Be Fit With Biray

Who says you can’t meditate to a video game? The Wild Divine is offering a series of multi-media meditation products that focus specifically on healthy relaxation techniques. The Journey to the Wild Divine Series is an interactive computer game equipped with biofeedback sensors that monitor heart rate variability and skin conductance through your fingers. As you develop these techniques (as determined by your physiological responses), sections of the game unlock to advance your journey or game play.

Here’s a demo:
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=OvnN7kQTjv0]

Biofeedback sensors are a reliable measurement tool designed to heighten your awareness of your physiological responses to specific stimuli. Using these data in video games to enhance or impact the outcome of game play - well, that’s when things get interesting…

In the past, studies have demonstrated the physiological responses to game play (increased blood pressure in PacMan, heart rate response to DDR, etc.), but these hardly impact the design of the game. In other words, PacMan doesn’t decrease or increase its difficulty based on your heart rate. But as games become more interactive and program designers enter the health and fitness arena, these variables will be explored and manipulated. Cool, huh?

I came across this recent study published in the proceedings from the Digital Games and Research Association (2007): “Please Biofeed the Zombies: Enhancing the Game Play and Display of a Horror Game Using Biofeedback” A. Dekker, E. Champion (Note: the biofeedback device from Wild Divine was used as the measurement tool.)

Here is an excerpt from the abstract:
“During game play, [Half-Life 2] was dynamically modified by the player’s biometric information to increase the cinematically augmented “horror” affordances. These included dynamic changes in the game shaders, screen shake, and the creation of new spawning points for the game’s non-playing characters (zombies), all these features were driven by the player’s biometric data.”

“While the evaluation results indicate biometric data can improve the situated feeling of
horror, there are many design issues that will need to be investigated by future research, and the judicious selection of theme and appropriate interaction is vital.”

Granted, this research didn’t come to any health or fitness-related conclusions. But, as games evolve, the scope of research will, too.