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From Concept to Reality
Our journey to developing the Proteus Controller
Sometime in the early 2000's
Our story actually begins all the way back in the early 2000's where Brandon Blacoe and Eibhlin O'Riordan spent their early years together in playschool and became the best of friends. This is when their love of gaming began. Their favourite game to play together was Shrek 2 on the PlayStation 2
January 2020
Brandon and Eibhlin lost touch over the years but met up again at a Game Jam in 2020! They made a game together about a blob of Goo that gained consciousness after a failed lab experiment and had the ability to 'bend- goo' (like air-bending, but goo)!
Brandon was studying his Masters in Electronic and Computer Engineering and Eibhlin was doing her undergrad in Game Design. Eibhlin told Brandon about her disability, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, and how it affected her ability to play video games with one hand.
Brandon was studying his Masters in Electronic and Computer Engineering and Eibhlin was doing her undergrad in Game Design. Eibhlin told Brandon about her disability, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, and how it affected her ability to play video games with one hand.
June 2020
Brandon spent a lot of time thinking about the problem that Eibhlin had with using standard video game controllers. He realised that there were many other people out there who were also struggling to find a controller that worked for them and Brandon decided to try to find a solution. And ByoWave was born!
The team started in an attic. They took part in a small competition and they won just enough money to buy a 3D printer and Brandon began to iterate on his ideas. The team started with a one handed controller concept, because that was what they had experience with, but when they began speaking to disabled gamers that they met on reddit, they quickly learned that everyone wanted something different, and that there was no one-size-fits-all solution to this problem.
The team started in an attic. They took part in a small competition and they won just enough money to buy a 3D printer and Brandon began to iterate on his ideas. The team started with a one handed controller concept, because that was what they had experience with, but when they began speaking to disabled gamers that they met on reddit, they quickly learned that everyone wanted something different, and that there was no one-size-fits-all solution to this problem.
End of 2020
In order to iterate faster, Brandon came up with the idea to 3D print cubes and ship them to our testers to see what configurations they came up with as a basis for a new design. It turned out that the testers loved the cubes and loved the level of modularity and customisation they offered.
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2021 & 2022
The next 2 years were spent iterating on the Proteus Controller prototypes and testing as much as possible with users. We travelled around the world to different conferences to see what people really thought about our ideas and we got amazing feedback! We 3D printed functional prototypes of the Proteus Controller and began nailing down on features and functionality based on user feedback.
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2023
From the end of 2022 into early 2023 Brandon spent 7 months in China establishing our manufacturing chain for the Proteus Controller. ByoWave set up a team in China who is dedicated to maintaining and overseeing our manufacturing capabilities
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2024...
In 2024 we will be launching the Proteus Controller to the world! We are almost ready to go into final production and expect to start shipping units in Autumn of 2024.
Don't miss out on the first number of limited units of the Proteus Controller!