G a M E S & D R I V I

Workbook Verena Lindner Urban Informatics Research Lab Research Internship 2015

G A M E S & D R I V I N G

Applying Gamification to Encourage Safe Driving Practices

Verena Lindner Research Intern, School of Design [email protected] urbaninformatics.net/verena

Fabius Steinberger PhD Candidate, School of Design [email protected] urbaninformatics.net/fabius

Dr. Ronald Schroeter PostDoctoral Research Fellow [email protected] urbaninformatics.net/ronald

Diana Babiac Research Intern, School of Design [email protected] urbaninformatics.net/diana

Urban Informatics Research Lab & Centre for Accident Research & Road Safety - Qld (CARRS-Q) Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia www.urbaninformatics.net www.carrsq.qut.edu.au/riskygadgets

Date: February 2015 – July 2015

The project is part of Dr Ronald Schroeter’s ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award and contributes to Fabius Steinberger’s PhD ‘Designing Personal UbiComp Devices to Foster Safer Driving Behaviours in Young Males’.

ABOUT THE PROJEC T

This project explores novel driving experiences that make use of gamification and augmented reality in the car. The aim is to design technology interventions that encourage safer driving practices. However, applying gamification concepts to the car is highly challenging due to conflicting game and road safety objectives, as well as concerns related to distraction and cognitive load. Therefore, it requires careful considerations and design approaches.

In this research internship, the focus is on early stage design concepts that strike a balance between safety and fun. A holistic, iterative design process inspired by game design cognition is applied to ensure that both ends are satisfied. Specifically, a review of driving related video games was conducted. This was the basis for early design concepts that were visualized in the form of sketches and discussed in a multidisciplinary team consisting of road safety experts, video game designers, interaction designers and computer scientists. The most promising concepts were then turned into storyboards in order to gather user input in workshops with young males. The whole process was documented in a design workbook, which allowed for the discussion of ideas across disciplines and various fields of expertise. Moreover, it encouraged ideas to evolve over time and will influence later stages of the design process.

CONTENTS

Introduction ...... 4 Video Games Review ...... 5 Initial Concepts ...... 16 Themes ...... 35 A Holistic Iterative Design Approach and Considerations ...... 40 Storyboards ...... 43 Acknowledgements ...... 58 References ...... 59

INTRODUCTION

This workbook presents a collection of concepts, thoughts, investigations and proposals that were created during my internship at the Urban Informatics Research Lab at the Queensland University of Technology from February 2015 until July 2015.

This approach was inspired by Graver et al. (2011) who present the use of workbooks as a methodological approach that recognizes that ‘ideas may emerge slowly over time, that issues and perspectives may emerge from multiple concrete ideas [...] and that the vagueness of early proposals can be useful in supporting a quasi participatory design approach that allows participants to interpret, react to and elaborate upon the ideas they present’.

On top of this, this workbook is also meant as a documentation of works created in this period, as well as a reference guide. Often former considerations and ideas get lost over time and even valuable insights that were gained in the past have to be rediscovered. For that reason, beyond proposals and concepts, this workbook also includes research outcomes, insights and considerations we gained over the process. Even though most of them are documented elsewhere in greater detail the aim for this workbook is to combine them all in one comprehensive document.

VIDEO GAMES REVIEW

As a first step we conducted a systematic review of games related video games. The purpose of the review was to explore how video games keep players engaged in driving related activities. We looked into games from a broad spectrum of genres. We focussed on highly rated games (to limit scope) and sought innovative game play concepts. Our final selection contained simulation racing games like Forza Motorsport 4, arcade influenced games such as MotorStorm Apocalypse, and non-naturalistic games like Mario Kart. In addition, we investigated open world adventure games that incorporate driving elements, such as Grand Theft Auto 5. In total, we reviewed 15 games, which yielded valuable insights for our design concepts.

P U R P O S E & APPROACH

Research Questions

. How do video games keep players engaged in driving related activities? . How is relevant information structured on the screen?

15 car related games - Selection Criteria

. from various genres . focus on higher rated games . especially on the lookout for innovative game play concepts . availability

Things Games have Generally in Common

. most of the games with cars involve racing . competition

Common Differences in the Games

. pace . story . realism . setting / world . objective . menu

Games

Forza 3, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, Driver: San Francisco, Burnout Paradise, Project Gotham Racing 3, Mario Kart Wii, GTA 5, Forza Horizon, Forza 4, MotorStorm: Apocalypse, Dirt 3, ModNation Racer, Mafia II, NFS Underground 2, Halo 3

RESULTS

Figure 1. MotorStorm Apocalypse: prime example of a game, where the fun comes from the fast pace and destruction.

