New York-based publisher TiltnTwist came out of stealth mode today and announced four Windows Mobile titles HyperHamster, Snowboarding, DropZone, and DUI: The Long Drive Home. Snowboarding TNT and DropZone are already available through Handango.com, while HyperHamster and DUI: The Long Drive Home will be available shortly.

All four games take advantage of GestureTek Mobile’s gesture recognition technology, a software-based solution that enables motion-based cell phone games by tapping into a camera phone's video stream and comparing one frame to the next. The differences between the frames are used to determine on-screen movements.

DropZone is a 3D skydiving game with ten different skydive adventures. Camera-based controls allow players to guide skydivers through balloon rings and ground targets for points. Snowboarding TNT features 30 air tricks, 9 courses, 3D graphics, and gesture-controlled navigation that steers characters through gates, around obstacles, and over jumps.

In HyperHamster, players help Captain Weevil explore the world by tilting, shaking, and rocking their phones to control his rolling ball. DUI: The Long Drive Home presents 10-mini game challenges, such as getting their keys into the car ignition and driving home safely while avoiding obstacles, after having too much to drink. The game includes five difficulty levels and local leader boards.

TiltnTwist's co-founders and lone two members Trev Huxley and Robert Goodale spoke with Games On Deck about the company's titles, iPhone plans, and developer relationships.

Can you introduce us to TiltnTwist? How long has your company been working with Gesturetek-enabled games while in stealth mode?

Trev Huxley: When we formed TiltnTwist we agreed to try and create a different kind of company. Both Bob and I have started and run companies that got fairly large and neither of us wanted to have hundreds of employees working for us again; it just didn’t seem like a fun thing to do.

So, TiltnTwist is very small and we work very closely with people who are not our employees, who we like and trust. Ideas are tossed around among equals fostering a more open exchange of ideas than often exists in a more traditional employee, employer relationship -- so far so good.

How long has your company been developing Gesturetek-enabled games while in stealth mode?

Robert Goodale: From start to finish, we’ve probably been at this for four years, beginning with our first title, Tilt-A-World, which came out on Verizon in October 2006, won a bunch of awards and was more a proof-of-concept if you will. We’ve now been at this second phase for about 18 months.

Why did you choose to release the games for Windows mobile?

RG: The first game we did -- Tilt-A-World -- actually came out in BREW and was released on Verizon in October 2006. But the reason we chose to do our next group of games in Windows was that, at the time we decided this, it looked to be the platform with the greatest breadth of deployment and access to consumer-oriented higher end mobile phones -- which of course was what we required.

TH: We had to build the “reference games” in something and noticed that there were very few games available for the Windows Mobile phones. So, we felt it was a good niche for us and that, combined with our belief that the number of Windows Mobile phones would grow, convinced us that it was a good idea.

Right now, when a lot of people think about motion controls and mobile phone gaming together, their first thought is the iPhone. What advantages does the GestureTek software have over the iPhone's hardware-based accelerometer technology?

RG: Perhaps the simplest advantage is that pretty much any phone with a camera can use the GestureTek technology, whereas iPhone-type play requires an accelerometer, which is not cheap and not yet very widely deployed. Having said that, we are quickly moving to get our games over to the iPhone -- for which they’re all perfectly suited since they’ve all been designed for gesture control.

TH: It works on a lot more phones. We love the iPhone, and there are a number of other phones being made with accelerometers, but compared to the number of camera phones that exist in the world they are a small minority, important but small.

We saw that HyperHamster was developed with OneNine Studios -- were your other three released titles developed in-house or with another studio, as well?

RG: We used OneNine Studios for HyperHamster and Super Happy Fun Fun for the other three titles.

TH: We worked with both OneNine Studios and Super Happy Fun Fun and really enjoy our relationship with both companies. To date, we have not built games in-house and may never do so.

What made TiltNTwist choose these four titles as its first releases to showcase Gesturetek?

RG: We were really just trying to get a breadth of experiences. It seemed like we had to have a driving game of some sort -- hence Snowboarding TNT. Skydiving seemed like a natural, so that’s DropZone. And then we thought this gesture motion is so childlike in its simplicity, so let’s have a more kids-oriented title, hence HyperHamster. And finally, the inner bad boy couldn’t be suppressed, giving us DUI: The Long Drive Home.

Are you planning to release all of your future titles with Gesturetek support?

RG: We’re doing this because above all else, we love gesture-controlled games. Right now GestureTek is a key player in this area.

TH: We are committed to building games that are controlled by gestures and not to any specific technology so while I’m sure that we will continue to use GestureTek, we are open to using any appropriate technology that can provide us with information on the phones movement.

Grand Theft Auto IV experienced a bit of controversy (no surprise) over a segment that allows players to drive while under the influence. Have you received any similar complaints over DUI: The Long Drive Home? And are you worried that the game could be sending the wrong message about drinking and driving?

TH: To date, we have received no complaints, but we are sensitive to the fact that people could interpret the game the way you suggest. So, if you want to look beyond the sheer foolish fun that this game is and get a bit more serious, I think that it provides a real lesson on what happens to someone when they are under the influence. I’d much rather let people learn that lesson in the virtual world rather than in real life.

RG: We’ve thought long and hard about this question, and the irony is that we showed the game to one or two teenagers, and they had no idea what the drinking part was about; they just thought it was the coolest game they’d ever seen.

What does TiltNTwist have planned for the future? Are you working with any other studios, or will you be continuing with OneNine Studios and Super Happy Fun Fun?

RG: We did this because we love gesture-controlled games. So far we’re still having fun; if it keeps being fun we’ll probably keep doing it.

We love OneNine and Super Happy, and will probably continue to work with them. As we expand, we will probably also begin to use some other studios.

TH: For obvious reasons, I can’t really give you an answer, but what I can say is that anything we do in the future will have a high “fun factor,” otherwise we won’t do it.