Play It Our Way: Customization of Game Rules
in Children’s Interactive Outdoor Games
Tetske Avontuur1, Rian de Jong1, Eveline Brink1, Yves Florack1, Iris Soute2, Panos Markopoulos2
1
User System Interaction Program, Department of Industrial Design, 2Department of Industrial Design
Eindhoven University of Technology
P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
{t.p.avontuur}, {h.j.d.jong}, {e.brink}, {y.florack}, {i.a.c.soute}, {p.markopoulos}@tue.nl
the day in the life of a child in the developed world seems to be
pivoted on interaction with one technology followed by the next.
While many of these technologies are designed with sensitivity to
children’s developmental needs and have demonstrable benefits
for children, arguably, a great many are designed with the simple
aim to be attractive and engaging, considering children primarily
as consumers of products and content.
ABSTRACT
In traditional outdoor games, such as tag and hide-and-seek,
children play in groups, and typically changes to the rules are
negotiated fluidly, without disrupting the game flow. In contrast,
games that are supported by interactive technology are usually
rather static, not allowing for easy adaption towards the children’s
narrative and desired rules. We present an iterative design process
in which 65 children aged 5-12 participated in different iterations,
concluding with the design of GameBaker. GameBaker is an
application that allows children to modify game rules for Head Up
Games, outdoor collocated games supported by interactive
handheld devices. We show how children: understand how setting
different game rules allows them to modify the game, are able to
relate these to how the game is played, and enjoy doing so. This
research paves the way towards allowing children to take control
of outdoor game technology, to create their own variation of
games as they have done for centuries in traditional games.
Several scholars have expressed concerns about how children
spend their time with such entertainment technologies and their
effect on e.g. children's health or social development and behavior
[1,8,16]. Nevertheless, the literature on play has for long asserted
that play is vital to children’s development allowing cognitive,
physical and social skills to develop [19]. Educational games (e.g.
[2,6]) are an example of how the scientific community, as well as
the industry, has approached this challenge. Countering trends
towards a sedentary lifestyle, games that promote physical activity
([7,12,14,21]) have been designed and by now represent a
considerably sized proportion of the gaming market. Games that
support social interaction between players whether collocated or
not have also attracted considerable interest (e.g. [11,15,25]) , and
interacting with communities of remote players has become an
essential feature of many computer games.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: User
Interfaces – evaluation/methodology, user-centered design,
prototyping.
General Terms
Despite these positive efforts, a worrying trend is that children
play 'together and apart' [27]. Furthermore, play areas are often
restricted to the small physical space before a screen, and social
interaction is constrained to a narrow bandwidth of text
communication or interacting with virtual characters in a virtual
space. We argue that a lot of benefits are to be gained for children
if interactivity manages to enhance traditional outdoor games,
played by children in groups, supporting physical movement and
face-to-face social interactions. Several games have been created
to support this thesis. For example the genre of Head Up Games
was created with this agenda in mind [23].
Design
Keywords
Children, Customization, Head Up Games, Pervasive Gaming,
Prototyping.
1. INTRODUCTION
Children are increasingly relying on interactive technology for
play. The gaming industry provides an abundance of offerings
targeting different ages and preferences, which entertain, engage,
and even compel children to play them for longer. Physical toys
are increasingly enhanced with interactivity, and while traditional
non-interactive toys are appreciated by children, toys that are
equipped with audio visual stimuli or even some basic computing
capabilities are becoming widespread. Television and Internet add
to the range of media that can entertain children and fill their time.
Children’s lives are deeply affected by these developments and
Traditional children’s games are played in different cultures, by
different groups of children and different constellations of ages,
genders, physical abilities of the players. The official rules can be
different from the way children actually play games [7]. Hughes
defines rules dependent on the context and that children have an
urge to play “nice”. An important element of these games is that
players dynamically adapt them. They change rules, create new
ones, vary the game in creative ways throughout the game but also
over longer periods of time, and create their own ‘local’ rules and
variants of games [10]. This feature of traditional children’s group
games is in stark contrast to the closed narrative of video games,
or of interactive toys, where a strictly defined action-reaction
pattern limits interaction possibilities.
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IDC’14, June 17–20, 2014, Aarhus, Denmark.
Our vision is similar to traditional outdoor games, to enable
children to quickly adapt the interactive outdoor games, to change
Copyright 2014 ACM 978-1-4503-2272-0/14/06…$15.00.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2593968.2593973
95
technically and in terms of providing appropriate interaction
mechanisms to children for doing so.
games, to create and adapt rules. To achieve this, we need to find
ways in which technology can support children beyond the mere
appropriation of an interactive technology. Technology should
truly provide a pallet for them to create new forms of game play
fitting their tastes, interests and play context, and that empowers
them to engage with interactive games in a less passive way.
Toering et al [26] present a first attempt to support customization
of HUGs supported by the Swinxs platform (www.swinxs.com).
Using a deck of RFID-tagged cards, children could select to set
some settings on the Swinxs game console, which would result in
different games to be played. An evaluation involving 20 children,
aged 11-13, showed that children are able to adjust the rules of
Head Up Games without a graphical user interface and this
increases their enjoyment of the game. However, the rule
customization was limited to a few elements of the game and
there was no ability to recall earlier settings.
In this paper we show how our vision motivates some research
questions about Head Up Games (HUGs). We go on to answer
these questions in an iterative user centered design process, which
is aimed at developing a platform for adapting HUGs. We discuss
lessons learnt; how they contribute to the state of the art in
Interaction Design and Children and how these efforts need to be
pursued further to achieve the vision laid out above.
3. DESIGNING GAMEBAKER
2. RELATED WORK
Our main aim is to enable children aged 7-11 to setup and adjust
Head Up Games, in a way that approaches the natural behaviour
of children in traditional games. We address this challenge by
following a Research through Design [28] approach: through the
act of iteratively designing prototypes and evaluating these with
end-users we gain insight in the feasibility of this venture and
understand how this could be attractive and engaging to children.
