Urban Exergames: How Architects and Serious Gaming Researchers Collaborate on the Design of Digital Games that Make You Move

This chapter presents a novel research collaboration between architects and computer scientists to investigate and develop mobile, context-sensitive serious games for sports and health (so-called exergames). Specifically, it describes a new approach that aims to design exergames which interact with the player’s built, topographic, and social environment in a meaningful way and presents strategies on how to integrate research on health-oriented urban design and planning to the design of such games. To that end, this chapter analyzes the state of the art of mobile context-sensitive exergames and introduces the reader to the basics of “Active Street Design”. After recapitulating how the built environment influences physical activity such as walking, cycling, and stair climbing in everyday situations, it is speculated on how to integrate best practices and guidelines from architecture into the game design process in order to create attractive and more effective exergames. The chapter is concluded with a discussion on strategies to validate the (positive) side-effects of urban exergames and an outline of future research directions.