Most applications in ubiquitous computing for older people aim to support the aging process. But older people are ludic and lucid, too. So they can use the same technologies to have fun and stay in contact with other people. CurBall gives them the opportunity to make creative, playful and social use of their leisure time.
A recent study of older people and gaming showed that being able to play with their grandchildren is an important incentive to play computer games. Based on the findings of this work, our main goal was to create a game which is exciting for both a child and an older person. CurBall is a prototype of a "ubi-game" for older people that can support social relationships with distant family members. It is a distributed bowling game which is particularly suitable to play with grandchildren over the internet.
Game Scenario
The CurBall game is based on an assumption of there being a junior and a senior player who are connected over the internet and have a permanent audio connection. The senior player has a physical ball as an input device. The junior player has a game field with a starting area and a finish area (like a bowling alley) and physical obstacles, which he distributes over the field. The goal of the game is to let the ball virtually roll from the start to the finish area without touching any of the obstacles.
Further Work
With the current prototype now at a stable stage, we have conducted an initial in-lab trial. Ongoing plans are to develop this further into a prototype that we can take into people's homes for an in-home study.
