeing flashing lights?"
After fighting through a headache, flashing lights, and 'buzzy' vision, PerriKaryal says, "Don't do this. Don't build this. Don't make this. I do not approve of anyone making this themselves. I don't condone that behaviour. It's incredibly dangerous, and I'm not liable."
This is not our first time seeing PerriKaryal. Just last year, she took on Elden Ring: Nightreign with just her brain. Everyone uses their brain to play a game, of course, but PerriKaryal's method is a bit more literal. She used brain-computer interface software to connect to a device that measures brain activity and map it onto a virtual game pad. This is to say, for the sake of science (and content), she's no stranger to playing games with little electronic devices hooked up to her brain.
As she says in the description of her latest TikTok video, "I do not have enough self-preservation. Send help."
