Hang in There: A Novel Body-Centric Interactive Playground

We introduce and evaluate a first version of a novel bodycentric playground that aims at increasing bodily exertion and immersion. The concept centers around the player, who is suspended from the ceiling using a rope and climbing harness and stands on a tilted platform. This caused players to assume a body posture that elicits the feeling of flying, which was further enhanced by the flying game that they played. We discuss the choices made in the type of body movements, and how these relate to different aspects such as movement mimicry and exertion. We performed a user study, in which the hanging position was compared to a setting where players stood on the ground. We found no significant differences in the amount of movement and perceived engagement between the two conditions. However, there was a tendency of favoring the hanging position. Moreover, we observed that the placement of game elements affected the movement patterns.