Robby van Delden

Steering Gameplay Behavior in the Interactive Tag Playground

This paper deals with steering player behavior in the Interactive Tag Playground (ITP). The ITP, an ambient environment instrumented with contact-free sensor technology and ambient display capabilities, enhances the traditional game of tag by determining when a valid tag has been made and visualising the current tagger. We present three modifications of the ITP that aim to steer the gameplay actions of the players. The modifications are intended to influence who will be chased next by the tagger; to make good players easier to tag and less skilled players harder to tag; and to influence the locations visited by the players. We report on a user study showing that two of the three modifications have a significant effect on the behavior of players in the ITP and discuss opportunities for future research that follow from his study.

Interactive Playgrounds for Children

Play is an important factor in the life of children. It plays a role in their cognitive, social, and physical development, and provides entertaining and fulfilling activities in itself. As with any field of human endeavor, interactive technology has a huge potential for transforming and enhancing play activities. In this chapter, we look at interactive playgrounds, goals and considerations in their design, and we present the directions in which interactive playgrounds can be made more engaging.

Design of tangible games for children undergoing occupational and physical therapy

Games can offer an entertaining alternative to repetitive tasks. In this paper, we propose the use of tangible interactive games for the repetitive training of upper limbs in the therapy of children with Cerebral Palsy (CP). We obtained promising results. The total of four created games succeeded in triggering all the to-be-trained movements properly and in a motivating and entertaining way. A physical quiz game was especially successful as children kept on playing the game making the proper movements without additional encouragement or instructions of the therapists or researchers. These results indicate that in this kind of occupational or physical therapy, there is additional value in using tangible interactive games. Furthermore, the research shows the importance of including the therapists in the design of games and we report on several ways to achieve that.

Augmenting playspaces to enhance the game experience: A tag game case study

Introducing technology into games can improve players’ game experience. However, it can also reduce the amount of physical activity and social interaction. In this article, we discuss how we enhance the game of tag with technology such that physical and social characteristics of the game are retained. We first present an analysis of the behavior of children playing traditional tag games. Based on these observations, we designed the Interactive Tag Playground (ITP), an interactive installation that uses tracking and floor projections to enhance the game of tag. We evaluate the ITP in one user study with adults and one with children. We compare players’ reported experiences when playing both traditional and interactive tag. Players report significantly higher engagement and immersion when playing interactive tag. We also use tracking data collected automatically to quantitatively analyze player behavior in both tag games. Players exhibit similar patterns of physical activity and interactions in both game types. We can therefore conclude that interactive technology can be used to make traditional games more engaging, without losing social and physical character of the game.

Meaning in Life as a Source of Entertainment

In this paper we mean to introduce into the field of entertainment computing an overview of insights concerning fundamental human needs. Researchers such as Hassenzahl and Desmet, discuss design approaches based on psychological insights from various and varied sources. We collect these and expand them with a focus on meaning in life as seen in humanistic philosophy. We summarise the various roles that these insights can play in our research on new technology, and illustrate the discussion with examples from the field of computer entertainment.

An annotation scheme for social interaction in digital playgrounds

This paper introduces a new annotation scheme, designed specifically to study childrens social interactions during play in digital playgrounds. The scheme is motivated by analyzing relevant literature, combined with observations from recordings of play sessions. The scheme allows us to analyze how key social interactions are related to different stages of play and the physical activity levels associated to them. We can use this information for two goals. First, we can identify relations between social interactions and the impact that changing game dynamics have on their occurrence. Second, it facilitates the analysis of automatic recognition of these social behaviors. Results obtained arer useful for both goals. They show that it is possible to identify social interactions and their relation to game dynamics. Finally they also allow for further analysis into the possibility of their automatic recognition.

Hang in There: A Novel Body-Centric Interactive Playground

We introduce and evaluate a first version of a novel bodycentric playground that aims at increasing bodily exertion and immersion. The concept centers around the player, who is suspended from the ceiling using a rope and climbing harness and stands on a tilted platform. This caused players to assume a body posture that elicits the feeling of flying, which was further enhanced by the flying game that they played. We discuss the choices made in the type of body movements, and how these relate to different aspects such as movement mimicry and exertion. We performed a user study, in which the hanging position was compared to a setting where players stood on the ground. We found no significant differences in the amount of movement and perceived engagement between the two conditions. However, there was a tendency of favoring the hanging position. Moreover, we observed that the placement of game elements affected the movement patterns.

Lost puppy: Towards a playful intervention for wandering dementia patients

Many nursing homes for dementia patients struggle with residents that wander towards the exit with the intention of leaving. Several types of interventions have been used to deal with this issue. Unfortunately, many of them are quite forceful, or are unsuitable for the specific context of certain nursing homes. In this paper, we investigate the possibility to using a more playful persuasive intervention. The design itself is in the form of a lost puppy, equipped with several actuators and sensors, that has to be brought ‘home’, in order to steer residents unknowingly away from the exit. Our first pilot indicated that residents noticed the puppy and showed interest in the device, and might be distracted from the exit. However, the puppy in its current form did not yet lead the residents away from the exit. Based on our contextual analyses, related work, and received feedback, we share our design insights which could be helpful for creating playful interventions for people with dementia.

Co-located augmented play-spaces: past, present, and perspectives

In recent years, many different studies regarding Co-located Augmented Play-spaces (CAPs) have been published in a wide variety of conferences and journals. We present an overview. The work presented in these papers includes end user’s perspectives as well as researcher’s perspective. We place these within four aspects in this review: (1) Argumentation, the underlying reasons or the higher end goals to investigate interactive play from a user’s perspective, (2) Systems, the kind of systems that are created, this includes their intended use which fits the end user’s perspective, (3) Evaluation, the way in which the researchers evaluate the system, (4) Contribution, the goal of the studies from the researcher’s perspective; what does the study contribute to the research community. CAPs are often multimodal in nature; this survey pays attention to the multimodal characteristics in relation to all four aspects. This overview contributes a clearer view on the current literature, points out where new opportunities lie, and hands us the tools for what we think is important: bringing the end-user and research perspective together in intervention based evaluations. In short, this paper discusses CAPs: their past, the present, and the perspectives.

Lost Puppy: Towards a Playful Intervention for Wandering Dementia Patients

Many nursing homes for dementia patients struggle with residents that wander towards the exit with the intention of leaving. Several types of interventions have been used to deal with this issue. Unfortunately, many of them are quite forceful, or are unsuitable for the specific context of certain nursing homes. In this paper, we investigate the possibility to using a more playful persuasive intervention. The design itself is in the form of a lost puppy, equipped with several actuators and sensors, that has to be brought ‘home’, in order to steer residents unknowingly away from the exit. Our first pilot indicated that residents noticed the puppy and showed interest in the device, and might be distracted from the exit. However, the puppy in its current form did not yet lead the residents away from the exit. Based on our contextual analyses, related work, and received feedback, we share our design insights which could be helpful for creating playful interventions for people with dementia.