Designing Action-Based Exergames for Children with Cerebral Palsy

Ciara Reolegio

Dr. Jack Tompkins

CIT 425

February 10, 2015

Reading Report: Designing Action-based Exergames for Children with Cerebral Palsy

        When children who have Cerebral Palsy, which is a disability that affects basic motor functions, try to play videogames the game has to follow a strict set of rules to make it possible:

1. They cannot be fast paced.
2. They cannot require precise timing.
3. They have to have simple controls.
4. They cannot require multiple simultaneous actions.
5. They cannot require repeated inputs.
6. They have to be able to automate the player’s input.

The problem is that, by following these rules precisely, the exergames (which are games that require a great amount of physical activity) become dull. The team of researchers wanted to design an exergame that was both exciting and easy. More specifically, they wanted something action-based – which is what most children without CP (and with CP, which revealed later in the paper) want to play.

In order to do this, they had a small group of children come in and meet with their team (which included a computer scientist, mechanical engineer, physiotherapist, pediatrician who specialized in CP, kinesiologist, exercise psychologist, and a professional game designer). They got an idea of what kind of games the children would like to play, what the children’s limitations were, and they came up with an initial sample of six minigames for the children to test out. They described three of them in the paper by outlining the problems the game produced with the players, how they overcame those problems, and the end results in the form of a survey filled out by the children. The form included ratings on difficulty, playability, amount of time played, and overall fun.

The results revealed that children with CP are capable of playing action-based games, as long as developers followed their recommendations:

1. Simplify level geometry.
2. Simplify level flow.
3. Reduce consequences of errors.
4. Limit available actions.
5. Remove the need for precise positioning and aiming.
6. Make the game state visible.
7. Balance for effort (in other words, measure each players capabilities and create a leveled playing field).

In addition, they also recommend a few of the traditional rules (mentioned above):

1. They have to have simple controls.
2. They cannot require multiple simultaneous actions.
3. They cannot require repeated inputs.
4. They cannot be fast paced.

In conclusion, children with Cerebral Palsy are able to play more exciting games, as long

as those games are equipped to cater to the children’s needs in a different way than most action games are designed. The research team above outlines these needs.

        The amount of consideration put into this research is astounding. They clearly stated the problem and question, they described the steps that were put into achieving the goal to solve that problem in near perfect detail, and they were able to provide tangible results that could benefit children with CP. One aspect that I would have liked to be clearer is the details on each child. I don’t think it would be necessary to reveal the names, but I would like to know which child said what about a given game. This could be done through number assignments. As for design and how they approached the problem, I believe that the steps they took were genius. For example, they developed a game called Bobo Ranch and the object of the game was to take your character and to use a horn to scare sheep, which are trying to escape, back into a barn. This was a cooperative game, so the children were able to play with each other and work as a team to scare the sheep back into the barn. The problem the children complained about was that they never knew which sheep was already being herded back by another player. The game designers fixed this problem by replacing the horn with a rope. This simple, yet extremely effective, solution helped the children figure out who had which sheep and as a result the game got high ratings by most of the children.