Analyzing the Impact of Spatio-Temporal Sensor Resolution on Player Experience in Augmented Reality Games

Along with automating everyday tasks of human life, smartphones have become one of the most popular devices to play video games on due to their interactivity. Smartphones are embedded with various sensors which enhance their ability to adopt new new interaction techniques for video games. These integrated sen- sors, such as motion sensors or location sensors, make the device able to adopt new interaction techniques that enhance usability. However, despite their mobility and embedded sensor capacity, smartphones are limited in processing power and display area compared to desktop computer consoles. When it comes to evaluat- ing Player Experience (PX), players might not have as compelling an experience because the rich graphics environments that a desktop computer can provide are absent on a smartphone. A plausible alternative in this regard can be substituting the virtual game world with a real world game board, perceived through the device camera by rendering the digital artifacts over the camera view. This technology is widely known as Augmented Reality (AR). Smartphone sensors (e.g. GPS, accelerometer, gyro-meter, compass) have enhanced the capability for deploying Augmented Reality technology. AR has been applied to a large number of smartphone games including shooters, casual games, or puzzles. Because AR play environments are viewed through the camera, rendering the digital artifacts consistently and accurately is crucial because the digital characters need to move with respect to sensed orientation, then the accelerometer and gyroscope need to provide su ciently accurate and precise readings to make the game playable. In particular, determining the pose of the camera in space is vital as the appropriate angle to view the rendered digital characters are determined by the pose of the camera. This defines how well the players will be able interact with the digital game characters. Depending in the Quality of Service (QoS) of these sensors, the Player Experience (PX) may vary as the rendering of digital characters are affected by noisy sensors causing a loss of registration. Confronting such problem while developing AR games is di cult in general as it requires creating wide variety of game types, narratives, input modalities as well as user-testing. Moreover, current AR games developers do not have any specific guidelines for developing AR games, and concrete guidelines outlining the tradeoffs between QoS and PX for different genres and interaction techniques are required. My dissertation provides a complete view (a taxonomy) of the spatio-temporal sensor resolution depen- dency of the existing AR games. Four user experiments have been conducted and one experiment is proposed to validate the taxonomy and demonstrate the differential impact of sensor noise on gameplay of different genres of AR games in different aspect of PX. This analysis is performed in the context of a novel instru- mentation technology, which allows the controlled manipulation of QoS on position and orientation sensors. The experimental outcome demonstrated how the QoS of input sensor noise impacts the PX differently while playing AR game of different genre and the key elements creating this differential impact are - the input modality, narrative and game mechanics. Later, concrete guidelines are derived to regulate the sensor QoS as complete set of instructions to develop different genres or AR games

Expanding the magic circle in pervasive casual play

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em InformáticaIn this document we present proposals for merging the fictional game world with the real world taking into account the profile of casual players. To merge games with reality we resorted to the creation of games that explore di-verse real world elements. We focused on sound, video, physiological data, ac-celerometer data, weather and location. We made the choice for these real world elements because data, about those elements, can be acquired making use of functionality already available, or foreseen in the near future, in devices like computers or mobile phones, thus fitting the profile of casual players who are usually not willing to invest in expensive or specialized hardware just for the sake of playing a game. By resorting to real world elements, the screen is no longer the only focus of the player’s attention because reality also influences the outcome of the game. Here, we describe how the insertion of real world elements affected the role of the screen as the primary focus of the player’s attention. Games happen inside a magic circle that spatially and temporally delimits the game from the ordinary world. J. Huizinga, the inventor of the magic circle concept, also leaves implicit a social demarcation, separating who is playing the game from who is not playing the game [1]. In this document, we show how the insertion of real world elements blurred the spatial, temporal and social limits, in our games. Through this fusion with the ordinary world, the fictional game world integrates with reality, instead of being isolated from it. We also present an analysis about integration with the real world and context data in casual en-tertainment.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia - grant SFRH/BD/61085/200

