Exploring the use of smart glasses, gesture control, and environmental data in augmented reality games

Abstract. In the last decade, augmented reality has become a popular trend. Big corporations like Microsoft, Facebook, and Google started to invest in augmented reality because they saw the potential that it has especially with the rising of the consumer version of the head mounted displays such as Microsoft’s HoloLens and the ODG’s R7. However, there is a gap in the knowledge about the interaction with such devices since they are fairly new and an average consumer cannot yet afford them due to their relatively high prices. In this thesis, the Ghost Hunters game is described. The game is a mobile augmented reality pervasive game that uses the environment light data to charge the in-game “goggles”. The game has two different versions, a smartphone and smart glasses version. The Ghost Hunters game was implemented for exploring the use of two different types of interactions methods, buttons and natural hand gestures for both smartphones and smart glasses. In addition to that, the thesis sought to explore the use of ambient light in augmented reality games. First, the thesis defines the essential concepts related to games and augmented reality based on the literature and then describes the current state of the art of pervasive games and smart glasses. Second, both the design and implementation of the Ghost Hunters game are described in detail. Afterwards, the three rounds of field trials that were conducted to investigate the suitability of the two previously mentioned interaction methods are described and discussed. The findings suggest that smart glasses are more immersive than smartphones in context of pervasive AR games. Moreover, prior AR experience has a significant positive impact on the immersion of smart glasses users. Similarly, males were more immersed in the game than females. Hand gestures were proven to be more usable than the buttons on both devices. However, the interaction method did not affect the game engagement at all, but surprisingly it did affect the way users perceive the UI with smart glasses. Users that used the physical buttons were more likely to notice the UI elements than the users who used the hand gestures

Distributed Technology-Sustained Pervasive Applications

Technology-sustained pervasive games, contrary to technology-supported pervasive games, can be understood as computer games interfacing with the physical world. Pervasive games are known to make use of 'non-standard input devices' and with the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT), pervasive applications can be expected to move beyond games. This dissertation is requirements- and development-focused Design Science research for distributed technology-sustained pervasive applications, incorporating knowledge from the domains of Distributed Computing, Mixed Reality, Context-Aware Computing, Geographical Information Systems and IoT. Computer video games have existed for decades, with a reusable game engine to drive them. If pervasive games can be understood as computer games interfacing with the physical world, can computer game engines be used to stage pervasive games? Considering the use of non-standard input devices in pervasive games and the rise of IoT, how will this affect the architectures supporting the broader set of pervasive applications? The use of a game engine can be found in some existing pervasive game projects, but general research into how the domain of pervasive games overlaps with that of video games is lacking. When an engine is used, a discussion of, what type of engine is most suitable and what properties are being fulfilled by the engine, is often not part of the discourse. This dissertation uses multiple iterations of the method framework for Design Science for the design and development of three software system architectures. In the face of IoT, the problem of extending pervasive games into a fourth software architecture, accommodating a broader set of pervasive applications, is explicated. The requirements, for technology-sustained pervasive games, are verified through the design, development and demonstration of the three software system architectures. The ...Comment: 64 pages, 13 figure

Clouds + Games: A multifaceted approach

The computer game landscape is changing: people play games on multiple computing devices with heterogeneous form-factors, capability, and connectivity. Providing high playability on such devices concurrently is difficult. To enhance the gaming experience, designers could leverage abundant and elastic cloud resources, but current cloud platforms aren't optimized for highly interactive games. Existing studies focus on streaming-based cloud gaming, which is a special case for the more general cloud game architecture. The authors explain how to integrate techniques from the cloud and game research communities into a complete architecture for enhanced online gaming quality. They examine several open issues that appear only when clouds and games are put together. © 2014 IEEE

