Location-Based Game for Remembering Shelter Locations, Capacities and Features

When a disaster strikes, we evacuate to a shelter. We abandon evacuation or wander aimlessly toward an unknown shelter if we do not remember shelter locations; in the worst-case scenario, we may lose lives before or during evacuation. Residents should remember not only shelter locations in their local community but also shelter capacities and features. In many cases, every resident evacuates to the nearest shelter. If many residents rush into the nearest but small-capacity shelter, some will be unable to enter and will have to go to another shelter. This time-consuming situation must be resolved to help residents evacuate successfully. Furthermore, residents with special needs may end up in an inappropriate shelter if they are unfamiliar with the features of the shelter. We believe that by visiting and observing shelters in advance, residents will be able to recall not only shelter locations and capacities but also shelter features. However, it is difficult to maintain motivation to visit shelters, especially when the shelters are located in remote areas. As a result, we created a prototyped location-based game (a mobile application) that used a geofencing framework similar to Pokémon GO and encouraged players (residents) to visit shelters through a game element. In this game, players visit a shelter to earn a point equal to the shelter's capacity and visit an informative spot about disaster management to collect a digital character by paying a required point from their earned points. The character collection can encourage players to visit numerous shelters, which can lead to remembering numerous shelter locations, capacities and features. We conducted a preliminary comparative experiment, in which the participants were given the task to remember shelter locations and capacities by playing a game or staring at a hazard map. The results of the experiment indicated that our game prototype was effective in helping the participants remember shelter locations and capacities.