pervasive gaming as a way of directing players to geographical locations
Post on 18-Dec-2014
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Can pervasive games encourage engagement with important
locations?
Dr Brett Wilkinson Presenting the work of:
Mr Patrick Armstrong and Dr Brett Wilkinson
Video Game Players • The idea that video games are for children
is incorrect • Over the last decade:
– Gamer average age is 32 – Evenly split between male and female
• Extensively investigated as motivational tools in education
• New types of game style for new generation of mobile, location aware devices like smart phones and tablets
Pervasive Gaming
• Incorporate real world elements into the game world
• Pervasive games feature: – Persistent game play – Quick short play periods rather than single
long sessions – Use location services, augmented reality,
Improve lecture attendance
A focus on lecture attendance • Lecture attendance has a direct positive impact
on student grades
• Absence dynamics can be divided into three groups: – High motivation: Injury, sickness, emergency’s – Medium motivation: Conflict of priorities – Low motivation: Non-essential, non-academic
• Over 60% of absences fall into low motivation
Experiment Aim • Use the motivational benefits of games to
direct user movement
• Reward through game play for being at a physical location within a specified window
• Conduct a preliminary investigation into use persistent gaming concepts to achieve this goal.
Pervasive Games • Deeper involvement with the game world than
just using GPS location. • Look to extend the game experience into the
physical environment • Seek to incorporate
– Anywhere / Anytime idea. Short play sessions over extended interaction
– Player location matters and is relevant – Persistent gameplay that continues even when not
being directly controlled – Connects and communicates game state changes – Social gameplay aspects
Game Design • Resource collection
and Virtual pet management.
• Resources planted in the real world tracked by GPS and harvested after a germination period to feed pet.
• Game play area focused on Flinders University campus
• Augmented Reality used to increase the game world / real world connection
Pet Interaction screen Resource Management screen
Use of an Essential Location • Gameplay is
unwinnable by itself
• Participants must, without instruction, utilize a large resource node at an essential location
• Failure to use the essential location makes pet survival impossible
Essential Location: Lecture Theatre South 3
Results • All participants were familiar with mobile
devices and nearly all played video games regularly
• All participants found the game easy to play and understand, suggesting game failure was not due to misunderstanding
• Users raised issues with the empathic relationship with the pet, 40% of users felt limited connection with the virtual pet.
Results • Users had three key issues with the game
style: – Insufficient communication from pet – Underdeveloped feedback cycle between pet
and player – Lack of a social component
• All but two participants utilized the
essential location and kept their pet alive, using varied movement patterns per user.
Results • One pet death was the result of the player
rushing to the essential location and ignoring other resources
• One participant failed to make use of the essential location
• This manifested in the: – Least amount of time played – Lowest number of resources planted per minute,
before pet death, during gameplay • This player also showed one of the two lowest
empathic relationships to the pet
Results – Possible Influences
• Movement logs showed anomalous movement possible due to the topography of Flinders University
Flinders University topography looking down from the essential location
Conclusions
• Results suggest pervasive game techniques can be used to direct player movement
• Suggested improvements by players in line with pervasive game play ideals
Future Work • Introduce fixed time frame resources to
accurately simulate lecture start times
• Additional effort to ensure empathic relationship with virtual pet is effective and engaging
• Open ended testing.
• Remove topographical concerns as possible influences
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