Control The Winds Of Venus With A Repurposed Radio

Updated to add Petri as a co-creator

You know what's cooler than being cool? Being absolutely freezing. Also custom controllers which augment the experience of playing a game in interesting ways. Long story short? We need to talk about The Winds Of Venus.

I've been tinkering with the free keyboard-controlled version (you can do that too if you fancy). In it you are piloting a Space Dirigible on an expedition from Helsinki to an alternate universe version of Venus in 1927. You must contend with strong storms while seeking the harvesters you need in order to escape the hellish environment. And then there's the controller.

Obviously mine was the keyboard. Stupid lovely keyboard with its stupid lovely keys. THEIRS is a repurposed portable radio box which used to be an alarm clock and that now has all these gorgeous switches and dials. There's also force feedback to give it a good rumble and lighting to rival my local disco. Or nightclub. Whatever young people call those things now.

You can see it in action in the video below:

The Winds of Venus controller was created by Robin Baumgarten and Petri Autio. It's the sort of interface I love because it lets me twiddle space knobs and switches without having to anything so complicated as learn how rocket control systems work. It's the haptic equivalent of shouting authoritatively in Artemis: Spaceship Bridge Simulator.