BragFish: exploring physical and social interaction in co-located handheld augmented reality games

In this paper, we present our research on social interaction in colocated handheld augmented reality (AR) games. These games are characterized by shared physical spaces that promote physical awareness among players, and individual gaming devices that support both public and private information. One result of our exploration of the design and evaluation of such games is a prototype called BragFish. Through BragFish, we aim to investigate the connections between the observed game experience (focusing on social and physical interaction) and the designed affordances of our AR handheld game. Our evaluation of BragFish shows that most of our participants form strategies for social play by leveraging visual, aural and physical cues from the shared space. Moreover, we use this as an example to motivate discussions on how to improve social play experiences for colocated handheld games by designing for shared spaces. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.5.1 Multimedia Information Systems Genera...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: ACMACE
• Authors: Yan Xu, Maribeth Gandy, Sami Deen, Brian Schrank, Kim Spreen, Michael Gorbsky, Timothy White, Evan Barba, Iulian Radu, Jay David Bolter, Blair MacIntyre
• Keywords: ACMACE 2008, Augmented Reality, Human Computer Interaction, Shared Physical Spaces, Social Play