That’s right. You read that correctly. Perrikaryal has successfully been able to beat video games with just her mind. She’s not a psychic, telepath, or esper. She uses Emotiv’s EEG headset to record her brain activity and programmed the patterns being picked up by the interface to certain actions or commands.
Listen beautiful relax classics on our Youtube channel.
Originally, the Twitch streamer’s dream was to perform stand-up, but because facing a crowd of people on stage was a bit daunting, a friend suggested that she try out streaming first which is akin to a performance but in front of your monitor. And having a master’s in psychology, most of the games she played initially were those that had a unique psychological perspective like Superliminal, The Closing Shift, and Detroit: Become Human.
Later on, she was able to buy an Emotiv EEG, which gave a depiction of what was happening inside her brain while she played certain games like horror titles with jumpscares. But as she continued with this gimmick, she discovered that the device had an interesting feature to it.
She found that she could program the interface to detect certain brainwaves or patterns and associate those with command inputs. But it wasn’t an easy thing, as she recounts how it took a massive amount of time for trial and error to figure out which specific visualizations could be used for certain actions.
At some point, it took her 600 to 700 times in order to program a certain command input only to find out in the end that it was unreliable, so she had to start all over. However, with enough patience and effort, she was able to map out the right visual prompts to consistently churn out certain commands, and she found herself beating games without using a controller.
First, she practiced with Minecraft, and she found that there were certain visualizations and thought patterns that could be reliably used to make characters do certain actions. Then, she amped up the complexity by trying out different games that have more difficult controls.
That led her to Elden Ring, which is infamous for being one of the most difficult games to beat. But she spent a lot of time training the EEG’s interface, and with enough game time, she was able to beat the first boss of the game, Margit the Fell Omen.
She continued upping the complexity and training the interface until such time that she was playing hands-free and beating the hardest bosses of the game, eventually even toppling the most agonizing one, Melania Blade of Miquella.
Since then, she has tried out playing other games like Palworld, Smash Bros., and even Pac-Man, by just simply using her brain as the controller with the help of the EEG.
Not everybody thinks she was actually playing with just her mind, but that encouraged her because she believes that these negative comments only happen because people don’t understand the technology and the processes behind her playstyle. But once the information began to spread and people learned more about it, people’s perspectives started to shift.
This can be a great means for accessibility in the future. People who may not be able to play using traditional controllers or peripherals will have a chance of playing even the most complicated games through the EEG device or even voice commands and eye-tracking. It’s only the beginning.
(Video credit: Perrikaryal/Youtube)
Source: neatorama