Like any design challenge it can be answered in different forms;
perhaps an obvious answer would be to provide programming
tools that support the creation of HUGs by children. One could
think of designing a custom-programming environment that
targets children, addressing some of the cognitive challenges of
novice programming, e.g. [13], [12], [14]. However, such a
solution would arguably disrupt the game flow: finding a
computer, hooking up the interactive devices for reprogramming
and adjusting settings before going out to play again, does not
seem a likely solution that would fit in the typical flow of outdoor
play. Furthermore, enabling children to program does not
necessarily imply their interest to do so. Moreover, it is not at all
clear what it means to create a novel game, what functionalities
should programming pertain to, and what context rule and game
creation could take place in. To explain the last point, we argue
that the notion of a single child programming his/her own game to
be played by a group later, as a surrogate to adult game designers
and developers, is not viable. Creating and adapting games for
outdoor play has traditionally been a group activity tied to the
location and context in which the game is played and it appears
logical that HUGs should be adapted in a similar way.
There is a growing interest on creating interactive gaming
applications that can be played outdoors and/or motivate players
to move more. The main idea for Head Up Games [23] is
motivated by the observation that many interactive outdoor games
are played using mobile technology such as smart phones,
resulting in game play that forces the player to play head down.
Interaction with such a device typically leaves little room for rich
social interaction with other players, and does not allow for wildly
running around. Head Up Games aim to trigger play behaviors as
seen in traditional games, such as physical activity and face-toface social interaction, while being supported, and not disrupted,
by interactive technology. In many related fields similar goals are
pursued; for example, though not primarily targeted at children,
the genre of exertion games aims to motivate players to become
physically active. A classic example of an exertion game is Table
Tennis for Three [15]. Furthermore, Interactive Playgrounds,
interactive installations that are physically bound to a playground,
are similar in their ambitions and motivations to Head Up Games.
A prime example of this genre is the Interactive Slide [20]. They
differ in that HUGs aim to be nomadic, i.e. to be played without a
fixed infrastructure, as traditional games can be played.
In all these related areas, there has not yet been an attempt to
create technologies that will let children create, capture, and
reenact new game rules. This may be because the idea of rule
modifiability is not a core importance factor to those fields or
simply because of the challenging nature of this task. The
ambition to let children create their own games is shared with
Open Ended Play research [3]. However, interactive toys created
to support Open Ended Play do not encode or apply any game
rules, so the games are only agreed with children and applied by
them, remaining ephemeral and unsupported by technology.
3.1 Setup
An informant design approach [18] was followed, starting from
creating and testing low fidelity prototypes, until GameBaker, a
game configuration interface for HUGs was created. Children
participated as informants and testers in all iterations.
In the digital domain there are numerous systems that support
children to program their own games: a well-known example is
Scratch [13] a visual programming environment targeted at
children (8-10 years). Furthermore, several toolkits exist for
children to build tangible artifacts (see [5]). Although children can
indeed adapt and form their own creations using these systems
and toolkits, the main aim is learning: learning a programming
language, or electronics skills. Also, more importantly, the
resulting games are tied to the digital domain and cannot be taken
outdoors to play.
The HUGs were implemented using the RaPIDO platform, which
consists of a programming library and a number of handheld
devices that facilitate interactive outdoor games. RaPIDO devices
(see Figure 1) can vibrate, make sound, light up and communicate
wirelessly with each other. Furthermore, they contain an RFID
reader, an accelerometer, a rotary dial and a microphone.
Characteristically, RaPIDO devices do not have a screen to avoid
screen-based interaction which can easily get children to interact
‘head down’, hindering from moving around and interacting
socially. The RaPIDO programming platform was designed to
facilitate designers with a limited programming background to
create new games. RaPIDO devices are currently programmed in
C++ and Java using Eclipse and Processing. When the game code
is changed, it has to be uploaded with a computer to each device
individually.
A range of Head Up Games [23] have been designed and the
development of these games is supported by RaPIDO, a platform
consisting of a programming library and a number of portable,
interactive devices [24]. Earlier research has investigated in depth
how to design and evaluate these games; however, the goal of
creating adaptable game rules is a challenging one both
96
Five design iterations (see section 3.4 - 3.8) were conducted to
attempt to answer three main questions by proposing and testing
appropriate interactive prototypes:

Do children have the intrinsic motivation to modify
game rules?

How do children understand game rules implemented in
the programmed behavior of RaPIDO devices?

How do children understand the way rules, which are
represented computationally, influence the actual play?
3.4.1 Procedure
Sixteen children (5-12 years old) took part in a playtest for
BuzzTag at an after school care centre. Children were split in three
groups, and each group played three rounds of BuzzTag. After the
third round, we asked each group to explain the rules of the game
to the next group applying a variation of the peer tutoring method
[9].
3.4.2 Results
At first, following the initial explanations by the adults, children
seemed unsure of the game rules. They were exploring the game
and the interactive technology, for example: they experimented
how to pass on the buzz by standing close or far, long or quick.
Only during the third round, did most children understand the
game fully and, developed game winning tactics. For example,
one child would pretend to have the buzz to distract the others.
After peer tutoring, one of the researchers had to amend the
explanation of the game because not all children understood the
instructions of their peers. One possible reason is that the peer
tutoring was chaotic as multiple children would speak
simultaneously and children did not pay attention to one another.
The answers to these questions are of course tied to design
solutions that can be created for supporting the adaptation of game
rules. We attempt to answer them by creating prototypes,
evaluating them with children in context.
