Design and Implementation of Walking Incentive Game Base on Cloud Service

Abstract

In this article, we focus on the proposal, design, and implementation of a mobile game for walking. Walking is a simple, unobtrusive, and effective sport that can help people stay healthy. Researchers have proposed that games, rather than being simply entertaining, can provide incentive to accomplish work that people are less willing to do. Such a game is called a “serious game.” In our proposed game, the player’s walking steps in the real world are counted as the unique resource and are transformed into their game character’s achievement, called the territory. From an implementation point of view, we chose the iOS platform and Windows Azure cloud service as the front-end and back-end, respectively. On the iOS platform, a pedometer based on the iPhone’s three-dimensional accelerator was developed to count the players’ steps. In addition, Google Maps was used to represent the game situation. Azure was applied as a server to enable multi-user and interaction features. The cloud server maintains low development cost, as well as efficient usability, stability, and scalability.