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Development of the PlayMancer platform will be driven by serious games
scenario from two application domains: therapeutic support programs for lifestyle
related disorders, and physical rehabilitation. These domains provide some unique
opportunities and challenges to move the networking and platform requirements
beyond the current state of the art and provide a basis for developing a generic
platform that could support application of serious games in other application domains.
Specifically, the focus on physical rehabilitation will drive platform requirements for
supporting the development of UA games and the integration of low cost player
motion tracking and gesture recognition devices. Games scenarios from the lifestyle
related disorder could implicate a platform requirements for multi-modal emotion
measurement, domain rather or task-oriented dialogue, measuring emotion states such
as boredom, depression, anxiety and associated cognitive responses. While guided
online therapeutic support programs are developing at a rapid rate [10], [11] with
promising initial results, several major problems remain: The difficulty of
communicating and working with important cognitive concepts, and the problem of
motivation and compliance, i.e. working with the program consistently. The goal of
PlayMancer is to develop serious games to illustrate difficult to explain concepts, to
provide sensory and emotional feedback, and to provide more enjoyable exercises that
would increase compliance. These games are a replacement. They should be used
initially as a tool for health care professionals. Specific game scenario will be defined
in PlayMancer, to deal with problems, cognitive traits and risk factors common to a
variety of lifestyle related behavioural disorders. These scenarios will be developed
within the PlayMancer platform and will be evaluated in pilot trials to determine user
acceptance and efficacy in improving cognitive believes and lifestyle improvement.
The user requirements and game play scenarios will be developed to insure
anonymity, privacy and confidentiality. These requirements will no doubt require that
no personal data of any kind will be stored on the platform, in some cases, the games
scenario would be only be played by an individual interacting with a game objects, or
with a restricted group of authorised users.
These games are intended for use as part of the health promotion and disease
prevention process, and not as a replacement. The games modules could be evaluated
as supplementary modules (seen as vertical components in the modular framework in
figure 2) based on the SALUT platform for delivery of guided self-management
programs for behavioural and addictive disorders. This platform was developed by
NetUnion within the FP5 research project SALUT and evaluated by hospitals and
clinics in Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Spain (University Hospital of Bellvitge),
Holland, and Austria. All evaluations were conducted with approval from the ethical
committee of the partner institution.
The games modules could also be integrated, dynamically, based on user need and
interest using a dynamic composition of service model for games delivery. Special
configurations will be tailored for each user group. Scoring and feedback will also be
configured according to needs and requirements for different user groups. All players
will receive some standard scoring, while end user with special needs will be also be
provided additional information, available only to the user, such as charts showing
progress towards a therapeutic objective over time. After the implementation of these
game modules in the 3D platform of PlayMancer, experimental field trials will be
conducted in order to evaluate the effectiveness of applying these modules to adult
players. Evaluation of the games module will be conducted by the University Hospital
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