Injustice and Balance in Pervasive Video Games

Sendo um meio artistico intimamente relacionado com o avanço da tecnologia, alguns dos video-jogos mais interessantes são feitos através da expansão dos limites técnicos do que é considerado um jogo. Tal como o salto de gráficos em 2D para 3D, o impacto da internet em jogos multi-player e a inter-conectividade entre jogadores, ou a forma como a realidade virtual e a realidade aumentada têm mudado o que é possível dentro de um mundo virtual, há um outro género que tem aumentado em popularidade com a chegada de tecnologia nova - jogos pervasivos. O género de jogos pervasivos engloba jogos que misturam o mundo virtual do jogo e o mundo real através dos dados contextuais e de localização do jogador, servindo-se dos novos avanços tecnológicos acerca de tecnologia móvel. O fenómeno de Pokémon GO liderou a quebra do género para o mainstream, permitindo a que muitos outros jogos semelhantes tenham sucesso e obtendo para si uma audiência mundial considerável. Ao contrário de jogos de realidade aumentada - que esperam que o jogador veja o mundo através de uma câmara e a ela aplica os elementos do mundo virtual - os jogos pervasivos usam dados do mundo real como a sua base de construção. Existe bastante junção entre estes dois géneros de jogo, como vendo os dinossauros do Jurassic Park Alive através do telemóvel após os encontrar num parque local. Um grande problema presente nos jogos pervasivos é central ao aspeto que os torna únicos: devido a serem tão dependentes do contexto e localização do jogador, jogos pervasivos têm maior tendência para perconceitos que tornam alguns contextos melhores que outros. Um exemplo relevante é como no Pokémon GO, jogadores em zonas rurais têm uma quantidade reduzida ou nula de geração de Pokémons, enquanto jogadores em grandes cidades têm uma enchente constante de novos monstros para apanhar. Para resolver este problema, esta dissertação tem como objetivo desenvolver uma plataforma de análise de dados para jogos pervasivos que permita aos desenvolvedores obter um parecer relativamente ao balanço do seu jogo. Este objetivo será alcançado fazendo um cruzamento entre os dados do jogador e os contextuais, servindo-se de técnicas de aprendizagem automática para entender o que está a funcionar no jogo e o que não está. Esta tese não tem apenas a finalidade de oferecer aos desenvolvedores uma ferramenta que permita melhorar o balanço de jogos pré-existentes, mas sim resolver um problema significativo que tem estado a impedir o avanço e a experimentação de jogos pervasivos com experiências mais complexas e profundas.Being an art medium closely tied with the advancement of technology, some of the most interesting video games get made by expanding the technical limits of play in many new ways. Just like the jump from 2D graphics to 3D, how the internet shaped multiplayer games and inter-connectivity between players, and the way that now Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality are changing what is possible in a virtual world, another game genre has grown in popularity with the advent of new, exciting technology - pervasive games. The genre of pervasive games encompasses games that merge the game's virtual world and the real world together by taking advantage of the player's location data and contextual information, using the new leaps in technology regarding mobile internet. The phenomenon of Pokémon GO spearheaded the genre's break into the mainstream, allowing many other similar games to thrive and carving for itself a really large audience worldwide. Unlike augmented reality games - that expect you to see the world through a camera, that it then applies elements of the virtual world to - pervasive games uses the data from the real world as its base. There is a lot of cross-over between these two genres, like seeing the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park Alive through your phone after finding them in a local park. A big issue with pervasive games is central to its claim-to-fame: due to being so context and location-dependent, pervasive games are bound to have biases that make some contexts much better than others. A prime example of this is how in Pokémon GO, players in rural areas have nearly no Pokémon spawns, while players in cities have a constant stream of new monsters to catch. To solve this, this dissertation aims to develop an analytics platform for pervasive games that allows developers to obtain feedback on their game's balance. This goal will be achieved by cross-referencing player data and context data, using machine learning techniques to discover what works and what doesn't. This work's goal isn't simply to offer a tool to developers that help balance their games but also to help solve a significant issue holding pervasive games back from experimenting with more complex and deep experiences

Toolkits for the Development of Hybrid Games: from Tangible Tabletops to Interactive Spaces

