Developing a game application to encourage face-to-face local gaming experience

Abstract

With the increase of mobile device usage around the globe, face-to-face communication has degraded and complete prohibition is not realistic. The degradation is not to be prevented as it happens as a side effect of technology. However, balancing usage of mobile device and quality of face-to-face communication is possible. By approaching users through developing a party genre mobile game with local multiplayer focus and introducing the given game to users, it is expected that face-to-face communication can be encouraged, thus resulting in mobile party game to become a media for the encouragement. A mini game that is a part of party game is developed with the help of Unity game engine as a testing object in which user response is collected. In the testing phase, target user response is collected, face-to-face encouragement is proven and user response is positive towards the game. Sample game testing has effectively re-introduced the existence of nowadays rare party game in mobile platform along with encouraging face-to-face communication, shown by the enthusiasm and enjoyment that audience testers have experienced. To conclude, mobile party games can help by being a media to encourage face-to-face communication and prevent degradation of such communication, future developments of a complete party game in mobile platform is highly encouraged as overall face-to-face communication quality enhancement may be required in the future in order to mitigate degradation.