Boosting workout engagement through personalized game features evoking multiple emotions
A groundbreaking new method for designing affective games, particularly for exergaming systems, has been introduced. This innovative approach, centred around three key features, aims to heighten emotional engagement, responsiveness, and overall effectiveness of exergames.
The three main features of this new design method are:
- Multi-emotion provoking elements: These elements incorporate a diverse range of emotional stimuli within the game experience. By evoking a variety of emotions such as challenge, nostalgia, awe, or escapism, the game provides a more engaging and immersive experience. This diversity enhances players’ emotional regulation and deepens engagement, tapping into complex affective experiences during gameplay.
- Continuous game elements: These elements involve seamless, ongoing gameplay mechanics that maintain player involvement without frequent interruptions. This continuous flow supports sustained emotional arousal and immersion, helping players achieve a deeper game experience and enhancing benefits such as mindfulness and self-reflection.
- Near real-time emotion evaluation: This feature uses systems capable of monitoring and assessing player emotions as they happen during gameplay. This allows the game to adapt dynamically to the player’s current affective state, creating personalized responses that improve motivation, emotional regulation, and mental well-being. Near real-time feedback systems are crucial for responding to fluctuating emotions promptly, thereby optimizing the gaming experience and maximizing health benefits.
This new design method has been evaluated in a case study involving 25 participants. The results highlighted the potential of the new method in creating engaging and effective affective game designs. The study showed that the new method successfully provoked both physical and mental stress in the participants, enhancing their emotional engagement, improving mental health outcomes, and increasing motivation to participate.
The design method's integration of multi-emotion stimuli, continuous gameplay, and near real-time emotion evaluation enables a responsive, emotionally rich gaming experience that enhances the psychological and physical benefits of exergaming. This new approach, particularly for older adults or those with cognitive impairments, could offer significant improvements in promoting well-being.
References:
[1] [Paper Title 1] [2] [Paper Title 2] [3] [Paper Title 3]
This innovative design method, applied to exergaming systems, incorporates multi-emotion provoking elements, continuous game elements, and near real-time emotion evaluation to create a responsive, emotionally rich gaming experience. This Could potentially improve the fitness-and-exercise, health-and-wellness, and overall science of exergaming, particularly for older adults or those with cognitive impairments.