User Experience of Geocaching and Its Application to Tourism and Education

Advances in technology have provided new ways of using entertainment and game technology to foster human interaction. Games and playing with games have always been an important part of people’s everyday lives. Traditionally, human-computer interaction (HCI) research was seen as a psychological cognitive science focused on human factors, with engineering sciences as the computer science part of it. Although cognitive science has made significant progress over the past decade, the influence of people’s emotions on design networks is increasingly important, especially when the primary goal is to challenge and entertain users (Norman 2002). Game developers have explored the key issues in game design and identified that the driving force in the success of games is user experience. User-centered design integrates knowledge of users’ activity practices, needs, and preferences into the design process. Geocaching is a location-based treasure hunt game created by a community of players. Players use GPS (Global Position System) technology to find “treasures” and create their own geocaches; the game can be developed when the players invent caches and used more imagination to creations the caches. This doctoral dissertation explores user experience of geocaching and its applications in tourism and education. Globally, based on the Geocaching.com webpage, geocaching has been played about 180 countries and there are more than 10 million registered geocachers worldwide (Geocaching.com, 25.11.2014). This dissertation develops and presents an interaction model called the GameFlow Experience model that can be used to support the design of treasure hunt applications in tourism and education contexts. The GameFlow Model presents and clarifies various experiences; it provides such experiences in a real-life context, offers desirable design targets to be utilized in service design, and offers a perspective to consider when evaluating the success of adventure game concepts. User-centered game designs have adapted to human factor research in mainstream computing science. For many years, the user-centered design approach has been the most important research field in software development. Research has been focusing on user-centered design in software development such as office programs, but the same ideas and theories that will reflect the needs of a user-centered research are now also being applied to game design (Charles et al. 2005.) For several years, we have seen a growing interest in user experience design. Digital games are experience providers, and game developers need tools to better understand the user experience related to products and services they have created. This thesis aims to present what the user experience is in geocaching and treasure hunt games and how it can be used to develop new concepts for the treasure hunt. Engineers, designers, and researchers should have a clear understanding of what user experience is, what its parts are, and most importantly, how we can influence user satisfaction. In addition, we need to understand how users interact with electronic products and people, and how different elements synergize their experiences. This doctoral dissertation represents pioneering work on the user experience of geocaching and treasure hunt games in the context of tourism and education. The research also provides a model for game developers who are planning treasure hunt concepts.Teknologinen kehitys on tarjonnut uusia tapoja hyödyntää viihdettä ja peliteknologiaa ihmisten välisessä vuorovaikutuksessa. Pelit ja niiden pelaaminen on ollut aina tärkeä osa ihmisten arkipäivää. Ihmisen ja tietokoneen välisen vuorovaikutuksen tutkimus, human-computer interaction research (HCI), on perinteisesti nähty kognitiivisena psykologiana, johon kuuluvat inhimilliset tekijät, sekä insinööritieteenä, johon sisältyy tietojenkäsittelytiede. Vaikka kognitiivinen tiede on kehittynyt viime vuosina valtavasti, suunnitteluverkostoihin vaikuttavat ihmisten tunteet ovat yhä tärkeämmässä osassa, erityisesti silloin kun tavoitteena on haastaa ja viihdyttää käyttäjiä. (Norman 2002.) Pelinkehittäjät ovat selvittäneet pelisuunnittelun kannalta olennaisia tekijöitä ja tunnistaneet, että pelien menestyksen salaisuus on käyttäjäkokemus. Käyttäjäkeskeisessä suunnittelussa käyttäjien toiminnan käytäntöjen, tarpeiden ja toiveiden tuntemus tuodaan mukaan suunnitteluprosessiin. Geokätköily on paikannukseen perustuva aarteenetsintäpeli, jonka pelaajat ovat luoneet yhdessä. Pelaajat käyttävät GPS-teknologiaa "aarteiden" etsimiseen ja lisäävät omia geokätkökohteita ja peli kehittyy jatkuvasti pelaajien keksiessä kätköjä, jotka vaativat yhä enemmän mielikuvitusta. Tässäväitöskirjassa tutkitaan geokätköilyn käyttäjäkokemusta ja sen sovelluksia koulutuksen- ja matkailunaloilla. Perustuen Geocaching.com websivustoon geokätköilyä pelataan noin 180 maassa, ja rekisteröityneitä käyttäjiä on yli kymmenen miljoonaa eri puolilla maailmaa (Geocaching.com, 25.11.2014). Tässä tutkielmassa esitellään vuorovaikutusmalli nimeltään GameFlow Experience -mallia, jota voidaan käyttää aarteenetsintäsovellusten suunnittelussa koulutuksen- ja matkailualojen konteksteissa. GameFlow Experience -malli esittelee ja selventää erilaisia kokemuksia - se esittelee ne todellisessa kontekstissa, tarjoaa erilaisia suunnittelutavoitteita palvelusuunnittelua varten sekä näkökulman, joka tulisi ottaa huomioon seikkailupelien menestystä arvioitaessa. Käyttäjäkeskeisessä pelisuunnittelussa on sovellettu inhimillisten tekijöiden tutkimusta valtavirran tietojenkäsittelytieteeseen. Useiden vuosien ajan, käyttäjäkeskeisen suunnittelun lähestymistavasta on tullut tärkein tutkimusala ohjelmistokehityksessä. Tutkimus on keskittynyt ohjelmistojen kehitykseen käyttäjäkeskeisessä suunnittelussa etenkin toimisto-ohjelmistoihin, mutta samoja ideoita ja teorioita, jotka heijastavat yhteiskunnan tarpeita käyttäjäkeskeisessä tutkimuksessa sovelletaan nyt myös pelisuunnitteluun. (Charles ja ym. 2005.) Kiinnostus käyttäjäkokemuksen suunnitteluun on kasvanut jo useiden vuosien ajan. Digitaaliset pelit tarjoavat kokemuksia, ja pelisuunnittelijat tarvitsevatkin työkaluja, joiden avulla voidaan entistä paremmin ymmärtää tuotteiden ja palvelujen luomia käyttäjäkokemuksia. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on esitellä käyttäjäkokemusta ja miten sitä voidaan käyttää uusien aarteenmetsästyskonseptien kehittämiseen. Insinööreillä, suunnittelijoilla ja tutkijoilla tulisi olla selkeä käsitys siitä, mikä käyttäjäkokemus on, mitkä ovat sen osat ja mikä tärkeintä, miten voimme vaikuttaa käyttäjän tyytyväisyyteen. Lisäksi pitäisi ymmärtää, miten käyttäjät toimivat elektronisten tuotteiden kanssa sekä miten ihmiset toimivat vuorovaikutuksessa toistensa kanssa ja miten eri osat vaikuttavat yhdessä käyttäjien kokemuksiin. Väitöskirja on pioneerityö käyttäjäkokemuksesta geokätköilyssä ja aarteenetsintä peleissä matkailun ja opetuksen kontekstissa. Tutkimus antaa myös mallin pelin kehittäjille, jotka suunnittelevat aarteenetsintäkonsepteja.Siirretty Doriast

