APD Week 8 - Play and Body

Theme: 

In response to the theme of Play and Body, I created a fitness game that can be played by multiple players.

Context:

The original idea came from Genghong (Will) Liu's TikTok Live Streaming workout. He combined the Chinese hit song with workout dance. He is now enormously popular in China, where he has motivated a large number of Chinese netizens to improve their fitness consciousness. In just 20 days, his follower increaced to 59 million on TikTok. 

People are becoming more cared about fitness, not just for weight loss, but also for overall physical health. People exercise for a variety of reasons. For instance, weight control, physical health, mental well-being, and attention enhancement, among others. Whatever the reason, exercise is extremely beneficial to everyone. Fitness has numerous benefits, but because it is frequently a lengthy, repeated, and particularly sluggish exercise, it is quite easy for the normal person with little willpower to become discouraged and give up halfway, which is actually "anti-humane" conduct. And, in fact, no one likes being compelled to do something, and when people are compelled to do fitness they do not want to do, they might develop a rebellious attitude. 

Competence-affecting play or play-based learning, Robert White (1959) established a point. "Creatures try to position themselves within a protected occasion that contains both familiar and unfamiliar elements and that possesses problems or challenges they consider intriguing or significant." In this light, play activities seem like self-motivated attempts to create and solve problems.

According to a 2017 article published in the academic journal Disability and Rehabilitation, fitness games provide moderate-intensity exercise, are inexpensive and easy to begin, and are therefore appealing to the general population from a public health standpoint. Nintendo Ring Fit Adventure is an incredible success example. Even more, people join and play during COVID 19, which kept people confined to their homes for an extended period of time. It seamlessly combines RPG game components into daily fitness activities. 

This week, I'd like to create a fitness game based on this concept that's similar to Monopoly. People were assigned random fitness or funny challenges, and accomplishing them advanced them forward while failing to do so relegated them to a backward step. The competitive element in multi-players, in particular, will add appeal to this game, and the competitive desire to win will push people to continue with the workout. 

Method:

The first step was to design the challenge cards, which included a variety of different exercise positions targeted at specific body parts. Of course, if all you do is exercise, the game will become monotonous and boring, but adding some funny and lucky cards will add some excitement!

The map is the next step. I had the idea of creating square maps reminiscent of those found in Monopoly. However, due to the space constraint, I change to a map where space is permitted. Following testing, this is also a fantastic approach for establishing interaction and play with others. Let people design their personal maps with you! Personalized one!

Reflection:

This week's work provided an excellent opportunity for me to grow, particularly in the process of conceptualizing the idea, which almost spend me two days. Particularly in the tangible manifestation of the concept. The first concept was creating an augmented reality map in which the player may interact with the area just by holding the phone. In this approach, the player may engage with people at any time and from any location and have a deeper sense of immersion. 

But then Holland, Amber, and Harry's collaborative Skit in the previous APD Play and Body sparked a lot of new ideas for me. (http://magistudio.net/work/apd-play-and-body-amber-holland-harry) In particular, the map contained within provided me with a great deal of inspiration. Their dynamic and highly interactive concept of the map will keep players engaged with others and motivated to complete the game. 

Particularly when players can view the map without having to raise their phones up. After all, this is a fitness game, and it's difficult for players to handle a phone with exercise. 

Although this might be owing to production time restrictions, both the map and the card content are very simple. I believe that the end outcome concept is great. If people are in a public play space and see such a game like this, they will feel they would like to join in. People may always derive enjoyment from competition and games, much more so when they are combined. A competitive attitude inspires people's fighting spirit and potential, which is the ideal status for fitness. This type of activity will develop into excellent social games. After all, fitness is also beneficial to people's health. I'm planning to bring more friends over the weekend to try the game with me, and I'm hoping they enjoy it too.

References:

White, Robert W. 1959. Motivation Reconsidered: The Concept of Competence. Psychological Review. 66:297–333.

Huang, Q. 2020. [online], Available at <https://new.qq.com/omn/20200212/20200212A0SAVY00.html>

Outcome: https://youtu.be/W-kGzjBO5Zo