Most driving related video games rely on fast reaction times, arcade mechanics like shooting, or hitting other cars, and are visually demanding and therefore distracting. Transferring those principles into the real driving context would obviously defeat the purpose of safer driving.

For what are cars used in the games?

. racing . a means to get from A to B . prizes you can customize

How do the games keep the user‘s attention?

. Fast paced: react quickly to events. The fast the game, the more attention it demands and the more exhausting it is to play. . Slower paced: try to devise a strategy to win

What are the incentives and goals in general?

Usually: gain experience/reputation points to unlock new tracks, cars, areas and reach the top.

What interesting concepts are out there?

A lot of the racing games are very similar and differ mainly in the way cars are react to the player’s input and their sense of realism.

WH AT IS GENERALLY FUN IN DRIVING GAMES ?

Most of those observations are related to some extent. Furthermore, of course not all of those elements where presented equally in all of the driving games.

Competition

The best incentive to do well in most of the games I played was to win. Especially in racing games this is what motivates you: either against yourself, or other fictional or real characters.

Games: all racing games (not so much open world games such as GTA).

Speed / Pace

The simulated environments let the player do things he could never try out in the real world. In many games as fast as you can is one of them. On top of that, going at a fast speed requires the player to react extremely quickly to events. While this requires a lot of attention and gets exhausting after some time, it is also really rewarding; no time to ponder decisions, be alert at all times.

Games: the games vary greatly in their speed. Most demanding; MotorStorm Apocalypse.

Destruction

Few things are as rewarding as driving like a manic through the virtual places of the games. For me personally those games that provided the player with actual surroundings that go beyond mere racing tracks were much more interesting to play.

In GTA5 for example creating a havoc in the city, stealing other people’s cars by dragging them out of them or hitting some cyclist on the side of the road or can be fun even for someone who is gentle minded in general.

Story / Meaning

Most of the games incorporate a ‘free race’ mode, which allows the user to practice his skills, to get to know the tracks and a feel for the various cars. It is relaxing way of playing without the worry of ruining your score or losing. In the beginning I often started out in this mode. However, no matter which game, this kind of play gets quite boring after some time. There is no challenge, no goal. Even if you compete against others, the satisfaction of winning quickly fades. This showed me that a bigger framework around the games, an ultimate goal to progress towards is a lot of fun.

Mastery

Something that keeps players coming back to a game over and over again is the will to get better and better in certain skills. It is extremely satisfactory to be able to see a progression curve and for example experience that the third drift race was much more successful than the first.

Exotic Cars

This is especially interesting for car enthusiasts. In simulation games you can try out the newest and fastest cars out there and get a more or less realistic feeling of how it is to drive them. Some games also offer the possibility to customize your car to your liking by choosing the colour, spoilers, stickers etc.

Music and Sounds

Being pushed by aggressive music adds a lot to the challenge itself.

Exploration

Especially the games that leave the player a lot of room to explore (usually the open world games) were a lot of fun for me. This was especially true if there were actual things to be discovered. In Need for Speed for example the exploration was not nearly as rewarding as in GTA, since the game did not offer many hidden things to be found. As a consequence it got boring quite quickly. In GTA5 on the other hand it was so much more fun to explore the area and even to make up your own goals (like go up the hill on a quad without falling) than to do the actual challenges.

Exciting Surroundings

Games that put a lot of emphasis on the feel of the tracks were great to play. Dirt 3 for example, which in the main game offers the player distinct sets of tracks to choose from in a menu (not an open world) still was entertaining to play, as each track differed significantly from the one before in a) look b) how the car reacts c) weather etc.

For a game like Mario Cart the distinctive sets of each character seem to me to be one of the main reasons why players keep coming back to it.

REMARKABLE CONCEPTS

The following section will present a number concepts found in video games we deemed most innovative and applicable to our purposes; some of which blend driving activities with other fun, playful activities such as bowling. A short summary of the main game will be given and then what parts of the game are worth further exploration.

Some General Concepts

. Conquer and Reconquer Areas. . Leave achievements behind. . Collect tokens / cards . Compete against other users. . While driving you gather power that will be released when you stop . Health Bars . The longer the player presses something the greater the impact

Observation

The best games are usually those that are very simple but presented in an appealing manner.

