This game system is one of the results of my research at NTNU as part of the EXACT research project. The game system is developed as a prototype – read the evaluation of the prototype here. The game system won the CHI2020 game competition.
Design Space
The design space was designing exergames for older adults to train balance training in their homes to prevent falls.
The Problem Field
When an older adult falls, it often leads to long hospitalisation periods and decreased mobility. Reduced mobility leads to more reduced mobility and a reduction in life quality until the person can no longer take care of themselves.
The problem is that our daily movement challenges are reduced as we age. In movement terms, we lack neuromotor training, that is, sensory-motor stimulation for brain training. These situations include getting up and down from the floor when we play with our kids, carrying around our kids, and other activities that often involve kids. The solution then became designing a game for grandparents to play with their grandchildren at home. The goals were; to research playful movement, how to compose playful balance training movements and exercises and map the requirements for movement-based games for playing in a home setting.
Problem Space
The problem space of The Move Maker was to design a game that promoted physical training for balance training for elderly people in their home environment. While initially, it was developed for elderly people and their grandchildren to play together, the project ended by including the entire family as the Covid-19 pandemic raised an urgent need for family activities.
Playfulness is core to the design, and the system is structured to accommodate playfulness rather than gamefulness. That is, the game emphasizes creativity, collaboration and trust among the players. Theoretically, the game draws on the Danish connotation; at lege en leg versus at spille et spil (for further explanation, please see my research paper on the subject; Designing for Bodily Play Based on Danish Linguistic Connotations of “Playing a Game” ).
The Move Maker is the practical design result of my research. I call it a system for play and game because it consists of elements chosen and combined from principles and theories developed to encourage “leg” (playfulness) in any form, from highly structured competitive games to exploratory playful experimentations.
However, the test and evaluation of the design as a family activity revealed qualities of collaboration and playfulness, which yielded an unanticipated and seldom togetherness among the family members.
The Move Maker won the CHI 2020 Student Game Competition, Transgressive and Transformative Play Category; you can read the paper or watch the video.
Light cubes – changes color when turned 
Restraint cards – makes movement fun 
Sound cubes – plays for 5 seconds when waving a hand or other body limp in front of it 
Moving robot – moves when holding a body parts in front of the sensors 
The receiver of the laser line 
The laser light to point into the receiver
Design Process
The design process leading to The Move Maker can be sketched as follows:
Initial research theoretical and empirical -> first prototype and test -> second prototype and test -> The Move Maker -> Evaluation of the final prototype.
Initial Research
Initial research on playful movement and balance training consisted of theoretical investigations into playfulness, bodily experiences of movement, bodily play and turning balance training exercises into playful movement.
The theoretical investigations were combinations of literature reviews and analyses of existing games. The results are described in the following papers:
The empirical research was two co-design workshops with physiotherapists exploring playful training exercises. While the first workshop yielded a set of highly complex exercises, they were not exactly fun. It was challenging to get the physiotherapists to discard their professional mindset. To accommodate this problem, I turned the second workshop into a board game to design an exergame.
The board game consisted of a board and a lot of physical devices. The idea was to use them as physical game elements. The elements were chosen to be as random as possible without (almost) any clear and predefined use. It was also what was within my reach at home and the university. And, because I have two kids, I also brought many toys to accommodate playfulness, cars, lego bricks, etc.
First Prototype
While the process of doing so is described here, it occurred to me that the board game in itself was also an exergame. And the creative part of the game was highly playful. In other words, the board game was the first prototype of The Move Maker. However, the game was full of flaws as it was not self-explanatory and required a moderator.
The Second Prototype
I then moderated the game mechanics to be more self-explanatory and tested it in an expert test session with my colleagues. This session led to a refinement of the game as an Exergame Generator. This version was presented at the Games 4 Health Europe Conference 2018.
The Formation of The Move Maker
From the tests, I learned that the players liked the objects and that they could customize the content of the game to their needs. I also learned that the most fun with these objects was to create “bodily puzzles” – bodily challenges that required skills and bodily logic to solve instead of strength or speed. Furthermore, I learned from the literature reviews and my own theory of bodily play that bodily play is (also) about sensory stimulation (see my research papers). Thus, I refined the choice of game objects to stimulate the exteroceptive senses, hearing, vision, touch, etc., in various ways. The Move Maker consists of the following objects:
The game modules were chosen as a mix of off-the-shelf products and homemade prototypes. Because the game aimed to stimulate neuro-motor processes, the modules were collected to stimulate various exteroceptive senses, hearing, touch and vision. The system was then composed of the following modules;
home-made music cubes that played a one-bar, either rhythm or harmony, when triggered by a proximity trigger. The music bits were composed to complement each other.
Light cubes stimulate vision and tactile sense as they change colour when turned.
Laser lines are connected to a beeping sensor to stimulate vision and spacious perception.
A moving robot that moved when triggered by a set of proximity sensors. The idea was to have something moving together with the players.