3.2 Target users
Our end users are children aged 7-11 playing Head Up Games on
the RaPIDO platform. At this age abstract thinking is developed
and children enjoy social and physical play [4]. However, children
at this age still need guidance with reflecting and adult
supervision tends to prolong game play and helps generating ideas
[17]. So we chose set ups where an adult supervisor (in our cases
these are teachers or scout leader) is present when the children
play with the devices.
Younger children did not seem to fully understand the game and
also seemed to be less active physically. This was expected, e.g.,
see [4] and [9] who suggest that younger children tend to be less
physical in their play and have less ability for abstract thinking.
3.3 The BuzzTag game
When we asked the children if they would want to change
anything about the game, none of them were able to come up with
something they wanted to change. They all said they did not want
to change anything and could also not come up with opportunities
for change.
We focused on the game BuzzTag, an adaptation of an earlier
Head Up Game called Save the Safe [21]. The goal of this game is
to acquire the 'buzz'. Each player has a HUGs device and at the
start of the game, one of the devices starts to vibrate ('buzz'). The
other players must steal the buzz from this player. They can do
this by staying in close vicinity of the vibrating device for a set
amount of time. The buzz is then automatically transferred to the
other device. The player who has the buzz at the end of the game
wins. If the game is played in teams, the entire team of the person
who last had the buzz wins.
3.4.3 Implications
None of the children were able to come up with game parameters
that they would want to change. One explanation could be that
they were unable to construct an abstraction of the game that
would allow them to imagine variations of it. Another explanation
could be that children are not as such motivated to change game
rules. The second iteration set out to examine more closely the
former possibility.
Throughout the study, we use BuzzTag as the game for our user
tests. One reason for this choice is that the rules of the game are
simple. This provides us with opportunity to add new parameters
and rules. Also, because BuzzTag is a relatively simple game, we
assume that children might be quickly bored with the game. This
allows us to explore children’s intrinsic motivation to adapt a
game to make it more interesting.
3.5 What is the mental model of HUGs in
Children?
The goal of the second iteration was to examine if children can
create a mental model of Head Up Games and to see whether
children were able to understand that a game constitutes of several
distinct parameters. To test this, we created three prototypes of a
game adaptation interface and ran a play test in which the
children of the after school care (see previous iteration) were
instructed to recreate the game they had played during the
previous test. Most children had also participated in the previous
test.
3.5.1 Three Game Adaptation Interface Designs
Figure 1: The RaPIDO devices
We prototyped three very diverse design concepts for changing
game parameters: A) a game board, B) a decision tree and C) an
iPad app. The prototypes supported some simple interactions but
were essentially mock-ups with the researchers effecting
children’s choices in a Wizard of Oz manner.
3.4 Do children want to change HUG rules?
In our first iteration, a playtest was carried out aiming to
understand how children learn to play a Head Up Game, how well
they understand it, and whether they would be motivated to
change the game to fit it more to their liking.
Prototype A (Figure 2, left) resembles a board game, which
children sit around. Game parameters are distributed around the
edge of the board and children can change the value of each
parameter by rotating a disc. In the middle of the board is a big
97
‘Start’ button that can be pusheed at any time to
t start the gam
me.
P
Prototype B (Fig
gure 2, middle) is
i a decision treee where each leeaf
represents the vaalue of a param
meter; children can
c hang cards on
o
oose the parametter values. Proto
otype C (Figure 2,
thhe leaves to cho
right) is an iPad app with a touch
h-based interfacee that children caan
uuse to change parrameters.
For proototype A, seveeral children werre able to interaact with the
prototyypes themselves. One child took the lead, givingg turns to the
other cchildren. However, for prototypees B and C, theyy seemed to
more guidance. F
For both prototy
types, the adult would give
need m
turns tto the childrenn for interacting with the intterface. For
prototyype B, children ddid not interact themselves so a researcher
had to guide the chilldren through eeach parameter, explain its
meaninng and show thee possible settinggs. One possiblee reason for
their ddifficulties coulld be that inittially no param
meters were
presentted but they havve to be taken fr
from a stack of cards. Also,
not all children were aable to physicallyy reach the top oof prototype
B. Notte that the childdren who interaccted with prototyype A were
slightlyy older than thosse in the other grroup.
T
The parameters available in alll prototypes weere the number of
teeams that could
d be chosen (0, 2 or 3), the leength of the gam
me
(short, normal, long),
l
the distan
nce of buzz tran
nsfer (close or far
f
aaway), tag return
n (possibility to attain the buzz immediately aftter
loosing it) and number of home bases
b
(0, 1 or 3). Distance of bu
uzz
trransfer is how close a devicee should be beefore the buzz is
trransferred. In prrototype A and B two additionall parameters cou
uld
bbe adjusted: thee number of players (1-8), and Team Choice
A
Autonomy. This difference in paarameters was due
d to spatial an
nd
tiime constraints in
i building proto
otype C.
After rreconstruction, w
we asked childdren to come upp with new
parameeters. They cam
me up with somee realistic suggeestions, e.g.,
having invisible teams. Children were able to come uup with their
own neew ideas for thhe game, this inndicates that theey grasp the
abstracction presented and are able too invent new paarameters to
describbe game variationns.
33.5.2 Expecta
ations
W
We expected thaat all children would
w
be able to
t understand an
nd
pplay the game; though we expected that the youngest
y
childreen
w
would have diffiiculty understand
ding the abstractt notion of settin
ng
ggame parameterss to vary game play,
p
given that th
hey have not fullly
ddeveloped the ab
bility for abstractt thought, e.g., seee [4].
3.5.5 Implicationss
For thee next iteration,, we removed a couple of parrameters for
simpliccity and ease off implementationn. Distance was removed as
the chilldren did not undderstand what itt meant. Also, inncreasing the
distancce means the buuzz is lost too qquickly, reducinng the game
experieence. No tag retuurn was removedd because it wass technically
not posssible to implem
ment. Furthermoore, children exxplicitly said
they w
wanted to determ
mine the exactt length of the game. We
therefoore converted thee time parameter into concrete nnumbers for
future ttests.
