persuasive systems in order to encourage more physical activities. In this paper, the design of a mobile game, FitPet, is introduced. FitPet is a mobile application ...
Encouraging Physical Activity with a Game-based Mobile Application: FitPet Xin Tong, Diane Gromala, Chris Shaw, Weina Jin School of Interactive Arts and Technology Simon Fraser University Surrey, Canada {tongxint, gromala, shaw, weinaj}@sfu.ca Abstract—Wearable trackers and mobile applications can facilitate self-reflection of doing physical activity. The gamification process incorporates game design elements with persuasive systems in order to encourage more physical activities. In this paper, the design of a mobile game, FitPet, is introduced. FitPet is a mobile application that combines ubiquity and simplicity of mobile devices with the engagement of computing games, intended to motivate people to incorporate more walking into their daily life routine. Keywords—physical activity; gamification; mobile game; health game; virtual pet-keeping game
I.
INTRODUCTION
A sedentary lifestyle is a contributing factor to chronic disease. Regular physical activity is critical to everyone’s physical and psychological health, regardless of their weight, overweight, or obese [1]. Yet despite the importance of physical activity, many adults in North America do not get enough exercise according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). One method for substantially improving the quality of life is performing physical activity, which can both increase mental and physical health and reduce the risk of potential chronic diseases. Although people recognize that performing regular physical activity is essential for health, many people are not physically active on a regular basis. Numerous persuasive systems have been designed and developed for promoting physical activity over the past two decades. Methods for encouraging physical activities and other lifestyle improvement, like self-monitoring, goal-setting task, and social competition, are incorporated into the design of persuasive systems. Incentive approaches vary from virtual and physical rewards, digital games to gamification. Here, the gamification strategies, which were adopted in prior research prototypes, are discussed: Social Communications and Interactions: In Houston, a research prototype designed by Consolvo et al. [2], groups of friends wearing pedometers could share each other’s goals and progress as well as motivational messages via mobile phones. Their results revealed that sharing activity related information lead to participants’ social pressure and concerns to meet their goals, beat a friend, or not have the lowest step count. Similarly, in Chick Clique [3], small groups of participants shared their step counts and progress toward daily goals with each other via
their mobile phones. In general, the participants held a positive attitude towards goal and physical activity sharing. However, the participants of GoalPost and GoalLine [4] were hesitated to share their activity information with others on Facebook. A more recent research – StepByStep [5] – was designed with gamification strategies including goal-setting, leaderboard comparison, and virtual points. In the three-week field study, results demonstrated that the gamified version of the research prototypes offering virtual rewards and social comparison were only as effective as the quantified version, which only displays physical activity data. Virtual Avatar Visualization and Representation: Fish’n’Step [6] uses personal goals, social influence, and a non-literal, aesthetic display to promote physical activity, especially more steps. The individual’s step count is linked to the emotional states, growth, and activity of a virtual fish in a virtual tank – a tank that includes the fishes of other participants. The fish tank is displayed in a public kiosk in the participants’ office and on personal websites for an individual progress view. The study results showed that when fish avatar was not aesthetically pleasing, participants stopped looking at the tank and some even stopped using the system all together. The concepts of using virtual avatar to represent physical activity data were further researched by UbiFit Garden system [7]. It is a system that uses small sensors and mobile display to visualize people physical activity. It uses virtual flowers and butterflies to represent the activity levels and goal completeness of the participants. Game-based Approaches: Games are also deployed into persuasive or wearable systems and utilized as a gamification strategy together with health trackers to promote physical activities. Yet the effectiveness of current research prototypes seems to be less powerful and rarely investigated than simpler system like UbiFit Garden. The map-based game, called Intro [8], records steps from mobile phone’s accelerometers. Participants “travel” on the virtual map where their locations are decided by their steps count. Participants rated the application to be motivating and appealing in a one-week long field study. But the effectiveness was not formally evaluated. Another research project called The American Horsepower Challenge is also a location-based competition game, which aims at increasing teenage students’ physical activity [9]. Students wore pedometers whose data were converted into a web-based game later. The goal of The American Horsepower Challenge is for a school’s students to compete and win the virtual race against students in other schools.
II.
THE DESIGN OF FITPET MOBILE GAME
In order to motivate people to engage with the virtual pet more frequently and grow an emotional attachment to the pet, individuals’ daily physical activity progress towards their goals was mapped to the development of the virtual pet in two ways. Firstly, individual can convert his/her daily step count to FitPet game coins. Then, s/he can use the game coins to interact with the virtual pet, feed the pet, or provide medical aid to the pet when the pet is sick. Secondly, the growth level of this virtual pet is related to the accumulated total steps and how many days the player completes the daily step goal. The general idea of this mobile application is to take care of the pets by taking care of the player himself/herself. FitPet flow chart is shown in Figure 1. The step-coin game economics (dynamics), growth level and goal rule (mechanics), and visual design (aesthetics) are the key mechanics and dynamics implemented to encourage more engagement from the players with their virtual pets. The acrylic painting game interface was designed to differentiate FitPet game from traditional Tamagotchi-type (general pixel style) games. This is to inspire more emotional responses to their virtual pet from people.
accumulated steps exceeds a predefined value, the pet will grow to the next level. When the player meets his/her daily goal, there will be a particle firework animation appears in the screen to cheer up the player. A mini game and accessories features are also included in the game, so the player can have more options. III. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK FitPet was created as a research prototype. The goal of developing such a prototype is to create a systematic evaluation (which will be the field study and play testing in the future) of quantified and gamified presentation of activity-related data by implementing game mechanics and dynamics. Therefore, the prototype was developed with main features including goalsetting, health data-coin conversion, and player-pet interactions, pet health and growth changes. Besides, step capture algorithm was implemented in FitPet and its step-detection accuracy was evaluated. The future work is to modify current design strategies, and conduct in situ studies with the targeted players in a six-week study. Such studies will expose important issues, for example, how the systems can be used for everyday experiences, whether or not this gamification approach is effective and why, and the players’ reactions to the interactive game. REFERENCES [1]
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[4] Fig. 1. FitPet game design and flow chart [5]
Mechanics and Dynamics: Goals, Steps, Coins, and Levels: the step data are from the mobile phone’s accelerometer and is displayed real-time. Each time the player launches FitPet, new steps will be detected and the game coins can be gained when the player save their game progress. Updated steps will be converted to game coins automatically in the ratio of 30 steps to 1 game coin. Core Mechanic and Representation: To keep the virtual pet stay healthy, the player needs to increase the pet’s Health Point (HP). When HP is higher than 50% of the overall health progress bar, the pet will stay healthy. If below 50%, the pet will be in sick condition. The HP will automatically be damaged and decreased by 20% everyday until 0. However, the virtual pet will never die. Micro View Goals and Macro View Challenge: There are four growth levels in total, which were specifically designed for a six-week experimental study. The daily goal completeness and accumulated total steps decides which level will the virtual pet be. As soon as the total number of
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