Exergaming is the use of video games in an exercise activity. In this paper we consider game design for successful exergames. To do this, we review the history of exergaming and the current state of research in this field. We find that there exists some research aimed at evaluating the physical and health characteristics of exergames, but research on how to design exercise games is still in the early stages. From an analysis of this information, and drawing on established principles from sports science for the prescription of exercise programs, we then attempt to identify success factors to guide designers of exergaming systems.

Considerations for the design of exergames

A methodology for optimizing player satisfaction in games on the "playware" physical interactive platform is demonstrated in this paper. Previously constructed artificial neural network user models, reported in the literature, map individual playing characteristics to reported entertainment preferences for augmented-reality game players. An adaptive mechanism then adjusts controllable game parameters in real time in order to improve the entertainment value of the game for the player. The basic approach presented here applies gradient ascent to the user model to suggest the direction of parameter adjustment that leads toward games of higher entertainment value. A simple rule set exploits the derivative information to adjust specific game parameters to augment the entertainment value. Those adjustments take place frequently during the game with interadjustment intervals that maintain the user model's accuracy. Performance of the adaptation mechanism is evaluated using a game survey experiment. Results indicate the efficacy and robustness of the mechanism in adapting the game according to a user's individual playing features and enhancing the gameplay experience. The limitations and the use of the methodology as an effective adaptive mechanism for entertainment capture and augmentation are discussed.

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Real-Time Game Adaptation for Optimizing Player Satisfaction

The study of Child Computer Interaction is a growing subfield of HCI. Child Computer Interaction encompasses traditional HCI but also specifically reaches out into the areas of child psychology, learning and play. The aim of this SIG is to bring together researchers and practitioners working in this area, to discover current themes, to explore the creation of a more formal working group, to locate publishing opportunities and to foster international co-operation.

Child-Computer Interaction

This paper is an extension of previous work on capturing and modeling the affective state of entertainment (''fun'') grounded on children's physiological state during physical game play. The goal is to construct, using representative statistics computed from children's physiological signals, an estimator of the degree to which games provided by the playground engage the players. Previous studies have identified the difficulties of isolating elements of physical activity attributed to reported entertainment derived (solely) from heart rate (HR) recordings. In the present article, a survey experiment on a larger scale and a physical activity control experiment for surmounting those difficulties are devised. In these experiments, children's HR, blood volume pulse (BVP) and skin conductance (SC) signals, as well as their expressed preferences of how much ''fun'' particular game variants are, are obtained using games implemented on the Playware physical interactive playground. Given effective data collection, a set of numerical features is computed from these measurements of the child's physiological state. A comprehensive statistical analysis shows that children's reported entertainment preferences correlate well with specific features of the recorded signals. Preference learning techniques combined with feature set selection methods permit the construction of user models that predict reported entertainment preferences given suitable signal features. The most accurate models are obtained through evolving artificial neural networks and are demonstrated and evaluated on a Playware game and a control task requiring physical activity. The best network is able to correctly match expressed preferences in 69.64% of cases on previously unseen data (p-value=0.0022) and indicates two dissimilar classes of children: those that prefer constantly energetic play of low mental/emotional load; and those that report as fun a dynamic play that involves high mental/emotional load independently of physical effort. The generality of the methodology, its limitations, its usability as a real-time feedback mechanism for entertainment augmentation and as a validation tool are discussed.

Entertainment modeling through physiology in physical play

Learning healthy lifestyles through active videogames, motor games and the gamification of educational activities

We present and use the robotic building block concept to create playware. Playware is the use of intelligent technology to create the kinds of leisure activity we normally label play, i.e., intelligent hard- and software that aims at producing play and playful experiences among users. The technological concept of physical building blocks with processing, input, and output (including communication) is derived from embodied artificial intelligence that emphasizes the role of interplay between morphology and control. We exemplify the building block concept with the tangible tiles that we created as components for a new kind of playground on which children can experience immediate feedback on their motions. Hence, this kind of playground allows the implementation of games and plays that demand physical activity amongst the users, and thereby contribute as a new tool in the fight against obesity. The tangible tiles are homogenous building blocks, which gives assembly, substitution, and production advantages. However, we may also create a system of heterogeneous building blocks, e.g., by adding special-purpose tiles such as loud-speaker tiles. We performed tests with the tangible tiles placed at a school for 2 months' continuous use.

Carsten Jessen

Papers

Playware technology for physically activating play