The research questions will be divided between Phase 2 and Phase 3 as the main study of Phase 1 will be included in Phase 3. Phase 3 of the internship will be the main study of this page, while Phase 2 will be included mostly as secondary research questions.

Phase 3 - Main Research Question:

1. Will a tutorial animation of a humanoid figure correctly doing the exercise be enough to teach every type of player(patient) how to correctly exercise, while playing our SyncVR Fit physiotherapy VR games?

Design Challenges:

1. Phase 3:

   1. Design a tutorial animation manager that runs for every SyncVR Fit exercise while also being able to teach every type of patient how to properly do the exercise required in the SyncVR Fit game.

2. Phase 2:

   1. Design a VR Exercise Game to help bedridden patients, in different types of hospital care, exercise their lower body while playing thus reducing the monotones of their rehabilitation and disconnecting them from the hospital setting.

SyncVR Fit currently has a plethora of games in their library that are intended to help patients exercise and keep active while playing. They do, however, lack games for patients to exercise their legs and also games for patients to play while bedridden. This provided a unique opportunity to make a game for bedridden patients to exercise their legs, but also provided some unique issues like "How can we use VR controllers with their legs?"

Luckily, the analogical answer was relatively simple, strapping controllers to the legs with some polyester strapping tape. The virtual issues remained however, as the above solution did not solve that players cannot use buttons on the controller with their legs. Another simple solution was found, it was making a mechanic that uses the controllers real world tilt angle in order to control the wipers in the game.

Analysis Questions:

1. What are the successful factors to the gamification of an exercise for hospital patients?

   1. Player Autonomy - (Wiper Control Scheme: Collider vs Dynamic)

   2. "Challenging" Gameplay - (Boss Bug)

   3. Immersion - (Good looking environment)

   4. Exercise Tuning - (Being able to change how hard the exercise is via in-game mechanics)

2. Which mechanics can be used to respond to the movement of players using VR controllers strapped to their feet?

3. How do active games/VR help patients in rehabilitation?

Kyle can be seen above correctly showing how the game "Dodge" works.

All SyncVR Fit physiotherapy games have unique and engaging mechanics, however not always are these mechanics clear to the player as each one is created with the intention of "forcing" the player to correctly do some sort of real life exercise. As a company, SyncVR is extremely keen on making sure patients not only benefit from our games, but also do not hurt themselves in the process. An early observation I made while testing the "Dodge" game was that none of the testers I tested it with did the exercise correctly. The game consists of flying seagulls carrying balls, which would force the players to squat to touch the balls and avoid the seagulls. This was clearly not understood by my testing base which ended up doing something more akin to Kung Fu moves to touch the balls.
This provided quite some insight towards how an average patient would look at the game and try to do what they think is right without concern for how the developer intended the exercises to align with the game mechanics. While this alone is bad for us as a company, it could also provide to be harmful to players who might be doing over the top movements while misunderstanding the mechanics.
The question arose, how can I find a simple fix to be able to show every player how to correctly do the exercise before they start playing the game? I came up with a simple solution we have dubbed "Kyle" as he looks like a Kyle to me. Kyle started as a 2D animation akin to how manga's and comic's animate their fight scenes, then evolved into a 3D model as was suggested by Team Fit in order to better use our VR medium.

Research Study:

1. What success factors indicate that every type of player is correctly learning from Kyle (final version)?

   1. IRL Exercise done correctly.

   2. In game mechanics understood and followed.

   3. No or little confusion from the players.