Lastly, there was a set of restraint cards to reconfigure the players’ bodily preconditions.
Testing
Testing with grandparents and grandchildren in the lab was impossible as the prototype was developed just when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. However, a new problem had occurred. Families were locked up in their homes and not allowed to go outside. The consequences were inactivity and boredom. So I boxed the game in a suitcase and delivered it to eight families to test as they were locked in their homes.
The families then video-recorded their play sessions while also keeping a play diary. The game was with each family for around 10 days. The test method is called technology probes. The process is described in detail in the following research paper:
- Louise Petersen Matjeka, Dag Svanæs and Alf Inge Wang. 2022. Turning Eight Family Homes into Interactive, Pervasive Playgrounds during the Covid-19 Lockdown. In Frontiers of Computer Science, Journal on Human-Media Interaction, Special Edition on Inbodied Interaction Design, Elisabeth Murnane (Ed.). https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomp.2022.822337
Results
The results were plenty. The overall result was that the families received the game system as an active family activity, thus pointing to future possibilities of research and product development.
An interesting result was that the game turned the families’ homes into playgrounds where the family structure and hierarchy could be contested and turned upside down. Furthermore, the families reported experiences of togetherness that they felt was missing in their everyday life. A quality that the families reported had personal and emotional value.
One of the families reported, “[The father] and I had to put our ears together, and I (re)experienced a kind of closeness that we may lack in our everyday, hectic daily life.”
Playing also brought them out of their daily structure; A family reported that the children found it fun to “watch your parents in silly positions.”
For more details, please read the research papers. The reports are fun to read 🙂
Manual for setting up and playing The Move Maker can be read here.
The Move Maker is reported in the following research papers:
- Louise Petersen Matjeka. Designing Movement-Based Play and Games – in Theory and Practice. June 2022. PhD thesis. Norwegian University of Science and Technology. ISBN: 978-82-326-6643-0
- Louise Petersen Matjeka and Alf Inge Wang. 2022. Paraphernalia – Game Mechanics Facilitating Bodily Movement and Play. In the Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM, New Orleans, USA, https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519702
- Louise Petersen Matjeka, Dag Svanæs and Alf Inge Wang. 2022. Turning Eight Family Homes into Interactive, Pervasive Playgrounds during the Covid-19 Lockdown. In Frontiers of Computer Science, Journal on Human-Media Interaction, Special Edition on Inbodied Interaction Design, Elisabeth Murnane (Ed.). https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomp.2022.822337
- Louise Petersen Matjeka, Mads Hobye, and Henrik Svarrer Larsen. 2021. Restraints as a Mechanic for Bodily Play. In CHI ’21: Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM Press, Online. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445622
- Best Paper Award Louise Petersen Matjeka and Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller. 2020. Designing for Bodily Play Experiences Based on Danish Linguistic Connotations of “Playing a Game.” In Proceedings of International Conference on Human Computer Interaction and Play CHI PLAY, ACM, Online. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145.3410404/3414264
- Winner of the CHI2020 Student Game Competition – Transformative and Transgressive Play, Louise Petersen Matjeka. 2020. The Move Maker – Exploring Bodily Preconditions and Surrounding Conditions for Bodily Interactive Play. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM Press, Honolulu, Hawai’i. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3334480.3381652
Method
To do so, I developed theoretical knowledge of composing playful movement and the physical requirements – or constraints – for playing movement-based games in a home setting.
I then developed theories of how to compose playful movements, how to design for them and the requirements for designing custom games for home settings. The following research papers thoroughly describe the study, results and methods used.
Brief summary of the theories:
A composition of (playful) movements consists of the players’ bodily preconditions in conjunction with the surrounding conditions: 1. bodily restrained, 2. our surroundings constrain us. Thus, movement is conditioned and formed by our bodily preconditions in relation to the surroundings – when we move.
As games are attempts to overcome unnecessary and arbitrarily chosen obstacles (Bernard Suits and Roger Caillois), I turned the bodily restraints and surrounding conditions into game mechanics and design knowledge, i.e., obstacles to overcome.
Because the game had to accommodate various home settings, I chose to do it modular and emphasize the player’s autonomy in customizing the set-up options. This decision was also based on the fact that many game systems for home settings require advanced technological setups and maintenance.
The game modules were chosen as a mix of off-the-shelf products and homemade prototypes. Because the game aimed to stimulate neuro-motor processes, the modules were collected to stimulate various exteroceptive senses, hearing, touch and vision. The system was then composed of the following modules;
home-made music cubes that played a one-bar, either rhythm or harmony, when triggered by a proximity trigger. The music bits were composed to complement each other.
Light cubes stimulate vision and tactile sense as they change colour when turned.
Laser lines are connected to a beeping sensor to stimulate vision and spacious perception.
A moving robot that moved when triggered by a set of proximity sensors. The idea was to have something moving together with the players.
Lastly, there was a set of restraint cards to reconfigure the players’ bodily preconditions.
