Authors:
Álvaro Pérez
1
;
Jesús Gallardo
1
;
Raquel Lacuesta
1
and
Silvia Hernández
2
Affiliations:
1
Department of Computing and Systems Engineering, University of Zaragoza, Teruel, Spain
;
2
Pre-departmental Unit of Fine Arts, University of Zaragoza, Teruel, Spain
Keyword(s):
Pervasive Games, Elderly People, Augmented Reality.
Abstract:
The rise of videogames in our culture has caused that they are no longer seen as simple games for kids and have spread to all the segments of population. The use of videogames by elderly people can help to improve their quality of life, exercising their mental functions. Inside the field of videogames, the concept of pervasive game appeared with intensity some years ago. This kind of games exceed any of the classic dimensions of games: temporal, spatial or social. In order to achieve this evolution, pervasive games use to take advantage of non-traditional interaction technologies and novel paradigms, such as augmented reality. In this paper we introduce a novel pervasive game oriented towards elderly people that makes use of augmented reality. The game has been developed following a user-centered approach with participative design. In the game, players have to find certain elements in their environment (e.g., in a nursing home) so that they unlock memories that they store in an album
and can value. Here, we describe the game in detail and show a first validation that we have carried out in order to test its usefulness. In that validation, users find the game useful and easy to play with.
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