Problem Explored

In pre-computer age, games were designed and played out in the
physical world with the use of real world properties, such as
physical objects, our sense of space, and spatial relations.
Nowadays computer games focus the user's attention mainly on the
computer screen or 2D/3D virtual environment, therefore constraining
physical interactions. However, there seems to be a growing interest
in physical gaming and entertainment. Commercial arcade games have
recently seen a growing trend of games that require human physical
movement as part of interaction. For example, dancing games such as
Dance Dance Revolution and ParaParaParadise by Konami are based on
players dancing in time with a musical dance tune and moving
graphical objects. Some of the game systems have offered exergames which use the electronic game format to promote
exercise, but these are often lacking in the ability to motivate the
players. These systems still force the person to stand in more or
less the same spot, and focus on a computer screen in front of them.

Recently the Brain Training games on Nintendo DS have gained huge
popularity among the elderly Japanese. The
elderly players believe that such games can sharpen their thinking
and they enjoy playing the games very much. Moreover, hospitals in
Japan are turning to Nintendo DS Brain Training as an aid in
stimulating the minds of elderly patients. On the other
hand, Nintendo Wii has gain tremendous popularity and sold over 6
million consoles since its launch in late 2006. To
play the games on the console, for example the Wii Sports, player physically swings and move the Wii remote.
Thus, we believe there is a growing need and trend for video games
which promote physical activity and mental stimulation for youth and
elderly people.

The physical nature of mixed reality games has been explored more in
recent years showing positive benefits of high user motivation to
play and quickly established bonds between players.
In Human Pacman mixed reality game, players enjoyed
high level of social and physical interaction.

Based on the above literature review, we carried out preliminary
user study to understand better the users, in particular the
grandparents and grandchildren in Singapore context. Results of the
study is presented below.

Singapore has many elderly community centers, each located among the
clusters of living apartments. These elderly community centers are
offers common place for elderly who are living in the vicinity area
to socialise and participate in activities. The facilities commonly
offered are TV, tables and chairs, exercise equipments, etc. The
elderly normally gather at these centers during day time. We have
carried out initial surveys during day time at one of the elderly
community centers, Peace Connect. We observed that there were many
elderly sitting around the tables. Some were watching TV and playing
board games but most of them were idling around. There were little
social interaction among the elderly there and they showed low
motivation to exercise or move around, even though there were
treadmills and other exercising equipments provided. They looked
tired and most of the time are resting on their seats.

We did verbal surveys with the elderly at the Peace Center and
realised that many of the older generations were illiterate or have
very limited command of written English or Chinese. Most of them
communicated in chinese dialect, Hokkien and Cantonese. When asked
about their computer related experience, they all said that they do
not know how to use computer therefore shy away from computer
related activities. Interestingly the question probes some of them
to mention about their grandchildren who play computer games very
often. Further question to investigate if they tried to understand
the games their grandchildren are playing, they gave negative reply.
Main reasons being they were not used to computer interfaces
especially the keyboard and mouse and they do not understand the
language used in the game as they were illiterate. We were
interested to know the responds of the elderly on electronic games
which involves physical movements. In particular we asked the
elderly if they know the game Dance Dance Revolution (DDR). They
were very excited about the game and told us about their experience
watching the young children and youth playing that game at arcade
centers. When probed further if they would like to play the game,
their immediate reply was that the game is too fast for them.
However they did suggest to us that they would enjoy playing
electronic games similar to DDR which require body movement as a
form of exercise, but the speed has to be moderate. They were
concern about the pace of the game.

On the other hand, we carried out a focus group study with 10 school
children of age 10-12, from a neighborhood school. 80\% of them
indicate that they play electronic games ranging from computer games
to console games like x-box and play station for more than 10 hours
a week. In contrary, 100% of the 10 elderly of age 60-80 in our
focus group study reported that they have never played any form of
electronic games. Most of the students also indicated that they have
played the DDR game before and they enjoyed the experience.

From the initial study we observe the following trends:

*Most of the elderly in Singapore live under the same roof with
their children and grandchildren. There is strong bonding between
the two generations.

*Besides the student who do not have grandparents in the family
(only one out of the 10 students), the students have reported
spending time on average 10-20 hours with their grandparents and
their common activities include board games, card games and
swimming.

*Elderly do not play electronic games and do not have computer
related experience. In contrary most children plays electronic games
frequently.

*The elderly are supportive of the grandchildren playing the games
although they have no idea the content of the game and the way to
play it.

*All the 10 elderly do not attempt to understand the games played
by their grandchildren reason being that they are shy of using
computer and do not understand the language used in the game.

*All the students play sports in the form of rollerblading,
basketball, soccer, netball, swimming, running, track and field.
70% of the elderly do sports in the form of swimming running
jogging.

*The elderly are interested to play games similar to DDR which
promote their body movement as a form of exercise. The students
enjoy playing DDR game.

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