Bubble Popper: Body Contact in Digital Games

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BACKGROUND Exertion games (exergames) are computer games that require physical effort from users and thus offer physical health benefits, unlike traditional computer games. The research is focused on the merging of play and the active human body and spans human-computer interaction, game design, computer science, information science, sports science, and mechanical and electrical engineering. A past Fulbright Scholar, labelled World Expert in Exertion Games, Mueller leads teams at the Exertion Lab, RMIT in trying to best design such games to support engaging experiences to facilitate social and physical health benefits, especially addressing obesity. The ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems is the premier international conference on human-computer interaction. CONTRIBUTION Although some exertion games support social interaction, they rarely consider or support body contact. Overlooking body contact as part of social play limits opportunities in exertion games. To explore this opportunity, Bubble Popper uses the magic of popping bubbles in facilitating body contact as two players wearing custom made hardware gloves vie to 'pop' the most bubbles on a projected wall display, a merged physical-virtual space. Using very simple technology, it also demonstrates that in an exergame body contact can be achieved without the need for sensor technology. SIGNIFICANCE Through reflecting on the design and analysing observations of play, researchers were able to articulate the impact of physical space layout in relation to digital game elements, and the physical disparity between input and digital in regard to body contact. The results assist game designers when considering body contact in creating engaging exertion games. As well as being part of this prestigious conference program Bubble Popper was accepted for the 2011 Pause Fest exhibition, was presented at Fun and Games 2012, and has been included in further papers on the subject.