The "Bodypad" project was born several years ago from a passion for virtual reality and martial arts and... from the unsatisfaction we felt while playing fighting games with a pad : how to be able to be immersed in a fighting game without a cumbersome and expensive equipment? We began to think of the ideal accessory, during evenings and weekend...

A major idea was to understand that our product ought to be compliant with the existing platforms and fighting games and thus to preserve the universality of the signals of a pad. Our feeling was that if the physical feelings of the player could be up to the visual quality of the software, our bet was won.

The question became : how to launch pad's signals in such a way that the player get immersed into the game? The answer came one day: by making so that one can launch these signals by mimicking the video characters: the flexions-extensions of the main joints could launch such realistic signals. To mark this first milestone, we wrote a Soleau envelope (French procedure for the proof of invention). It was in 1996!..

Once this idea found, we tested a great number of sensors able to render body gestures. During these experiments, we realized that it was necessary to preserve as much as possible the reactivity and the performance of the pad, while gaining the possibility of making realistic combos with the body, to diminish as mush as possible accidental signals, to authorize a personalized practice of the game, including the possibility of adjusting the sporting level of the practice...

We thus spent several evenings sewing sensors to sleeves, welding resistances, testing various movements sensors. At the same time, we had a long reflexion on the design of the product: were we to try a kind of "exo-skeleton/armor" or on the contrary try to find sensors of minimal size ?

We finally arrived at a satisfactory functional prototype (very far from the current design!)... and a proven product know-how. We marked this milestone by a patent at the end of 1998.

Taken by our professional obligations, we made our best to push Bodypad, which was then only a hobby. We had appointements but without having satisfactory results... and started to get discouraged.

In 2001, we decide to stake one's all with the Lépine contest (French largest invention exhibition). We received an outstanding welcome. An enthusiastic crowd and acclamations punctuated all of our demonstrations. We gained a Gold medal, and more important, the conviction that Bodypad definitely had a future. We went at the time at several TV broadcasts... Six months went by.

At the beginning of the year 2002, no contract had come to conclude our various steps... and the financial expenses of the Bodypad world patent became heavy. We then met an entrepreneur to the core who liked the project and proposed to take the destinies of Bodypad in his hands. Few time later, under his impulses, the "Bodypad project" became a true company, which bear the name of Bodypad, then of XKPAD. Business angels and institutional investors (Cap Decisif) stepped in the adventure.

Mid-2002, we meet the head staff of BIGBEN INTERACTIVE in Lille, France. It was a mutual " heart crush ". The Bodypad project stepped then in a few months into the industrial stage. BIGBEN INTERACTIVE takes care of manufacturing, marketing and distribution of Bodypad. XKPAD concedes its patent, brings its technological know-how, and beyond, its players sensitivity and a full follow-up of the product.

But there is a long way from a functional prototype to a complete product, all the more for an innovating product. More than one year and a half was then spent in hard work during which BIGBEN INTERACTIVE - mostly its Hong Kong R&D department - and XKPAD seek the best possible realization... for finally arriving at what seems to us an achieved Bodypad: 2.4 Ghz radio-frequency, multiplayer, programmable receiver allowing to adjust with realism the signals from the player's body movements to most fighting games, very high reactivity, high gaming performance, comfort of use, perfect feeling to be "in the game" and all that for roughly the price of a game...

Today proud of the result and achieved work, we are waiting for the appreciation from our public, the gamers, to decide the continuation of this adventure, hoping it is just its beginning!