The Woods: A Mixed-Reality Multiplayer Cooperative Game

• Published in: HCI in Games: Serious and Immersive Games Vol. 12790; pp. 388 - 397
• Main Authors: Swearingen, Kyoung, Swearingen, Scott
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Springer International Publishing AG 2021; Springer International Publishing
• Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
• Subjects: Collaborative gaming; Mixed reality; Sonic experience
• ISBN: 3030774139; 9783030774134
• ISSN: 0302-9743; 1611-3349
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-77414-1_28

While loneliness in our real lives is increasingly recognized as having dire physical, mental and emotional consequences, cooperative games have also been shown to build empathy and provide positive social impact. In this paper, we present ‘The Woods’, a local cooperative mixed reality game that provides players with face-to-face interactions in pursuit of a shared goal using augmented reality and 4-channel audio spatialization panning. This paper discusses the technical aspects of the game, the design rationale and development process, and the resulting player experience. The goal of this research is to develop a narrative driven AR game that provides social benefits by prompting players to problem-solve collaboratively, and to leverage the physical and digital experience as fully as possible.