Forza 4

This is a classic Simulation Racing game, with the driving experience in real life cars and tracks as the main focus. No story. It includes some interesting challenges in cooperation with “Top Speed”: most notably bowling with the car.

Figure 2. Display the ideal driving line with colours as speed indicators. ii

Figure 3. iii

Dirt 3

Rallying video game with gymkhana mode. Something that makes this game stand out from other games is the incorporation of three mini games that make use of the car in unusual manners. iv

Figure 4. Outbreak (Zombies)

Figure 5. Invasion (Cardboard targets) v

Figure 6. Transporter (Capture the Flag) vi

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit

Health Bar, Chase (good and bad guys), weapons (drop, shoot, disable other car’s functionality), Progression in the game allows you to use more and more power-ups.

Figure 7.vii

Mario Kart

Power Ups – Distinctive Characters – changing scenery (each level has a different “theme”)

Figure 8. viii

ModNation Racers

Customization, “Endless pool” of content to download.

Figure 9. ix

Need for speed underground

Customization, Agressive Music

Blur

Power Ups

Figure 10. x

LIMITATIONS

Everyone is different and enjoys different things.

I couldn’t really delve deep into all games and therefore certainly missed some aspects. Moreover, some parts that I might not have found interesting at all for myself, might actually be the reason why some people played the game. As an example the level of detail in Forza 4 with the exact calculations of the g forces was not such an appealing factor for me. Someone else on the other hand pointed out, that this is what he loved most.

INITIAL CONCEPTS

The driving game analysis inspired us to come up with various concepts to make driving more engaging. We chose particularly mundane driving scenarios as the context and endeavoured to adhere to the following criteria: a) are feasible to implement using readily available consumer electronics; b) add an element of gameful fun to boring driving situations, and; c) are safe to use by limiting driver distraction and cognitive load. When looking at those concepts it should be kept in mind that those are early design concepts and that furthermore the theme of each concept is secondary. It can be easily exchanged. This realization manifested during the design period and will be presented later in the document.

DRIVING SCENARIOS

We were interested in Driving Scenarios that are deemed boring by many young drivers and frequently lead to accidents. Some of them include:

Hazardous Driving Situations xi

. Broken windscreen . Gravel and other loose surfaces . Overtaking other vehicles . Slow moving vehicles and heavy vehicles . Water on the road . Footbrake failure . Animals on the road . Tyre blowout (puncture) . Rear-end crashes . Single vehicle crashes . Turning at an intersection crashes . Crashes when changing lanes and when merging or diverging . Head-on crashes .

Study of Top Five Teen Driver Crash Scenarios xii

. Going straight, other vehicle stopped, rear end . Stopped in traffic lane, turning left at intersection, turn into other path of vehicle (e.g. cross traffic) . Negotiating curve, off right edge of road, right roadside departure . Going straight, off right edge of road, right roadside departure . Stopped in lane, turning left at intersection, turn across path of other vehicle (e.g. opposing traffic)

IMPLEMENTATION

Feedback

It is crucial that the games will not distract the driver from his primary driving task but rather support it.

Sound

Ambient Feedback: Colours, Light

Tactile feedback

Two main Gameplays

Reward good driving in general. This is removed from the actual driving task in real time. (E.g. Tamagochi)

Reward specific actions. The task is directly in tune with actions: what you do while driving has an immediate impact/lets something happen.

Hardware

DIY – Head Up Display

S C E N A R I O 1

COMING TO A STOP

IDEAL BEHAVIOUR:

. Smooth braking and accelerating . Smooth steering - stay in the lane‘s centre . Stop at the ideal position - keep distance to the traffic light itself or other cars in front of you. . Engage driver in the task

GENERAL CONCEPTS:

something „shoots“ out of car as soon as it stops

car „hits“ something as soon as it stops

car „pushes“ something as soon as it stops

BOWLING

As soon as you come to a stop, a bowling ball shoots toward pins that are displayed on the road in front of you. According to how well you performed (kept close to the ideal behaviour in this scenario) a specific number of pins fall.

in bowling the faster and more abrupt you throw the ball the better

encourages the driver to brake in an unsafe manner

PIRATE CANNON

Conquer the car in front of you.

The fuse starts sizzling when the car starts to slow down.

Evenly – good driving

Jerky – bad driving

Leave your pirate flag behind, or on the car you conquered, so other players will know you did a good job.

Interaction with other cars Quite violent

HIPPIES

Reverse concept: giving instead of taking

The driving influences: radius, size and colours of the rainbow and number of flowers bestowed upon other car.

