Augmented Reality Games from a User Perspective

Abstract: Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) games have been around for decades. Despite this, they are largely misunderstood. Games like Pokémon GO encourages people to go outside, augmenting the real world both through maps with virtual objects and cameras using see through functionality. The question is, which of these aspects makes the game AR? Would the game stop being AR if it did not use the camera? What other characteristics makes a game AR? Maybe it is less about the hard rules, and more about where something is placed on the MR spectrum. This project was done in cooperation with Resolution Games. They are a studio focusing primarily on VR games, while still branching out into AR. In this project, an attempt has been made to define a better language to describe AR. In order to do this, AR is defined by the space between reality, the virtual world, and the user. From this a model and visualisation is developed to investigate individual games. This model is then evaluated by survey and interviews with domain experts. These evaluations highlights both strengths and weaknesses with the model. The advantages includes that it is easy to use and understand. It can be used to describe existing industry knowledge, and existing games. The downside is that it does not bring anything new to the discussion. The analyses with and without the tool remained largely the same. As a final test, the game Acron: Attack of the Squirrels was modified using the analysis of domain experts interpreted through the lens of the classification as a basis. This change proved fast to implement, and the game functioned with only a few complimentary changes. This proved that the classification could be used to make practical decisions. There is however still some ambiguity to if the game benefited from the changes. In the end the advantages of AR is identified as being tied to involving the real world in more ways than just by using see through. This can be done by tracking real objects, letting the user interact with both virtual and real objects, or letting virtual and real objects interact with each other.