Towards Somaesthetics Inspired Games: Exploring the Influence of a Mirror Effect on Self-Presentation in a Public Setting
This addresses how interactive games can influence self-presentation in public settings, offering incremental insights for experience design in gaming.
The study investigated how players' self-presentation changes when they can see themselves in a mirror during an augmented game, finding significant differences such as increased smiling frequency. It suggests this mirror effect could be used as a design feature in somaesthetics-inspired games.
We report on an initial user study, which explores how players of an augmented mirror game, self-style or self-present themselves when they are allowed to see themselves in the mirror compared to when they do not see themselves. To this end, we customized an open source fruit slicing game into an interactive installation for an architecture museum and conducted with 36 visitors a field study. Based on an analysis of video recordings of participants we identified, for example significant differences in how often participants smile. Ultimately, presenting a self-image to gamers in a social setting resulted in behavior change, which we argue could be utilized carefully from a Somaesthetics perspective as an experience design feature in future games.