A good performance will leave a flower on the street, for others to see.

All cars that you bless will receive a small flower, which will remain on it.

IDEA

for every virtual flower a real one will be planted in the city.

DARTS

Your objective is to hit the bull’s eye with darts that shoot out of your car as soon as you come to a stop.

The performance of other players is displayed on the bull’s eye.

Make it more interesting by adding a theme (Brave, hunter, LotR, ...)

+ good representation of precision - no loading metaphor

+ works without cars in front - not very exciting

GOLF

too harsh braking

- there is no in-between to give an indication about the drivers performance.

- this metaphor is hard to accurately convey to the driver.

+ it encourages the goal of safe braking, since a lot of precision is required to win.

ZOMBIE SPRAY

In a zombie world the car is in front of you is infected. You can save it, by dispensing a spray over it. The amount is determined by your braking.

Smooth braking:

Unsafe braking:

+ gradual “grading” - Hard to display / might be too abstract

A N G R Y BRIDS – C O N C E P T I

Catapult will be lowered on approach: jerky or smooth according to braking.

ANGRY BIRDS – C O N C E P T II

Combination of Angry Birds and Darts.

S C E N A R I O 2

CONTINUOUS DRIVING - TAILGATING

IDEAL BEHAVIOUR: . Maintain the same speed (no unnecessary braking, no harsh acceleration)  coast . Keep a distance to the car in front of you

DIFFICULTY: there are no specific actions that need to performed. Doing “as little as possible” needs to be rewarded without being boring.

IDEA

Earn rewards in time-slots (e.g. every 10 seconds)

TAMAGOCHI AVATAR

Good driving  happy bird

Bad driving  sad bird

Take care of your pet bird: feed it, wash it, etc. Gives an abstract representation of the driving behaviour.

IDEA

. create your own avatar/pet,... . interact with avatars of other drivers

TENNIS

PRECIOUS GOODS TRANS PORTATION

BALANCE

PINCH

POWER BALANCE

SOUND CONTROL

RADIUS

A radius around the car in front of you indicates the area you should keep clear off.

ZOMBIE CLOUD

S C E N A R I O 3

LANE CHANGE

This scenario was examined relatively superficially in the end of the first design scenario iteration and concentrates on the Zombie theme.

SHOOT MEDICINE STAY ON THE TRACKS

CATCH THE ZOMBIE DON’T SLIP

THEMES

~ DRIVING IS AN ADVE NTURE ~

At a certain stage in the design cycle we put to much emphasis on the creation of an overarching theme that stretches throughout the entire driving task. The aim of this was to engage the driver more deeply in the driving task and motivate him to play the game multiple times.

Even though we discarded most of the ideas, as they were too detailed and too removed from our objective at this phase, they are presented here.

The criteria for a good theme was that it should a) fit a broad spectrum of players (young drivers) and it should b) consider the underlying implications of theme (e.g. violent/peaceful, abstract/concrete).

ZOMBIE RIDE

N ARRATIVE

You are one of the few survivors of the zombie apocalypse. Fortunately, the development of the cure is almost complete!

It is now on you to save the town from complete destruction.

G OA L

Save the town from Zombie-Apocalypse

→ Use existing town, like Brisbane, or create fictional one?

→ use actual driving location? E.g. you would probably clear you way to work pretty quickly. Might be very limiting.

→ free area after area (Zombie coverage 80%)

APOCALYPTIC RADIO / MESSAGES FROM HEADQUATERS

You have your own “supervisor” in the car/radio communication (sound effects incorporate various people talking): personalized greeting.

RANKS

Move through the ranks. Start as a Private and work your way up to General. Each promotion comes with more power, possibilities but also difficulty!

PLAY

Drove 20 Killed 50 . Braking 8/10 . Weapons minutes Zombies on . Smoothness 4/10 . Health Packs without one drive . Steering 7/10 . Ingredients attack . ... . Clothes . Photos of driving

GENERAL

Item store

Contains items that can be used for other missions in the game / rewards / ‘money’.

Missions

Maybe specific actions will reveal hidden ones (like mini games)!

Home Base

You have a safe environment where you start every game from. Maybe it can be enlarged and modified.

You move through the Ranks

RULES

You can only use the car. The car is haven of “health”.

ACTIONS

Steering, braking, distance to other cars, smoothness,

FEEDBACK sound, ambient cues, HUD important: do not distract from the driving task

S UBGOALS

Zombie Attack, remain inconspicuous

Collect Items

Transport important person/medicine

...

