User perception of robot's role in floor projection-based Mixed-Reality robotic games

Within the emerging research area represented by robotic gaming and, specifically, in application domains in which the recent literature suggests to combine commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) robots and projected mixed reality (MR) technology in order to develop engaging games, one of the crucial issues to consider in the design process is how to make the player perceive the robot as having a key role, i.e., to valorize its presence from the user experience point of view. By moving from this consideration, this paper reports efforts that are being carried out with the aim to investigate the impact of diverse game design choices in the above perspective, while at the same time extracting preliminary insights that can be exploited to orient further research in the field of MR-based robotic gaming and related scenarios.