For those of us with phones without keyboards, playing games can be a little annoying with the way your fingers can obscure the screen. The person who came up with a rubber sleeve called the
Game Gripper that attaches over a keyboard and turns it into a controller is trying to raise some money to make a Bluetooth version. This will enable keyboardless phones, such as the Nexus One and DroidX, to be able to play games using a controller setup.
The design that the person has come up with is pretty simplistic. There's a spring loaded clip that keeps the phone in place and a control pad setup that mimics key presses. So, if you have a game that allows for keyboard mapping, just map the buttons and you're good to go. Most emulators I've used from the Android Market let you do this.
To get this product into production, the person's
going the Kickstarter route and a pledge of $47 will ensure you Game Gripper in the first run. He's looking for $30,000 by March 2nd in order to get this project rolling. The Kickstarter webpage shows a list of phones that he's gotten the Game Gripper to work and phones that will need some work. Of course the phones I own, the Epic 4G (has a keyboard anyways so no real need for this) and the Evo 4G are two of the four phones listed that won't work. On a side note, running a
Cyanogen ROM on my Evo 4G allows me to pair up a Wiimote to use, but I digress.
If you're interested to see this project get going, go pledge some money. You can pledge as little as $1 and those that pledge $500 or more can hang out with the guy, see him work, and maybe create a prototype of some product you have in mind as well with his help. With the Bluetooth Game Gripper, you can be rolling with your own poor man's
Xperia Play.