Durante los últimos años, los dispositivos tabletop han sido considerados el entorno ideal para los juegos híbridos, los cuales combinan técnicas de juego tradicional, como el uso de objetos físicos para interactuar con el juego de una forma natural, con las nuevas posibilidades que los tabletops ofrecen de aumentar el espacio de juego con imágenes digitales y audio.Sin embargo, los juegos híbridos no se restringen simplemente a tabletops, pudiéndose jugar también en entornos más amplios en los que convergen otros paradigmas de interacción. Por esta razón, el uso de juegos híbridos en Espacios Interactivos está ganando fuerza, pero el número y heterogeneidad de dispositivos y estilos de interacción que se encuentran en estos entornos hace que el diseño y prototipado de juegos sea una tarea difícil. Por lo tanto, el gran reto se encuentra en ofrecer a diseñadores y desarrolladores herramientas apropiadas para la creación de estas aplicaciones.En esta línea de trabajo, el grupo Affective Lab lanzó el proyecto JUGUEMOS (TIN2015-67149-C3-1R), un proyecto nacional centrado en el desarrollo de juegos híbridos en entornos interactivos. Esta Tesis Doctoral se enmarca en este proyecto.El primer paso de la realización de esta tesis fue establecer los dos objetivos principales (Capítulo 1):1) El primer objetivo que se estableció fue profundizar en el uso de tabletops tangibles en terapia con niños con necesidades especiales. Durante los últimos años el grupo Affective Lab había visto la potencialidad de los tabletops tangibles para el trabajo con niños pequeños, pero todavía era necesario llevar a cabo más experiencias y evaluaciones en el ámbito terapéutico, así como explorar si otros grupos de usuarios (adultos con problemas cognitivos) podían beneficiarse de las características de los tabletops.2) El segundo objetivo consistió en diseñar e implementar un toolkit para el desarrollo de juegos híbridos para espacios interactivos. Se decidió que el toolkit estuviera dirigido a desarrolladores para facilitar su trabajo a la hora de crear este tipo de aplicaciones.Una vez establecidos los objetivos, se realizó un estado del arte a su vez dividido en dos partes (Capítulo 2):1) Se realizó una categorización de juegos híbridos para entender y extraer sus principales características, así como los principales retos que surgen al desarrollar este tipo de juegos. También se estudiaron toolkits cuyo objetivo era el desarrollo de juegos híbridos.2) Se estudiaron juegos híbridos desarrollados para niños con necesidades especiales y adultos con problemas cognitivos que hacían uso de la Interacción Tangible y tabletops, así como toolkits dirigidos a terapeutas o educadores para ayudarles en la creación de actividades para sus pacientes.Para llevar a cabo las experiencias y evaluaciones relacionadas con el primer objetivo, se hizo uso del tabletop tangible NIKVision, desarrollado previamente por el grupo Affective Lab, y el toolkit KitVision, una herramienta dirigida a profesionales sin conocimientos de programación para la creación de actividades tangibles y que fue desarrollado durante el Proyecto Final de Carrera de la autora. En el Capítulo 3 de esta Tesis se comenta brevemente el tabletop NIKVision y la arquitectura de KitVision, se describen las evaluaciones que se llevaron a cabo con terapeutas con el objetivo de mejorar y probar la utilidad del toolkit, y se explica una experiencia de un año durante la cual una terapeuta ocupacional de ASAPME, una asociaciónque trabaja con adultos con problemas cognitivos, estuvo usando el tabletop y el toolkit sin supervisión.En el Capítulo 4 se describen diferentes experiencias con KitVision que se llevaron a cabo:- Gracias a una colaboración con la Residencia Romareda, NIKVision y KitVision fueron instalados provisionalmente en la residencia y, tras una evaluación inicial, se desarrollaron tres nuevas actividades para los usuarios de la residencia.- Gracias a la colaboración con ENMOvimienTO y con uno de los centros de Atención Temprana del Instituto Aragonés de Servicios Sociales (IASS), ambos enfocados a trabajar con niños con problemas de aprendizaje, se pudieron realizar evaluaciones que nos permitieron mejorar KitVision y crear nuevas actividades específicamente diseñadas para ellos.- Finalmente, gracias a una colaboración con Atenciona, pudimos evaluar actividades con niños con Trastorno por Déficit de Atención e Hiperactividad (TDAH) y extraer una serie de directrices para diseñar actividades para este tipo de niños. También pudimos llevar a cabo una experiencia de Diseño Participativo con estos niños.El completo desarrollo del toolkit JUGUEMOS, para la creación de juegos híbridos en espacios interactivos, se explica en el Capítulo 5. En este apartado primero se describe el Espacio Interactivo JUGUEMOS que sirvió de base para desarrollar el toolkit. Después se explican con detalle las decisiones de diseño que se tomaron, el modelo de abstracción que se usó para diseñar los juegos, y la arquitectura del toolkit. También se detallan las distintas fases de implementación que se llevaron a cabo, basadas en los tres retos que se extrajeron en el estado del arte: (1) integrar diferentes dispositivos, (2) gestionar salidas gráficas diversas y (3) facilitar la codificación del juego. Finalmente, se presentan dos prototipos de juegos que se desarrollaron durante las dos estancias de investigación que la autora realizó.Finalmente, en el Capítulo 6 se describen los tres casos de uso que se realizaron para tener una primera valoración de la usabilidad del toolkit JUGUEMOS: (1) una evaluación con estudiantes de Máster en la que se implementó un juego completamente funcional para el Espacio Interactivo JUGUEMOS, (2) un juego que fue completamente desarrollado usando el toolkit JUGUEMOS una vez que éste se acabó de implementar, (3) una experiencia que involucró a dos grupos multidisciplinares compuestos por diseñadores y desarrolladores, en la que tuvieron que colaborar para diseñar e implementar dos prototipos de juegos híbridos para el espacio interactivo.<br /

