THESIS SYNOPSIS | CHANDHRA MOHANN M.

K | 2015701544

DIGITAL PLAYGROUND

Introduction:
Video games are a ubiquitous form of entertainment in today’s children
and youth, and while fun and exciting, have a darker side that parents,
teachers and health professionals can no longer ignore.

When children are gaming their bodies are sedentary and their brains
overstimulated. Developing bodies crave movement, yet video games
entrance and hypnotize the brain into sitting still, often for very long periods.
Sedentary bodies delay physical development while also over stimulating the
heart, causing serious and often irreversible physical impairments. Psychiatrist
Dr. Victoria Dunckley author of “Reset your child’s brain” reports that when
children play video games, their sympathetic nervous system goes into a
hyper aroused state of “flight or fight” characterized by adrenalin release
from adrenal glands and dopamine production in the brain. By mixing the
real with the virtual worlds, AR is creating immersive experiences that allow
users to feel that they are interacting personally with their digital environment.
Augmented reality is the integration of game visual and audio content with a
user environment in real time, unlike virtual reality which creates completely
an artificial environment. Augmented reality in the gaming industry uses the
existing environment and creates a playing field within it. AR games can be
played on smartphones, tablets, and portable gaming system. It is the
integration of digital information and overlays new information on top of it.

Aim:
 To explore how we can relate augmented reality (AR) with digital
gaming to break the notion of sit and reach.
 The design a space (arena or a ground) which interconnects the reality
and the digital data from the game so that the player (user) can play
the game in virtually interconnected world.
Objective:
 To establish a relationship between real and virtual elements.
 To recreate the feeling and essence of outdoor playing with the
elements of digital gaming.
 To create a new experience for gamers.
 To explore various possibilities of the real and virtual word
intervention in gaming.

Problem Statement:
The purpose of the project is to create a playground for people
(gamers) with an interactive experience of a real-world environment
where the objects that reside in the digital gaming world are
augmented.

Methodology:
 Detailed desktop case studies related to games to understand
the user needs.
 Detailed literature review related to augmented reality (AR) and
its implementation methods.
 Detailed live and literature case study on specialty games.
 Creation of the space or map for gaming in both digital and
physical world and overlapping them through augmentation.

Scope:
 The digital playground will be an attempt to create the spirit of
playing outside and the enthusiasm of digital gaming rather than
a sedentary gaming experience.
 Different types of maps based on different levels of the game
would be explored and created both physically and digitally.
 Either they can be a convertible (upgradable) single space or
many individual spaces with digital data augmented as a
composite layer.
 Limitations:
 Project is restricted to creation of spaces and environment and
compositing with digital data by means of augmentation, there is
no provision of coding.
 Project only deals with augmented reality gaming experience
and not any sensory oriented design interventions.

Architectural Challenges:
 To create an integrated environment where the physical and the
digital composition takes place at real time sync.
 To explore augmented reality in built form and its technicality.
 To visualize, interpret and present using augmented reality (AR) +
virtual reality (VR).