Blexer – Full Play Therapeutic Blender Exergames for People with Physical Impairments

Abstract

This work presents the “Blexer” (Blender Exergames) environment, which aims at the design and implementation of generic, adaptive and customizable rehabilitation exergames for people with physical disabilities. Currently, it consists in one full play exergame based on the movements captured by the Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect camera and a medical platform that allows the remote configuration of the game. Opposed to multiple mini-games with specific purposes found in literature, here the focus is set on the design of a full game, which includes a character, a story and advanced game mechanics to achieve the integration of currently four exercises into a 3D adventure videogame. The principle aim is to enhance the patient’s motivation to perform daily exercises with help of the game, therefore we apply the Core Drives defined in the Octalysis framework. Furthermore, the game incorporates a motion amplification functionality to augment the immersive feeling of disabled people in the video games. Last but not least, the configuration possibilities of the exercises included in the game are described.