33.5.3 Proced
dure
W
We conducted th
his user study at the same after school care faciliity
aas the previous study. Sixteen children (5-10
0 years old) weere
ddivided into three groups. The grroups were creatted by superviso
ors
oof the after school care to ensuree that children in one group likeed
eeach other and to
o make sure thatt children would
d not have to leav
ve
hhalfway through the test.
Childreen appreciated pprototype B moost. We attributee this to the
fact thaat each parameteer was shown biig and centrally: all children
were abble to see all parrameters at all tiimes. With protootype C, the
system state was show
wn in one screeen but the childdren did not
wing the chosenn parameter
recogniize that the sccreen was show
values. However, theyy did understannd the interactioons through
tappingg on the touch sscreen immediattely. With protootype A, the
parameeters were posittioned around thhe board so a single child
could nnot see the namees and values of aall parameters att a time.
F
First, each grou
up was asked to
o recall what events
e
took plaace
dduring the previo
ous test and to explain
e
the gamee rules to us. Theen
thhe children were given the opportunity to play BuzzTag once to
refresh their meemory. Next, eaach group was given a differeent
pprototype. The group
g
reconstructted the game theey had just playeed
bby adjusting the parameters on th
he prototype. Fin
nally, the childreen
w
were asked to im
magine what gam
me parameters th
hey would like to
aadjust, and set the
t values of th
hese parameterss in the interface
aaccordingly, and
d what parameterrs they would lik
ke to change oth
her
thhan those shown
n in the prototypes.
Anotheer issue was the difference in thhe fidelity of thee prototypes.
The booard game interfaace was much m
more colourful thhan the other
two. Allso, we used ann iPad mini in prrototype C, whicch results in
smallerr visuals comppared to protootypes A and B. These
differennces might havve influenced cchildren’s responses to the
interfacces. In the folloowing iteration m
more attention was paid to
ensure prototypes of unniform fidelity w
were compared.
33.5.4 Resultss and discussiion
A
All children weree able to accurattely reconstruct the
t game they haad
pplayed using th
he mock-up interface, which indicates that all
a
cconcepts presentted abstractions that were comp
prehensible to all
a
pplayers.
F
Figure 2 left: Prrototype A, board game with in
ndividual discs to change paraameters. Middlee: Prototype B, a decision tree.. Choices are
made with
h cards. It proviides a constant overview. Righ
ht: Prototype C,, application wiith pictogram b
based decisions cchoice.
98
33.6 Do child
dren want to
t adjust thee game?
sitting nnext to the suitcase with a laptopp.
T
The previous iterration showed us
u that children understand
u
how to
ddescribe a game in terms of paraameters. Howeveer, it did not sho
ow
w
whether children
n understand how
h
changing parameter valu
ues
innfluences gamee-play. Thus, wee implemented the prototypes to
eenable the children to play the ad
djusted games. This
T also allows us
u
too examine wheth
her children hav
ve an intrinsic motivation to adju
ust
ggame parameterss.
A paraameter for team
m visibility wass added after iit had been
suggestted by one of ouur users in the pprevious study. If teams are
invisiblle the players onnly know to which team they beelonged after
the gam
me ends. The othher available parrameters were thhe number of
teams ((0, 2 or 3), num
mber of home basses (0, 1 or 2), vvisible buzz,
and gam
me length (2, 3 or 4 minutes). T
This was the firsst test where
home bbases were intrroduced. Home bases are marrkers where
childrenn can gain poinnts for their team
m. They have to hold their
device in front of thesee markers whilee having the buzzz to score a
point. F
Furthermore, thiis time children could choose bbetween two
variant s of the game: B
BuzzTag and BuzzzThief (differennce: the goal
is eitheer to lose or to gain the buzz). T
This was to see hhow children
experieence the game w
when the winningg conditions channge.
F
For this iteration
n, we developed
d two prototypess and tested theem
w
with 11 childreen (8-10 years old). By com
mparing children
n’s
reactions to each
h prototype we assessed their relative strengths
aand weaknesses.. Our observatio
on focused on reactions
r
betweeen
ggames and their willingness
w
to pllay the game agaain.
33.6.1 Two Prrototypes
When a game was chosen it wouuld have a set of default
parameeters (the basic games): 2 team
ms, visible team
ms, 0 home
bases, iinvisible buzz, aand a game lenggth of 3 minutes.. Parameters
could bbe added or removed by placingg or removing tookens. When
a tokenn is removed, thhe game revertss to the default settings for
that parrameter of the baasic game.
B
Based on observaations in the prev
vious test, we ex
xtracted the stron
ng
ffeatures of the previous
p
prototyp
pes and integratted them into tw
wo
nnew ones. Protottype B provided a clear overview
w of parameters to
aall children, we therefore chosee to have prototy
ypes that childreen
ccould sit around. They should bee able to see all parameters
p
clearrly
fr
from different an
ngles. In prototy
ype A, several children
c
were ab
ble
too interact witth the prototy
ype themselvess. However, th
he
innteraction pointts were restricteed. We chose to create anoth
her
ggame board for prototype
p
D witth a more open interaction spacce.
B
Because children
n clearly seemed
d to understand how
h to use a toucch
sscreen, we integrrated this interacction mode in pro
ototype E.
