core experience by doris c. rusch - frog2011
DESCRIPTION
“Core” Experience - Exploring Less Obvious Design Approaches To Exercise GamesThis presentation investigates the so far under-explored experiential potential of exercise games. It takes its departure from the observation that exercise games largely focus on simulating sports activities (e.g. snowboarding, surfing, dancing or yoga) instead of trying to model the experience of what it feels like to actually engage in these activities. The central hypothesis of this talk is that the experience of any kind of physical activity is never solely (or primarily) about the physical, tangible aspects of the activity but about how these aspects make us feel and think. Exercise games mostly ignore this part of exercising, maybe assuming that by simulating the activity its mental aspects will happen by themselves. This presentation explores what is lost by this current design approach and what an alternative route could look like. By way of concrete, original design examples, new avenues of exploration for exercise games shall be sketched out and put forth for discussion.TRANSCRIPT
“Core” Experience
exploring less obvious design approaches to exercise games
Dr. Doris C. Rusch, DePaul University: FROG 2011Monday, November 7, 2011
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goal: designing possibility spaces for playful explorations of the human condition
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depressionaddiction
love
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“physical play”: the first and most immediate form of play
“the playful child is the physical child”(Lucia Capacchione: “Recovery of Your Inner Child”)Monday, November 7, 2011
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how can we leverage physical play to explore the human condition?
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games as possibility spaces Monday, November 7, 2011
aiming for more and more fictional immersion
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kinaesthetic mimicry:blurring the boundaries
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holy grail: immediacyMonday, November 7, 2011
achievement unlocked?
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which “fiction” fits the technology?
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simulating sports activities; sports metaphors
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my quibble• conceptually dull
• extreme focus on physical concepts
• ignore symbolical aspects of physical play
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in defense of current exercise games
• some are great fun
• they may offer added value: feedback, instruction, motivation.
• some fictions are really cool and enable experiences not easy to have in real life.
• they are good for videogame’s reputation .
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BUT:
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why shouldn’t we explore less obvious design approaches to exercise games?
what could an alternative to the simulation approach look like?
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what is the symbolical potential of “physical play”?
it starts by asking:
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what is the experiential “core” of a physical activity?
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mind: feeling capable of handling the burden (of whatever life throws at us)
body: lifting physical, tangible weight
mind - body connection:
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mind: an exercise in trust and letting go
body: coordinated movement, timing
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body: efficiency and speed
mind: “owning” territory, empowerment to overcome (mental / emotional) obstacles
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“exploring one’s body equates
exploring one’s psyche”
(Santiago, 2001, p.6)
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the body goes through the motions.
the mind provides the metaphors that make the motions meaningful.
to enable meaningful, physical play, exercise games could tap into these metaphors.
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why does the simulation of real-life physical activity not do the trick?
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• because in exercise games, your attention is bound by whatever happens on screen.
• the mind is busy buying into the sports metaphor and not free to focus on the images and associations that usually come up during a work-out.
• the provided sports metaphors are not terribly insightful.
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let them be informed by the symbolical potential of physical activities.
for an alternative approach, rethink metaphors for exercise games.
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example: “Zombie Yoga”(for Xbox Kinect)
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abstract concept: Fear
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physical activity: yogaMonday, November 7, 2011
you find yourself in the middle of a Zombie outbreak
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you have been bitten and the infection is slowly spreading inside
you.Monday, November 7, 2011
• you need to find a cure before you turn into a Zombie!!
• every renewed contact with Zombies speeds up infection.
• you can fight, but aggressive behavior increases infection speed.
• you have to overcome your fears to win the game.
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become a warrior of light!
• each yoga pose you do has a particular effect in the game.
• e.g. warrior I: build protective light bubble around you
• warrior II: part the horde
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stand in tadasana
warrior I to freeze Zombies
subway takes a turn
Zombies get thrown to one side,but you are perfectly still in
tree pose.Monday, November 7, 2011
heal through light meditation
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the world in “Zombie Yoga” is an emotional landscape filled with fear, represented by Zombies.
fear is also internal, represented by the infection.
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by learning to deal with and command the externalized fear, the inner fear
(infection) is healed.
The yoga poses are translated into gameplay verbs that (mostly) represent the intended inner effects of these poses.
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sum up
• the “core” experience of physical play integrates mind and body
• exercise games focus on the body
• conceptual potential remains untapped
• include the mind, explore emotional metaphors
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