Building upon everyday play

Abstract

Most of today's video game strategies are based on a static set of game controls and player actions that remain oblivious to the player's context and own creativity. Building Upon Everyday Play is the result of a collaboration of Control Freaks, a pervasive gaming experience project, and Exemplar, a toolkit that uses programming-by-demonstration to author sensor-based interactions. In combination, Building Upon Everyday Play furthers a pervasive gaming experience through appropriation of objects in the player's environment and enables new ways to play. The project consists of a combination of a portable, wireless motion-sensing clamp that can be attached to everyday objects to turn them into game controllers by proxy, and a programming-by-demonstration system that translates sensor data reported by the controller into game events. In the demonstration, participants will be able to play custom video games projected on a large 2D screen by attaching the clamp to their bodies or provided household objects, and to invent their own moves to control the provided games.