3.6.2 Expectationss
We exxpected the chilldren to have ssome problems linking the
parameeters to the gamee. Choosing parameter values iss an abstract
processs and we were uunsure to what eextent children ccan translate
this to a concrete gam
me. We expectedd them to have less trouble
mapping of
using pprototype D ass it provides a more direct m
parameeters and the gam
me than prototyppe E. We expeccted children
to undderstand the imppact of simple parameters. However, we
expecteed them to havee problems undeerstanding home bases since
adding these changes the nature of the game moree than, say,
changinng the number oof teams. We exxpected childrenn to want to
adjust tthe game and too be capable of inventing new paarameters to
make thhe game more fuun.
P
Prototype D (Fiigure 3, left) was
w a game boaard with differeent
tookens that visuaalise different paarameters, and a tablet. The tokens
ccould be placed
d on the plateeau and directlly resembled th
he
pparameters they represented.
r
On the tablet the ex
xplanation of eacch
tooken was shown
n as well as the overview of all parameter valuees.
W
When a token was
w positioned on
o the board a line
l
would appeear
leeading from th
he token to the tablet in the middle.
m
This was
w
cconstructed in a Wizard of Oz setup, by projeccting an image on
o
thhe game board, from a laptop. Each time the children placed
da
tooken, a researcher would draw
w the lines on the laptop whicch
w
would be display
yed immediately on the board.
3.6.3 Procedure
Ten chhildren participatted in this test (77- 10 years old) at the same
after scchool care as tthe previous teest, as children there were
alreadyy familiar withh us as well aas the game. A
All children
particippated in at leastt one previous ttest. This meanss that if any
interacttions or parameeters in the interface are uncleaar, it is less
likely rrelated to the chhildren’s undersstanding of the game itself
and moore likely relatedd to the interfacce or their underrstanding of
parameeters.
P
Prototype E (Fig
gure 3, right) was a suitcase. A touchscreen was
w
bbuilt in the lid an
nd to its left and
d right were vertiical magnetic baars
w
where tokens co
ould be placed. The tokens werre abstract circlles
aand each token represented
r
a paarameter. After placing
p
a token on
o
thhe magnetic baar, the correspon
nding parameterr and its possib
ble
vvalues would be shown on the screen.
s
After cho
oosing a value, an
a
ooverview was given
g
of all cho
osen parameterss. Interaction was
w
aagain simulated in a Wizard of
o Oz setup witth one research
her
We tessted the two proototypes in two sessions (five cchildren per
sessionn, though one chhild had to leavee earlier in the fiirst session).
Figure 3 Left: Prrototype D, a ga
ame board with
h tokens represeenting differentt parameters. T
The tokens weree
ussed to select and
d adjust the Parrameters Rightt: Prototype E, a suitcase with abstract tokenss for parameterr
selection. The screen
s
was used
d for adaptati
99
At the beginning of the test, we asked each group what they
remembered from last test to examine their mental model of the
game. The children were then given the task to set up the game
themselves and play the game according to their own settings. We
then asked them to perform the same task on the second
prototype. We ended with asking what they liked about each
prototype and which prototype they preferred.
Children did not seem to grasp the concept of adding and
removing parameters from a game. They thought that if they
added a parameter to the game by placing a token, removing this
token would not remove the parameter from the game. However,
even after they understood the interactions, the children still
seemed to be uncomfortable with removing parameters.
Though the interaction with the prototypes to set the parameters
was working, technically there was no direct link between setting
the parameters and transferring these to the game devices.
Therefore, after the children finished adjusting the parameters, we
manually uploaded these to the devices. This meant uploading the
parameters one by one to one of the devices, after which this
device automatically forwarded the settings to the other devices.
This whole process took a few minutes, resulting in a delay
between setting the parameters and starting to play the game.
Despite the issues with understanding the interface, most children
responded that they preferred prototype D over prototype E. When
asked what they liked about it, the children said they enjoyed the
direct feedback of prototype pertaining to the lines that would
appear after a token was placed.
3.6.5 Implications
In each prototype, the tablet displayed an overview of the game
settings. However, in both cases, children did not notice there was
a game overview on the tablet until this was pointed out to them.
This suggests having a more prominent game overview.
3.6.4 Results and discussion
The children did not seem to grasp the notion of a basic game
where parameters can be added and removed. Rather, they
appeared to see the game as a whole, including all its parameters.
This suggests making all parameters (active or not) visible in the
interface.
When children were given the opportunity to play the game the
first time, they all responded enthusiastically. The second group
was also enthusiastic about playing BuzzTag a second time. In the
first group, two children expressed that they did not want to play
the game a second time because they were bored but eventually
agreed to play another time for the other two children.
3.7 Do children understand the mapping of
game settings to game play?
We found that children do not take much time to adjust settings in
between games. After a game was done, children would shout to
each other one or two parameters that should be changed. They
then quickly went to the prototype, changed the parameters and
wanted to play again. However, because the implementation was
yet incomplete there was a 5 minute time delay between setting
parameters and the actual playing of the game.
In the fourth iteration, we want to examine to what extent children
can set up and play a game independently and how to help players
understand how changing a parameter can impact the game. We
examine whether an improved interface enables children to better
link the interface to the game played with the RaPIDO devices.
To answer these questions, we developed one prototype, named
GameBaker. GameBaker was a suitcase based on the previous
experiment. It contained a tablet on the inside of the lid and is
depicted in Figure 5. The RaPIDO devices were placed in the
bottom part of the suitcase. We kept the tablet integrated into the
suitcase to provide a coherent user experience and hopefully
strengthen the link between the interface and the RaPIDO devices.
The link between the interface and the RaPIDO devices did not
seem clear to the children. After the children had set up the game
and were already in the field to play, they were still asking
questions about the game. They asked what game they were
playing, how many teams there were and what the goal of the
game was. It seems most likely that this confusion was caused by
the time delay mentioned.
Children did not seem to understand that the number of players on
the board should be equal to the number of players in the game in
prototype D. The first group put some of the player tokens on the
board but did not realize it should exactly represent the number of
players in the game. The second group immediately put all
available tokens on the board without any consideration about the
meaning of each token. It was also unclear to them that they had
to make teams by putting groups of tokens together. It is therefore
possible that the user interface was unclear.
