Recently, a friend of mine dropped me a link to some kinetic typography on Youtube.com: a beautiful rendition of the “What Does Marcellus Wallace look like?” Pulp Fiction scene done completely in moving type. Then of course, I went on my pig-hunting-for-internet-truffles mode and discovered a Fight Club’s Space Monkey scene, more Pulp Fiction shooting Marvin in the head, and the supremely beautiful Singing in the Rain Clockwork Orange style.

Immediately after I wasted a few hours, my mind started wandering how can we make a game of speech and typography? More than a game, but a communication method that allows for both hearing and deaf people (who yell by gesturing with exaggerated moves) to combine type and graphics generated by their actions. Combine the texting message of “kthxbai” with waving hand and an image showing a phone hanging up, but only for a full speech.

Think of it as a Crayon Physics meets Guitar Hero meets KidPix where a player’s actions are translated into a graphical art form, translated in real time.

The game modes would be
- A collaborative and competitive Poetry Slam, where mp3s and scripts are translated into graphical typographical art, and each player adds to the display, where movie scenes can be downloaded onto your xBox.
- One person Freespeak, where voice translations between poets/rappers/debaters (if possible) are translated into typography, and their gestures impact their words.
- Great Speeches, where the words of Martin Luther King Jr or John F Kennedy or Malcomb X are translated into artful works through player’s emotive translations.
- ASL Learner - a basic, medium and advanced method to learn American Sign Language (or any other non-verbal language).

There would need to be a bunch of sensors - hands, fingers and maybe feet for dancing. A standardized interface would need to be used to change fonts and colors during the scenes.

Would it sell a million? Probably not. Would it open people up to doing something fun with computers interactively? Yes, I believe so.