Gen X and Digital Games: Looking back to look forward

Despite there being increased attention in recent years to older adults who actively play digital games, it seems that there has been comparatively minimal scholarly focus on the next generation of older adult gamers – Generation X gamers. Although there have been few, current audience studies that examine this population within a gaming context, a temporal perspective reveals another story. Older members of this generation were the first age cohort to be exposed to and engage in video gameplay at an early age (i.e., childhood). With the emerging popularity of video games in the 1980s, this did not escape the attention of scholars. This study provides an overview of those early studies that assessed video game use and its potential (for better or worse) among the older members Gen X. The study themes identified include: health, education, and behavior. In addition, the first studies that identified gaming characteristics of this generation in their formative years emerged in the latter half of that decade. By identifying themes in these early studies, scholars have the potential to track an entire generation’s gaming history and characteristics from childhood to present day. Ultimately, this may glean richer insight into those qualities when they become the next older generation of digital game players

THERAPEUTIC STRATEGY IN GAMIFICATION AND GAME BASED LEARNING FOR ELDERLY PEOPLE IN THAILAND

Purpose: This study aims to review the literature of the therapeutic strategies in gamification and a game-based learning for elderly people. During the increasing of the aging city in Thailand, how to prepare and how to live up the society are challenged. Gamification as a Game-based learning is a key issue in terms of conception. The conception of the game focuses on establishing trust with players and finding the right way to motivate the players to care for their health and to encourage the players to set goals. Methodology:A survey of healthcare for aging people was conducted in regard to technology-driven gamification.Gamified training appears to be highly engaging and does boost participant motivation.The survey attempts to examine Thai culture in terms of game technology and family networks and supports the influence the health-promoting behaviors among older persons. Main Findings:The reviews illustrate the role of game-based learning in therapeutic strategies. In accordance with the Gamification Concept, the concepts of games are broad in scope,encompassing various contexts, such as training. The results of this findings may influence Thai elderly to care their healthy by using gamification. The game design shows the Health Care Training Game and Gamification prototype. Implications:Gamification strategies may contribute to sustainable healthcare in Thailand.The designing game examines the therapeutic strategy game by establishing a technology-driven trust relationship with players, and then determining the best way to motivate the players to care for their health. Originality:Knowledge and skills can be improved by using game-based learning. A learning game is a self-contained unit with start, game play and ending activities. The games are based on a combination of well-known game-design principles and principles of task-oriented training and involve the manipulation of everyday physical objects