RobotQuest: A robotic game based on projected mixed reality and proximity interaction

The appearance of video games in modern society introduced a number of modifications in the recreational and socialization habits of both youths and adults. In particular, various studies have associated the excessive use of this media with health and social problems, being the “classical” video game often a sedentary and solitary activity. The purpose of this work is to propose a possible way to deal with the above issues, which consists in exploiting a platform for robotic gaming based on consumer hardware that is being developed with the aim to reintroduce the physical and social dimensions in digital games. The proposed solution encompasses a floor-projected Mixed Reality (MR) environment, an autonomous toy robot and a set of tangible interfaces created using proximity beacons, which are combined in a robotic game concept named RobotQuest that is meant to show how to favor an engaging room-scale interaction between players and real/virtual game elements.