Regarding the children’s understanding of parameters, neither
group was enthusiastic about home bases. Neither of the groups
would independently choose to use them. When we encouraged
one group to play with the home bases it became clear that the
children did not understand how they worked: they would ignore
their base and play the game as they knew it before. Only after we
brought their base to the children’s attention, they started
interacting with them. When asked later the children voiced two
different understandings of the home bases: “you are safe there”
and “you can get points”.
Figure 4: Prototype. Serves as a carrier for the devices and
includes a touch screen in the lid to change parameters
The interface of the suitcase consists of two parts. First, a screen
is displayed with the title of the game and a short animation
explaining the rules. One button, “choose game” leads to the
screen where the values for each parameter can be adjusted. The
chosen values are permanently visible at the bottom of the screen.
By clicking on a parameter, a pop-up appears with all possible
values, as displayed in Figure 5. Each time the value for a
Two parameters that also required explicit explanation of the
researchers were visibility of the buzz and visibility of teams.
Children asked what they meant at several different points in time.
After explanation, they understood their meaning.
100
pparameter is changed, the corrresponding figu
ure in the botto
om
juumps up and down
d
for two seeconds to inform
m the user of th
he
cchanged value. The
T game can bee started by tapp
ping on the orang
ge
bbutton in the botttom of the screen
n and the text “P
Play!” appears.
were aable to play at a time, the reemaining two players were
substituutes, taking turnns and swappinng with other pplayers after
each gaame. This ensurred all children ccould play an eqqual amount
of timee.
In the ssecond part of thhe test we explained to the childrren that they
were aallowed to playy BuzzTag agaain. This time, they were
allowedd to set up the game themselvees and play the game twice
accordiing to their ownn chosen settinggs. Similar to tthe previous
test, w
we needed to m
manually transffer the parameeters to the
RaPIDO
O devices.
3.7.2. 1 Results annd discussion
The chhildren seemed too understand thee link between tthe interface
and thee devices and ddescribed the proototype as the ccontroller of
the devvices, despite thhe fact that theree still was a dellay between
setting the parameterss and actual pplaying. They aasked fewer
questioons regarding pparameters thann the children in previous
iteratioons. Children noow had a betteer overview of parameters.
Howevver, we observedd that they did not actively loook at all the
individdual settings in the overview and thus were not always
aware oof all specific deetails of a game.. E.g. before thee start of one
game, they did not nootice that teams were set to invvisible until
explicittly told.
F
Figure 5: Thee interface sh
howing an overview of th
he
p
parameters and
d possible valuess of the parameeter “teams”
A user-test of GameBaker
G
was conducted at a scouting group in
thhe Netherlands that was unfam
miliar with Head
d Up Games. For
F
thhis test, we seleccted six parametters: number of players,
p
number of
teeams, visibility of teams, visibility of the buzzz, duration of th
he
ggame and numb
ber of home ba
ases. The sixth parameter, hom
me
bbases, was includ
ded because we wanted to exam
mine if children do
d
nnot choose it beecause it is too complicated or because it is not
n
eenjoyable. At th
he start of the test
t
some defau
ult variables weere
aalready selected (4 players, 2 teeams, invisible teams,
t
5 minutees,
innvisible buzz, an
nd 2 or no home base).
Relativvely few questioons were asked while the childdren were in
the fieeld. However, the parameter home base sstill seemed
compleex. The group whhich played withh home bases in the learning
phase cchose to use them
m again during tthe second part oof the study,
even thhough most chilldren still did not seem to undeerstand how
they w
worked. They keppt asking questiions, even after explanation
by a rresearcher. Theyy were unsuccessful in colleccting points
becausee they did not kknow how to usee the device in ccombination
with thheir home base oor because they were at the wroong base. A
few chiildren thought thhey would scoree points when thhe buzz was
passed on. One reasonn could be that thhe sound for passing on the
buzz annd scoring a poinnt was the same..
33.7.1 Expecta
ations
W
We assumed thaat the link betweeen the interfacee and the RaPID
DO
ddevices would bee clearer to the children than in
n the previous test.
T
There are three reasons
r
for this. First, we show
wed the suitcase to
thhe children with
h the RaPIDO deevices inside wh
hich we did not do
d
bbefore. Second, we presented th
he interface as a console and th
he
R
RaPIDO devicess as the contro
ollers. This builds on children
n’s
eexisting mental models
m
of video game systems. Third, we showeed
thhe children exp
plicitly how thee game is set up by using th
he
innterface ourselv
ves instead of asking
a
them to use the interfaace
w
without having seen others interaact with it as we did previously.
The chhildren seemed ccapable of using the interface independently
However, for moore complex
to channge simple paraameter values. H
parameeters, they needded the researccher to encouraage them to
experieence their impacct on the game. Adult guidancee also helps
less do minant childrenn to have a voicee in choosing paarameters. It
also seeems to help chhildren focus oon what they arre doing as
sometim
mes, parameter values are chosen without theem realizing
what a parameter impliies.
W
We expected children to be
b able to usse the interfaace
inndependently. However,
H
we also expected thaat they would not
n
kknow the values of all parameterrs. This expectattion was based on
o
pprevious observ
vations where children wou
uld change tw
wo
pparameters and then
t
immediately
y choose to play
y. This would also
hhave a negative impact on the liink between thee interface and th
he
R
RaPIDO devicess as the childrren would not have a compleete
ooverview of the game
g
settings.
3.7.3 Implicationss
As we observed that thhe delay betweeen setting the paarameters on
the inteerface and actuually playing thee game disrupteed the game
experieence, we decideed to focus on this for our neext iteration.
