Ninja Strike offers camera-controlled mobile action

As experienced mobile gamers who've sworn at dozens of frustrating keypads down the years, we're naturally keen to investigate new control mechanisms for games.

One potentially fruitful area is camera-based motion detection, where your phone's camera acts as an input mechanism. Several firms are looking at the area – GestureTek, for example – and they've been joined by Israeli start-up EyeSight.

The company's EyePlay technology involves translating your hand movements into game actions. Its first game, Ninja Strike, shows how this works.

It sees you battling a horde of ninjas with an into-the-screen viewpoint akin to Operation Wolf or The House of the Dead. How do you kill them? By waving your hand under the camera, which translates to flinging a 'ninja star' onscreen.

There's an animated explanation of the technology here, and a video demo here. The company is already working on other uses for EyePlay, such as steering in driving games, or throwing balls in a basketball title.

Rest assured, we'll be keeping an eye (ahem) on this one.