Capstone · Grand Canyon University

Emotiv BCI
OSC Wrapper
& Unity Plugin

Brain Game is an open-source middleware platform that bridges Emotiv EEG hardware to Unity game engines — giving people with physical disabilities a way to play games, browse the web, and control a computer using only their thoughts.

GitHub Repository See the Project

See it in action

A full end-to-end demonstration of the Brain Game pipeline from Emotiv headset to Unity game output in real time.

The Team

Built at Grand Canyon University

Four contributors across design, development, UI integration, and security.

Josh

Team Lead

Software Architect and Design Lead
Signal Processing Pipeline
Documentation and Deadline Manager

CS senior and team lead driving the vision behind this Capstone project. Backed by research experience at Canyon AI Research Lab and enterprise IT work at Grand Canyon Education, I lead this team with a focus on building solutions that are as practical as they are innovative.

Max

Developer & Security

Security Support
UPM Package Creation
WebSocket Development

He is a senior majoring in Cybersecurity who played a key role in developing the WebSocket integration within the Brain Game pipeline, including its implementation with Unity. He contributed to the creation of the UPM package, which primarily handled the opening and maintaining the WebSocket connection. He also provided support to the team during both the security review process and the development of security guidelines for the pipeline.

Kian

Unity Integration Developer

BCIOverlayUI Design
In-game Event Bindings
Unity Testing Framework

Computer Science Major focusing on the development of the Unity Plugin for this project. Backed by experience at Grand Canyon University as well as personal projects using the Unity Game Engine, I focus on helping this project be easily accessible to game developers using Unity.

Mac

QA & Security

Security Review & Guidelines
Technical Documentation
Website Design & Development
OSC Wrapper Development

Senior specializing in cybersecurity and quality assurance. Led the security review and developed security guidelines for the Brain Game pipeline, ensuring the codebase met production-grade standards. Owned technical documentation across the full project lifecycle, built and designed the project website, and contributed directly to the OSC Wrapper development. Strengthened hands-on skills in secure software validation, end-to-end system testing, and translating complex technical work into accessible documentation.

Overview

Why We Built It

Traditional assistive technology has come a long way, but for people living with ALS, paralysis, cerebral palsy, or other conditions that limit physical movement, the options remain limited, expensive, and often out of reach. We built Brain Game because we believe interacting with technology shouldn't require hands. It should require only a thought.

Who It's For

Gamers with Physical Disabilities

People living with ALS, paralysis, or limited motor control who want to play video games without a controller or keyboard. Brain Game translates mental commands directly into game inputs no hands required.

Web & Computer Users

Individuals with conditions like cerebral palsy or spinal cord injuries who struggle with traditional input devices. Brain Game opens a path to browsing the web and controlling a computer through thought alone.

Researchers & Developers

Teams building the next generation of assistive BCI applications who need a reliable, open, developer-friendly middleware layer to build on top of — without starting from scratch.

What It Is

Brain Game is a complete middleware system that reads brain activity through an Emotiv EEG headset, translates those signals into reliable commands, and delivers them to a Unity game or computer application in real time. It is the missing layer between raw neural data and meaningful digital interaction — built to be accessible, open source, and easy to deploy.

How It Works

Wear the Headset

The Emotiv EPOC X headset reads electrical brain activity and streams mental command signals via the EmotivBCI OSC protocol.

Signal Gets Filtered

The Brain Game OSC Wrapper receives the raw signal and runs it through a four-stage filter pipeline removing noise, false triggers, and redundant data.

Commands Stream to Unity

Clean, reliable commands are broadcast over WebSocket to the Unity plugin, which maps them to in-game actions in real time.

You're in Control

The game responds to your thoughts — move forward, turn left, interact all without touching a single button.

System Architecture

The Tech Behind Brain Game

Brain Game is built on a clean, modular C# architecture six namespaced modules that take a raw EEG signal and turn it into a reliable game command in under 200ms.

Emotiv → UdpReceiver

→

OscParser → SignalFilter

→

ActionMapper → WebSocketServer

Config

appsettings.json parsing and validation. 12-Factor App compliant all configuration externalized, no hardcoded values.

Models

OSC message DTOs and action mappings. Clean data transfer objects decoupled from processing logic.

Networking

UdpReceiver on port 7400 and WebSocketServer on port 8080 with exponential backoff reconnect logic.

Processing

SignalFilter pipeline with hysteresis band, 150ms debounce window, and 15Hz rate limiter. The core reliability layer.

Input

ActionMapper and keyboard emulation via Win32 SendInput API. Decoupled portability layer for any downstream consumer.

Logging

Structured logging with Serilog integration. Full observability into pipeline state and signal decisions.

Signal Processing Pipeline

Four stages from noise to command

Raw EEG mental command signals are unreliable by nature. The pipeline applies progressively stricter filters to deliver stable game-ready events to Unity.

Emotiv EPOC X Headset

EmotivBCI OSC

▾

UDP Receiver · Port 7400

▾

OscParser → SignalFilter

Action Mapper

▾

WebSocket Server · Port 8080

RFC 6455

▾

Unity UPM Plugin

Confidence Gate

Hysteresis band with 0.6 ON threshold and 0.5 OFF threshold prevents flickering from borderline confidence values.

Debounce Filter

150ms stability window eliminates false spike activations and noise-induced command triggers.

Rate Limiter

15Hz cap drops redundant frames, reducing WebSocket bandwidth while maintaining responsive gameplay.