Game designers around the world have been inspired by the Leap Motion Controller’s incredible speed and accuracy to create games that take advantage of our unique 3D interaction technology. Last week, we caught up with Patrick Hackett – a game designer with popular indie developer Double Fine Productions – about his creative process in developing for the Leap Motion Controller.

Double Fine is widely known for creating quirky, innovative games that capture the public imagination. Their debut app for Leap Motion is the score challenge game Dropchord, which allows you to become a master DJ – dodging scratches, collecting notes, and jamming to an original electronic soundtrack. During our visit to Double Fine’s offices in San Francisco, we were invited behind the scenes to meet some of the amazing people who brought Dropchord to life.

When did you first experience Leap Motion, and what was your initial reaction?

Leap Motion first sent us some controllers in February and I think our initial reaction was the same as everyone who uses it. We were blown away by Leap Motion’s responsiveness and sensitivity. Jeremy Mitchell, one of my colleagues, had it set up at his desk initially and we were fighting over who got to use it next. Both of us ended up taking controllers home and creating demos over the weekend because we were so geeked up to use it.

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While new interactive technologies offer near-infinite possibilities for app creation, few things can capture our imagination quite like games. Over the past several months at Leap Motion, we’ve seen hundreds of developers building games in a variety of genres, pushing our 3D interactive technology to the limits. Today, in honor of E3, I’d like to provide some insights on how our developers are transforming the gaming experience.

iVoltage’s 3D platformer Froggle, coming soon for Leap Motion. Take an adventure spanning 120 missions, where you can hop across lily pads, fly on a bird, ride a beetle, or control a jetpack.

There’s no magic formula for building incredible games. But there are a few fundamentals that a great game must accomplish. A great game is something you can play over and over again – something that tests your skills and gives you the thrill of accomplishment. It’s an unforgettable experience.

As the Director of Developer Relations at Leap Motion, I’ve played lots of games developed for the Leap Motion Controller. Over that time, I learned that all great Leap Motion apps, regardless of category, have one thing in common. They all achieve three essential things:

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The Leap Motion App Review Team: Matthew, Stephen, Bobby, Michael M., Michael Y., Sam, Collin, Ernest, Shaun

Over the past eight months, our developer community has been building some amazing applications for the Leap Motion Controller. When they’re ready to submit their apps to Airspace, our online app store, that’s when the App Review Team springs into action.

In the first of our Inside Leap Motion series, we talk to Michael Yasko, Senior Manager of Developer Relations & App Review, about his team and their work. They test each app submission and work with developers to improve them – an essential part of our mission to create a magical experience for everyone. Step into the Leap Motion bunker and meet the people who help incredible apps on their way to Airspace.

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At Leap Motion, we’ve been amazed by how many people from around the world have been inspired by the possibilities of our technology. They want to free themselves, and the rest of us, from the current limitations of computing interfaces. Last week, we joined many of these visionaries at the annual SF MusicTech Summit, which brings together some of the biggest names in the music, business, and tech scene together under one roof.

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Jeremy Sutton, a master digital artist for more than 2 decades, has been using Corel’s Painter Freestyle Beta application for Leap Motion to explore new ways to make art. See how Leap Motion and Corel gives him a wide-open canvas and endless inspiration:

We met Jeremy in Austin, TX back in March during SXSW. He joined us for 3 days at the Leap Motion Experience to demonstrate the new ways he creates art with Leap Motion.

It’s been a couple of months since then, so we checked back in this week with 5 questions for Jeremy:

Why do you enjoy using Leap Motion to create art?

I love both the feel and results of painting in the air with the combination of Leap Motion and Corel Painter Freestyle Beta — it’s like none other. It’s very relaxing and enjoyable to be fluidly moving my hands and fingers through the air to create and control my brush strokes on my digital canvas. It feels like being a dancer, conductor, and magician all wrapped up in one. The results, some of which you can see at http://www.paintboxtv.com/air-painting/ , have a unique, wonderful, and playful quality of line that is different to anything else created in any other medium — digital or traditional. I can still get as much fine detail as I want, but combined with the looseness and serendipity of the 3D motion of my fingers in the air. Painting with Leap Motion really fulfills Arthur C. Clarke’s famous third law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

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Back in October 2012, MIT’s Sloan School of Management selected Leap Motion as their case study company. These entrepreneurial students committed to following and evaluating Leap Motion over the course of their academic year, and I’ve just returned from their final presentations. It was an amazing trip, and I wanted to take this opportunity to thank MIT for their hard work and insights about Leap Motion.

It’s a very cool honor for us at Leap Motion to be selected as a case study project by one of the finest technology schools in the world. Recent companies MIT selected have included Lytro and Groupon. We have been more than happy to endorse the effort by Professor Scott Stern and his assistants and answer their questions over the past year.

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Today we released a sneak peek of Leap Motion’s Windows functionality, one of the essential features we’re refining for our July 22 launch. This video shows how Leap Motion technology will work easily and seamlessly with Windows OS.

With the Leap Motion Controller, you’ll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that’s possible with multi-touch inputs — without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we’ll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X.

With the help of the developer community in our beta program, we’ll continue to refine this OS interaction as well as the innovative apps in Airspace. This program is in place to make sure the Leap Motion experience is what we’ve planned all along: to be the most intuitive, natural, and magical way to interact with your computer and to transform how the world interacts with technology.

If you haven’t already, you can subscribe to our mailing list for updates and news as we continue on our journey together.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve heard lots of questions from people about how they can be part of our beta testing. We’d like to begin by saying that we’re very thankful for the tremendous interest and support that our community has shown. We know you’re eagerly anticipating our July 22 ship date, and we can’t wait to bring the Leap Motion Controller to the world.

Adam Somers, a passionate musician, has been working on amazing Leap Motion applications for many months. His AirHarp and AirBeats instrument apps have been covered by Engadget, Dvice, CNET Australia, Hackaday and more. We spoke with Adam back in February (see video), and today we have an update on what he’s been doing lately.

This weekend Adam will be at the Bay Area Maker Faire to talk about his work with Leap Motion’s technology.

5 Questions with Adam Somers, Developer of AirHarp and AirBeats

1. What are you looking forward to most about Maker Faire this weekend?

Maker Faire always hosts amazing and unexpected wonders from the DIY community. I’m looking forward to seeing what all the unsung mad scientists have been up to this year, as well as seeing some familiar faces.

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Over the past year, we’ve had a great time working with awesome people at Google on a variety of uses for the Leap Motion technology. On April 22, the Google Earth team announced support for Leap Motion (video here), which is now available to anyone (right now, our early access developers) that has a Leap Motion Controller plus the desktop version of Google Earth.

We’re excited to see the #LeapInto Google Earth experiences from our developer community, and now Google has asked us to share the fun with attendees during Google I/O May 15-17 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

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