Here’s a Game That Will Throw You into B-Boy Style Dance Battles

Maybe you're like me. You like music enough to want to dance to it but the thought of showing off your lack of co-ordination to the world keep you off the dance floor. And yeah, there are dance games that have you mimicking all kinds of choreography but the human element that would make those games more social can be lacking.

But a new game that was displayed at New York University's No Quarter exhibition might just be the thing that lets non-dancers groove in the most welcoming space possible. In the video above, I talk with designer Syed Salahuddin who—with a team of creators from NYU Polytechnic's Game Innovation Lab, including director Katherine Isbister—helped create Yamove, a co-operative dance game that showed at No Quarter. Salahuddin's part of the New York City-based Babycastles collective and helps mount that organization's' thematic exhibitions of new and noteworthy indie games.

Yamove has a team of two following the moves of other dancers, while their syncopation is tracked by wristband motion sensors. Scores are awarded on how in sync a team is and how much energy they invest into their moves. Like Margaret Robertson's Drunk Dungeon, Yamove merges gameplay ideas in with social interaction, with he goal of getting players of all types stepping in style. Don't look for me, though. I was too busy, um, interviewing people.