Volume recognition is a key element of how the dog behavior works. We stayed away from word recognition because of its delay and inaccuracy, also because it feels very robotic, while body language is much more natural. The game detects sound intensity in real-time from the headset microphone and will mix that value to other factors like orientation of the head and position of the hands to determine which action is communicated to the dog. Then, depending of the state of the dog, it will react or not to the player orders.

Simple gestures is another key element of the system. Mixed with volume recognition it was proven to be a very powerful mechanic during play test sessions. Players commented that the interaction feels natural because it is how they would interact with a dog. It is a "simple" gesture because there is almost no learning curve. For example, understanding that the dog will react to you when you are holding food is trivial. As soon as the player pick up food the dog will stare at it carefully until you throw it away. The height of your hand will influence the stance of the dog, and quick movement may triggers tricks like jumping or rolling over. Put your hand high and the dog will stand on 2 legs. All these gestures are very intuitive and easy since they require no button press and are very simple. You just do like you would with a real dog!