Supporting improvised games for young people in public spaces

PhD ThesisResearchers looking at technologically mediated play and games have explored how games can be taken away from the computer screen and played in outdoor spaces. This has resulted in new pervasive games that benefit from the opportunities for rich social and physical interaction in new mobile contexts. However, we have only just begun to explore these opportunities; game designs should bring young people together in these new contexts in play that is appropriate, meaningful, and can be enjoyed on their own mobile devices. The research in this thesis explores how game designers and interaction designers can design more playful mobile games for young people that can be played together in public spaces. This work draws upon a research through design approach that has been informed by the researcher’s own practice of game design and working co-creatively with custodians of public spaces. The contributions are based on the analysis of empirical data collected from two case studies in a community library and a country house, while additionally drawing upon three further game designs made in collaborations with other partners. This work contributes a game design framework that provides an approach, a step by step method, guidelines and a software library for making mobile games with more open, spontaneous, and improvised styles of play. The mobile games are designed with and based on a simplistic game system that presents digital playing cards to provide the game structure and bound play, while the mobile device is also used to configure the play space and sustain play. The intention is to provide designers with a practical and evidence-based approach to designing digital games for new mobile contexts. This work will appeal to game designers who are motivated by an interest in play and playfulness that will resonate with our childhood memories of play.UK AHRC KE Hub for the Creative Economy (ref: AH/J005150/1 Creative Exchange

An aesthetics of touch: investigating the language of design relating to form

How well can designers communicate qualities of touch? This paper presents evidence that they have some capability to do so, much of which appears to have been learned, but at present make limited use of such language. Interviews with graduate designer-makers suggest that they are aware of and value the importance of touch and materiality in their work, but lack a vocabulary to fully relate to their detailed explanations of other aspects such as their intent or selection of materials. We believe that more attention should be paid to the verbal dialogue that happens in the design process, particularly as other researchers show that even making-based learning also has a strong verbal element to it. However, verbal language alone does not appear to be adequate for a comprehensive language of touch. Graduate designers-makers’ descriptive practices combined non-verbal manipulation within verbal accounts. We thus argue that haptic vocabularies do not simply describe material qualities, but rather are situated competences that physically demonstrate the presence of haptic qualities. Such competencies are more important than groups of verbal vocabularies in isolation. Design support for developing and extending haptic competences must take this wide range of considerations into account to comprehensively improve designers’ capabilities