NEAT-o-Games: Exertion Interface Interwoven in Daily Life
Konstantinos Kazakos, Colin A. Puri, Philip G. Hoffman, Pradeep Bhuddaraju · 2007
This paper describes research that aims to encourage physical activity through a novel pervasive gaming paradigm. Data from wearable accelerometers are logged wirelessly to a cell phone and control the animation of an avatar that represents the player in a virtual race game with other players over the cellular network. Winners are declared every day and players with an excess of activity points can spend some to get hints in mental games of the suite, like Sudoku. The racing game runs in the background throughout the day and every little move counts. As the gaming platform is embedded in the da ily routine of players, it may act as a strong behavior al modifier and increase everyday physical activity ot her than volitional sporting exercise. Such physical activity (e.g., taking the stairs), is termed NEAT and was show n to play a major role in obesity prevention and intervention. A pilot experiment demonstrates that player s are engaged in NEAT-o- Games and become more physically active while having a good dosage of fun.