Increased enjoyment using a tablet-based serious game with regularly changing visual elements: A pilot study
A. Nagle, D. Novak, P. Wolf, R. Riener
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AbstractSerious games are designed to be enjoyable, to increase their functional effect and replay value. The most popular method for this purpose is dynamic difficulty adjustment (DDA), i.e., adjusting game difficulty to match user performance. DDA explicitly adjusts only game mechanics, without considering other game components. In particular, dynamically changing the visual elements of a game can also increase enjoyment, since visual variety is inherently pleasurable.In the present study, the effect of regularly changing visual elements (background, foreground, and animations) combined with DDA (‘DDA-VISUAL’) was compared against only DDA in a simple working memory serious game played by 14 older adults on a tablet for three sessions on three days. Participants in DDA-VISUAL experienced significantly higher enjoyment, played more rounds in the last two sessions and performed significantly better than participants in DDA. The results indicate that regularly changing visual elements combined with DDA is a simple and effective method to elicit higher enjoyment and attention in serious games, in comparison to DDA alone.Keywords: DDA; combining visual element change with DDA; acceptance of tablets; enjoyment
A. Nagle, D. Novak, P. Wolf, R. Riener (2015). Increased enjoyment using a tablet-based serious game with regularly changing visual elements: A pilot study. Gerontechnology, 14(1), 32-44
https://doi.org/10.4017/gt.2015.14.1.001.00