Adaptive game input using knowledge of player capability
Robert C. Gray, Paul J. Diefenbach, Jichen Zhu · 2018
The application of video games has been shown to be valuable in medical interventions, such as the use of Active Video Games in physical therapy. Because patients requiring physical therapy present with both highly variable physical capabilities and unique therapeutic goals, developers of rehabilitation intervention games face the challenge of creating flexible games that they can individualize to each player's particular needs. This thesis proposes an approach to this problem by identifying and addressing two issues concerning therapy AVG game design. First, regarding the difficulties of individualizing software, a particular complication in the development of AVGs for therapy is the increased complexity of writing input routines based on human body motion, which provides a much larger and more complex domain than traditional, discrete-input game controllers. Second, the primary difficulty in individualizing a therapy game experience to an individual player is that developers must program software with static routines that cannot be modified once compiled and released. Overcoming this aspect of software development is a prime concern that adaptive games research aims to address. The System for Unified Kinematic Input (SUKI) is a software library that addresses both of these concerns. SUKI enables games to adapt to players' specific therapeutic goals by mapping arbitrary human body movement input to game mechanics at runtime, allowing user-defined body motions to drive gameplay without requiring any change to the software. Additionally, the SUKI library implements a dynamic profile system that alters the game's configuration based on known physical capabilities of the player and updates this profile based on the player's demonstrated ability during play. Within the context of the study of adaptive games, the following research presents the details of this approach and demonstrates the versatility and extensibility that it can provide in adapting AVG games to meet individual player needs.