Date of Award

Spring 2012

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering

Program/Concentration

Modeling and Simulation

Committee Director

Yuzhong Shen

Committee Member

Frederic D. McKenzie

Committee Member

James F. Leathrum, Jr.

Call Number for Print

Special Collections LD4331.E58 M55 2012

Abstract

Electronic games are a prevalent phenomenon of American culture and entertainment. Serious games are video games that take advantage of games' intrinsic entertaining and challenging characteristics for serious purposes, such as education, training, advertisement, and political campaigns. A significant number of serious games have been developed for a variety of diverse purposes. The last few years have witnessed the inception and growth of motion sensing technologies for games, including Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation Move, and Microsoft Kinect. These motion sensing technologies usually require game players' physical body movement in order to perform and achieve in the games, such as playing tennis. These novel features are especially suitable for game scenarios that involve large body motion, such as sport simulation games, and have attracted a significant portion of the population that traditionally did not play games, such as seniors. This thesis proposes to utilize Microsoft Kinect, a motion sensor that allows the player to act as the game controller, to develop a serious game prototype for prevention and treatment of obesity and diabetes. The absence of physical game controllers allows the player to be fully immersed in the virtual environment presented by the games and leads to more realistic and engaging gaming experience.

It is this level of immersion with which the game prototype, also known as the Health Nexus project, combats two of the most serious health issues in the world today: obesity and diabetes. These two diseases are extremely prevalent, particularly in the United

States. This widespread epidemic of obesity and diabetes is in large part due to poor eating habits and lax or nonexistent exercise regimens. In order to fight these ailments, one must follow strict dieting and have a healthy exercise routine. Therefore, the Health Nexus prototype was designed which encourages proper dietary and exercise practices to prevent and treat obesity and diabetes. Health Nexus takes advantage of the high desire to play video games and uses that to advise people how to eat healthily and exercise correctly by utilizing Calorie and Glycemic Load based health models.

Health Nexus tackles both dieting and exercise problems by providing a unique experience for each player. Under this framework the player is represented by a three dimensional avatar controlled via the Microsoft Kinect motion sensor. Three major game modes allow the player to select a diet from a wide-ranging menu, view the results of their choices, perform basic exercises and compete in a challenge. The player receives cash rewards based on dietary choices and effort expended in the exercise and challenge modes. After the player completes the three modes, the results of the player's choices in terms of weight gained or lost are displayed. The player has the option to display the effects of his/her dietary and exercise choices over a period of time, including daily, weekly and monthly. The player is able to review past choices and refine future choices to create the most effective dietary and exercise methods to combat obesity and diabetes. The Health Nexus prototype was developed with the Microsoft Kinect SDK, XNA Game Studio, and .NET Framework in C# programming language.

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DOI

10.25777/342y-h935

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