Combining playware exergaming with a mobile fitness app

We propose a novel playware as a merge between exergames and mobile fitness apps to engage the users in physical exercises, not only as competitive play, but also in the form of cooperative play. The concept connects modular interactive tiles with radio communication to Android tablets and smart phones, which can connect to the Internet.

This allows the players to monitor their playware exergaming performance on the smart device(s). A test was set up over 8 days allowing two school classes to compete with each other on which class was going to collect the most points playing on the modular tiles during the test. The test subjects were from 6th and 7th grade (12-13 years old children).

As a social playware, we investigated how the playware mediated cooperative and competitive play amongst the users. It was found that the majority of game play involved social interaction between players, and that 8 out of 10 pupils on the top-10 were girls. The playware seemed to motivate the girls to become physically active.