Furtherrmore, the visuaals of the homee bases were unnclear. Each
home bbase had a differrent colour but tthis did not correespond with
the teaam colour. This generated conffusion. Also, the sound for
passingg on the buzz waas the same as foor scoring a poinnt at a goal.
33.7.2 Proced
dure
E
Eighteen children (8-11 years old) were divided
d into two groups
oof nine. Each gro
oup had differen
nt settings for ho
ome bases and our
o
oobjective was to examine if child
dren would undeerstand the impaact
oof this parameterr on the game on
n its own merits.
3.8 A
Are children
n motivated
d to adjust ggames?
Until nnow, we had noot studied how thhe interface woould be used
withoutt facilitation of the researchers.. The current iteeration aims
to answ
wer this questionn. Another issuee that the previoous iteration
has nott settled is if chiildren have an inntrinsic motivatiion to adjust
games (in the previoous iteration, reesearchers expliicitly asked
childrenn if they wantedd to change paraameters). Thereffore, the last
user teest was conductted with a scouut group that haad extensive
m, through their pparticipation
experieence with the RaaPIDO platform
in earliier studies [22].. This diminishees the novelty aand learning
W
We first showed
d each group an
n explanatory mo
ovie of the gam
me.
O
One group received an explanattion of the gam
me with two team
ms
aand without hom
me bases; the oth
her group receiv
ved an explanatio
on
w
with two teams and two homee bases: one forr each team. Th
he
cchildren were theen allowed to pllay the game thrree times. As on
nly
sseven RaPIDO devices were in
n working ordeer, seven childreen
101
regarding two parameters. The first time, the majority ruled that
he would not get his way. The second time however, despite that
the boy again was the only person having a different opinion, the
scout leader decided that the boy could have his way. The scout
leader knew that if he would choose again for the majority’s
opinion, this child would get very frustrated and probably would
not want to play anymore. The other children did not seem to
mind this overruling and all children felt satisfied with the chosen
parameters. For situations as the one that was just described, a
supervisor seems to add value compared to using just technology.
effect and helps us to examine children’s intrinsic motivation to
change parameters. We asked the scout leader to guide the process
to see how the platform would be used in context.
3.8.1 Prototype
In this final test, the same prototype was used as during the
previous study. However, we modified the prototype to reduce the
time needed to transfer the parameters to the game devices.
Though we still could not implement a direct link between the
prototype and the devices, we were able to set all parameters in
one operation, from a laptop, reducing the delay to a few seconds
instead of several minutes. We did this out of sight of the children,
so for them it appeared to be an automatic process. Several small
changes were made to increase the usability of the interface and
the colour of the goals now corresponded to the teams. A short
description about each parameter was added to see if children
would understand the parameters better and to guide the scout
leader if he decides to interact with the prototype himself.
What is most promising however is that children asked the scout
leader if they could change the parameters using the interface.
Especially the older children (10-12) were more independent; they
played and adjusted three games in a row. The fact that they
themselves asked whether they could adjust it indicates that there
might be an intrinsic motivation to change games and means that
the interface seems easy enough for children to comfortably use.
One other indication that children want to change games is the
fact that the older children independently chose to use home bases
in the game. They felt this would make the game would more fun.
We found that older children understood and enjoyed the home
bases more than the younger children. When in play they
discussed tactics and used them. This test was the first opportunity
where this relatively complex parameter could be tested with both
older and younger children. Also, the children had played a game
similar to BuzzTag before. It might be the case that a more
complex parameter such as home bases can only be appreciated
after children have extensive experience with the basic game.
3.8.2 Expectations
Because the children had previous experience with the RaPIDO
platform and BuzzTag, we expected them to more rapidly get
bored with the game than children in the other user tests. Because
we shortened the delay between adjusting the game and the actual
play, we expected the link between the GameBaker and the
RaPIDO devices would be clear. We also expected that the test
would feel more natural for the children because their own
supervisor took the lead instead of a researcher.
3.8.3 Procedure
Twenty children were divided into three groups: two groups of
seven children (7-10 years old) and one of six children (10-12
years old). Each group was given the opportunity to play the game
and were afterwards given a choice whether or not they wanted to
play again. We asked the scout leader to guide the process of
selecting parameters while we observed the process. Afterwards
an interview was conducted with the scout leader.
4. DISCUSSION
Throughout the design process, several questions were formulated
and answered by building and evaluating different prototypes.
First, We examined the children’s mental model of Head Up
Games and specifically the game BuzzTag. Even though, during
the first time they played some children seemed to be unsure how
to play it, they still engaged. After playing three games, the
children seemed to understand the game up to a level where they
would start applying different tactics to win the game. They were
able to recreate the game a week later. This means children form a
mental model of a game through experience, which they can later
explicitly recreate.
3.8.4 Results and discussion
The first two groups did not want to continue playing after two
rounds of play: the children wanted to play something else. A
possible reason for the first two groups to lose their motivation to
play is that the groups had to take turns in playing. This increased
the waiting time in between games and, it might be that they were
out of patience. The third group, with the older children, did not
have to wait in between games and played three games
consecutively, after which they decided to stop playing. After this,
we asked the children from the first two groups to play once more.
In total five children wanted to play again. This number was fairly
small; the scout leader attributed this to a dominant child not
wanting to play.
Secondly, we focused on the parameters that comprise a game.
Can children understand basic parameters? How complex can
these parameters be? And finally, do they understand how
changing parameters influences game play? Children seemed to
have clear understanding of basic parameters, such as number of
players and number of teams. They can quickly relate that to
themselves and see which outcomes are possible and how they
impact the game. They understood when certain parameters were
incongruent with each other and would actively change them to
fix this (“you can’t have three home bases with two teams”). This
is an important finding as it shows that a game can be broken
down into parameters that children can understand to the extent
that they can change them and estimate their impact on the game.