QUESTION

S TOR Y I DEA

Choose a side in the beginning:

Incorporate music and give challenges in-between (similar to Zombie Run).

A HOLISTIC ITERATIVE DESIGN APPROACH AND CONSIDERATIONS

Our initial concepts revealed some pitfalls that need to be taken into consideration when gamifying the driving environment. To avoid them early on we employed a holistic iterative design approach inspired by game design cognition (2015). We found a practical video game design process involves a mixed approach between top-down and bottom-up cognition (Steinberger, 2015).

CONCERN COLLECTION (AND POSSIBLE SOLUTI ONS)

Carefully choosing themes.

While many themes during may appear fun, only few will overlap with safe driving practices.

Need for multidisciplinary teams

Approach the game bottom-up (road safety experts) and top-down (video game design experts)

Exploration (pushing game boundaries)

Adjust user feedback and do not punish/reward the player with entertaiing feedback, when he performs in a way that is not in tune with the target performance. If Replace the core and theme.

Game is too focussed on a single task

Add gamified scanning.

Isolated mini games

Gameplay outside the driving context.

Other Concerns

When giving immediate ambient feedback on performance. Maybe driver will brake as technology advises instead of how the situation demands.

Game needs to be independent of length of trip (should not encourage driver to hurry)

Levels of mastery

Break up the target performance into several levels of mastery. Begin easy, improve with timeAllow the player to always feel competent in some aspect of the game.

Example at traffic light: In the beginning only ask the driver to stop at a specific point, then to incorporate smoothness, and finally after some more steps to use engine braking.

PRE - AND AFTER GAMEPLAY

All games have some kind of pre and after game around it, as they need to be launched from somewhere. There are many different ways and levels of depth this can be done in.

Concepts taken from Video Games Review

Open World There is just a very simple menu, in which you start the game. All other challenges are distributed on the game’s map. You have to go there to start them (e.g. GTA, Burnout Paradise).

Linear gameplay You start the game in the menu and pick up where you left the last time. You do not have the possibility to choose which challenges you want to do next (e.g. Motorstorm Apocalypse). Some games visualize this in some form of menu in others you automatically move forward.

Menu Based You select the challenge you want to do next in a menu, which brings you directly to it.

STORYBOARDS

In order to communicate our ideas to our future users, we turned some of the concepts into more detailed storyboards. These were then employed in workshops we conducted to understand young males driving behaviours.

TRAFFIC LIGHT ANGRY BIRDS

MIRROR MUSIC

SPEED CHECK

TAILGATING

OPTION 1: FORK LIFT

OPTION 2: STEALING F UEL

OPTION 3: ZOMBIE CLO U D

TOKENS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Fabius Steinberger, Ronald Schroeter and Diana Babiac for providing the Best Team Environment any Intern could wish for.

REFERENCES

Gaver, W.. "Making spaces: how design workbooks work." Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2011.

Steinberger, F., Schroeter, R,, Lindner, V., Fitz-Walter, Z., Hall, J., and Johnson, D.. " Zombies on the Road: A Holistic Design Approach to Balancing Gamification and Safe Driving." Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications. ACM, 2015.

WEB SOURCES

i http://www.ztgd.com/reviews/motorstorm-apocalypse/ ii http://www.gamezone.com/reviews/forza-motorsport-4-review iii http://oxcgn.com/2011/12/18/oxcgns-forza-4-review/forza-4-screenshots-oxcgn-12/ iv http://nilcoolgames2.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/dirt-3.html v http://nilcoolgames2.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/dirt-3.html vi http://nilcoolgames2.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/dirt-3.html vii http://www.pcgamezoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Need-For-Speed-Hot-Pursuit-Features.jpg viii http://static.gamesradar.com/images/mb/GamesRadar/us/Games/M/Mario%20Kart%20Wii/Bulk%20Viewers /Wii/2008-02-20/200208150--screenshot.jpg ix http://www.capsulecomputers.com.au/wp-content/uploads/ModNation-Racers-Screenshot-04.jpg x http://www.geek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Blur-screenshot-011-590x332.jpg xi http://mylicence.sa.gov.au/road-rules/the-drivers-handbook/hazardous-driving http://mylicence.sa.gov.au/road-rules/the-drivers-handbook/understand-crashes xii https://injury.research.chop.edu/blog/posts/study-top-five-teen-driver-crash-scenarios#.VRn7lvmsUyk