This abstraction of parameters is a useful tool that can be applied
to other games as well.
We asked the scout leader to guide the play sessions at his
discretion. He decided to take a clear lead in the decision process
of setting the parameters and was initially the only person
interacting with the interface. Only after the children had
expressed they wanted to interact with the prototype themselves,
the scout leader allowed them to do so. The younger children
required more guidance than the older ones with the latter
requiring hardly any guidance at all.
The parameters used in this study are limited in number and
complexity, except for one (home base). It would be interesting to
see how children can deal with a higher number of parameters and
more complex ones. The most complex parameter was now only
chosen after experiencing it in a game at least once. Without
Contrary to our previous test the scout leader guided the group
process of the children instead of a researcher. One advantage was
that the scout leader knew the children. For example, there was
one child who had a different opinion than the rest of the group
102
observation is confirmed by observations in the third and fifth
iteration; in these iterations children had previous experience with
the RaPIDO devices. The novelty effect had worn off, up to a
point where some children (fifth iteration) even found the games
boring. However, when given the opportunity to adjust parameters
they were eager to do so and as a result found the games engaging
again.
having experienced it, children assumed that having home bases
in a game would be less fun; however when letting children play
one mandatory game with home bases, the children would choose
them again later themselves. Still, when these were added to the
game, it took longer for the game to be fully understood. Herein
could lie a role for a supervisor (e.g. a scout leader in the scout
group that participated in this study), who can help guide choices,
and explain more complex parameters.
This gives evidence that children are motivated to adjust game
rules once they have fully explored the original game. Also, the
group of children aged 10-12 was the only group that
independently chose to add home bases to the game and
understood how they worked. This is in concordance with the
literature which states that children of this age are able to
understand more complex [4]. Because older children understand
more complex game rules and because they seem to have a
motivation to change games, one game could be created with both
simple and complex rules. The complex rules could then be used
by older children to make the game more challenging to them.
We also found that when a group of children aged 10-12 played
with home bases, they seemed to understand them more quickly,
enjoy them more and apply tactics more than the younger groups
of children. They also took more initiative in changing the game
than younger children. Older children have developed a more
abstract level of thinking and can therefore understand complex
parameters more easily. One implication of these findings is that
games could be created comprised of simple and complex
parameters. Children can then adjust the game based on their own
level of thinking. This way, children can balance the game based
on their own capabilities, resulting in a more enjoyable game.
Regarding the independence of the children in setting up and
adjusting games, children wanted to interact with the interface
themselves after having seen their supervisor interact. This also
gives a positive indication for their motivation to change games.
However, this research is insufficient to know if they will want to
change games in the long term. The motivation to change games
might be due to exploration of all parameters and their effects.
Ideally the system should be placed in a natural environment,
where over a longer period of time the amount of times the system
gets placed with is monitored. This would require further
development of the prototype with additional games.
The children were not always aware of the exact values for all
parameters, neither do they scrutinise all settings and, as a result,
they may be surprised during a game when something happens (as
was the case with invisible teams during the fourth iteration).
Children did not always understand a parameter beforehand, nor
were they inclined to read the explanations. Often these
parameters would become clear once the children have played
with a parameter or when the supervisor has asked them to think
about what it might mean. However, we believe that some
additional help could be given by the system in the form of
animations or sound. Because reading skills are still developing in
our target age group, seeing might be better than reading.
5. CONCLUSION
Motivated by the vision of creating outdoor games that children
can play together, being physically active, and interacting
socially, we have argued for the importance of allowing children
to customize games to fit their playing field, the group or the mix
of players available, and their momentary preferences and social
dynamics. Such adaptation happens fluently in traditional games,
but is hampered by interactive technologies where the game
remains immutable as delivered by technology designers with the
children engaging in a fixed narrative and a predetermined set of
rules. Supporting children in the process of creating their own
games and game variants seems a crucial element of technology
supported outdoor games for children.
During the third iteration, we presented the children a basic game
where parameters could be added. This was not clear for children.
They view the game as a whole where a parameter can be set and
if they do not set or adjust it, it should not be absent, but instead
be set to a default value. This means that any interface should
support this line of thought.
The connection between the RaPIDO devices and the GameBaker
interface should be clear. We found that the presentation of the
platform as a whole is crucial in maintaining this mental
connection. Children already have a notion of game systems as
comprised of a console and controllers. We suggest using this
existing mental model where the interface is the console and the
RaPIDO devices are the controllers.
The contribution of this paper is to present the iterative child
centred design of GameBaker, an interface that children can use
independently to adjust simple parameters while playing
interactive outdoor games. GameBaker was designed to fit the
context of outdoor play, where children are prepared to devote
little time in between game play to control the technology, and
where they interact as a group, negotiating, and designing their
own play experience. Future work should explore how giving
children the ability to adapt and create their own game is received
by children, and what use of this functionality is made on the long
term. Do children spontaneously adapt games? What usage
patterns will emerge in the long run? Does adaptivity contribute to
children engaging with these games rather than other sedentary
and indoors activities? Future research will attempt to address
these questions.
Also, the time between deciding to play and actually being able to
play should be short as children change only one or two
parameters and immediately want to play again. In the beginning,
children would press start on the interface and run away onto the
field before the game was completely set up. However, when we
added a ten second countdown to the interface, the children
waited before running away and did not express frustrations with
waiting anymore.
We examined whether children are intrinsically motivated to
adjust parameters in Head Up Games. Most children involved in
our tests responded enthusiastically to playing the games but
needed to be experienced with the game to be inclined to change
parameters. When children were new to the games there might be
a novelty effect increasing their enthusiasm for a particular game.
At the same time, they are still learning how to play, and as a
consequence are not yet able to change parameters This
103
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