Paula Alavesa

University of Oulu · Department of Computer Science and Engineering

We present a location based mixed reality game called Street Art Gangs that we have developed to explore the playful appropriation of the hybrid reality comprising of a city center and its detailed virtual replica represented as a 3D virtual model. In the real streets SAG is played with a mobile phone app that allows tagging predefined locations ar...

Location based mobile games have traditionally relied on implicit codes of conduct, legal ordinances, common social norms, or community emergent rules. However, these games are becoming increasingly popular and enforcing these implicit or explicit restrictions has become difficult. In this paper, we present a critical and systematic review of both...

This paper presents the current status of work-in-progress in developing Ghost Hunters that is targeted to explore the possibilities of incorporating gesture control and ambient lighting in a mobile augmented reality game played with smart glasses. We present the design and implementation of the current prototype, together with a small feasibility...

Hands-free augmented reality (HAR) has the potential of one day becoming our gateway to the Metaverse. However, the devices are still out of reach for most consumers mainly due to their price. The issues with novel interaction techniques can also present a challenge when interacting with holographic content in 3D space. In this article, we describe...

The surge of COVID-19 has introduced a new threat surface as malevolent actors are trying to benefit from the pandemic. Because of this, new information sources and visualization tools about COVID-19 have been introduced into the workflow of frontline practitioners. As a result, analysts are increasingly required to shift their focus between differ...

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) can use data from non-invasive electroencephalogram (EEG) to transform different brain signals into binary code, often aiming to gain control utility of an end-effector (e.g mouse cursor). In the past several years, advances in wearable and immersive technologies have made it possible to integrate EEG with virtual r...

While three-dimensional virtual learning environments have attracted plenty of research interest, mirror-world-like virtual campuses have been used mainly for virtual tours, promotions, or for simulation purposes. In this article, the authors investigate the use of geographically accurate mirror-world-like virtual campus models as an interactive le...

Mobile phones are a popular platform for gaming in addition to being perhaps the most ubiquitous one. Monetization of free to play games with embedded and interstitial advertisements is one of the main sources of income for mobile game creators. We used a constructive approach in this study. A mobile game developed during the study, Between Beats,...

Flow is an aspect of player experience that has been often targeted in game studies. Still, similar to presence it can be ambiguous and difficult to quantify. In this study, we approach the concept of flow in cooperative gaming and frame the target of this study as ""collaborative flow"". Team-play and Flow relevant aspects of player experience, Fl...

This paper introduces a serious mobile game to foster social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of the game is to reach younger audiences and engage them in social distancing practices. Younger people often have a lower compliance towards these types of practices, so we see a casual that also aims to be fun as a solution to improv...

As the COVID-19 storms the globe, there are many efforts to battle it. This paper looks at the development of one such an effort in a form of a mobile game. The game is a 2D arcade game called Unus Terra. It is intended to be entertaining but aims to influence people to partake in social distancing through several mechanics. An early version of the...

This paper presents two studies investigating how physically remote telexistence users wish to see other users visualized as virtual avatars in a) augmented reality, and b) immersive virtual reality while conducting a collaborative task. To answer this research question, a telexistence system was designed and implemented with simple avatar designs....

Observing blending of realities, daily life and gameplay in location-based mobile games is challenging. This study aims at observing this blending by targeting a vast number of images (N = 2432), which have been taken during gameplay of a well-known game, Pokémon GO. Images were collected from social media communities of Pokémon GO players in Twitt...

Background Wayfinding has been adopted in several intense evacuation and navigation simulations; however, the use of biometric measurements for characterizing physiological outcomes has been somewhat overlooked and applied only under limited laboratory conditions. Methods Twenty-four participants took part in a virtual reality (VR) experiment usin...

Realistic 3D virtual environments, such as existing city models, have the potential to be used in pervasive games as a passageway between physical and virtual. Smooth attention displacement and transitions between these two realities are largely unexplored in the context of pervasive gameplay. We conducted two field trials using a pervasive live ac...

Go-along interviewing is an emerging qualitative research method for eliciting contextualised perspectives in which informants and observers conduct mobile interviews while navigating in real or imagined sites. This paper describes results of a pilot study that use virtual reality (VR) go-along interviews to explore university community members' (N...

While three-dimensional virtual learning environments have attracted plenty of research interest, mirror-world-like virtual campuses have been used mainly for virtual tours, promotions, or for simulation purposes. In this article, the authors investigate the use of geographically accurate mirror-world-like virtual campus models as an interactive le...

Industry 4.0, describes the transition of labor into more digitized and automated era. This transition makes it possible to develop a plethora of solutions for factory floor spanning from purely utilitarian to gamification. In this paper we present the initial step in recognizing the design challenges for a project developing social gamified eHealt...

Revitalizing Viena Karelian dialect by finding new ways of learning and teaching Karelian culture and language is important. Karelian is a Finnic language and it is the closest linguistic relative to Finnish. It is spoken in Finland and Russia and its dialects must not be mixed up with Karelian (south-eastern) dialects of Finnish. It is estimated t...

We present a qualitative study investigating the effects of real-world stimuli and place familiarity on presence. The study was carried out using a prototype Virtual Reality system designed for participatory urban planning. The system uses consumer grade VR hardware for viewing 3D virtual models of future architectural plans at an urban site. We co...

Modern urban space, technological infrastructure, and sociability combine into a hybrid space thatis the arena for urban pervasive games. Over the past two decades the changes in this game arenahave been stealthy although substantial. Technological developments have helped to achieve truemobility of gaming devices, increased precision in localizati...

We present an immersive VR interface for a public library where a mirror-world like virtual copy of the physical library is blended with imaginary virtual fantasy layers into a hybrid space for library content. The design of the system was guided by multi-stakeholder Participatory Design process involving library staff, library customers and resear...

This paper introduces an augmented reality application, AR PATIO, which was developed for an existing user involvement tool that is a part of a living lab. Augmented reality contents can be projected on-site to visualize change in a comprehensible and visual way. The aim of our application is to provide new methods for involving citizens in the inn...

Recent technological development offers new possibilities for taking into account peoples' personal wellness data in adjustment of environment conditions. For example, users' heartrate, facial expression, room temperature, and CO2 data could be used for adjustment of lighting, temperature, and air-condition to support people's wellbeing in smart en...

Background. It can be difficult to capture the subtleties of social behavior during gameplay by using existing commercial location-based mobile games as a research probe since they are not designed to reveal subtleties in player behavior. Aim. We sought to explore whether players spontaneously search for unknown fellow players and to identify ludic...

The telexistence technology can provide many kinds of benefits for the society. These include new ways of remote work, empowerment of handicapped and elderly people, and creation of new immersive and environmentally-friendly forms of tourism, travel, shopping, sports and leisure time activities. In this paper, we introduce AVATAREX, a telexistence...

We describe an interactive digital art application deployed at a university campus with the goal of investigating participants' initial experiences of bridging two realities through 3D artwork in a hybrid reality space. The underlying purpose of the installation is to bring liveliness and increased social interaction to both the virtual and the phy...

Abstract: Realistic 3D models of buildings exteriors and interiors are becoming available and have a great potential to be used also as game scenes. We sought out to explore the familiarity to the game scene in relation to the game experience. For this purpose we implemented a racing game prototype set on a realistic mirror world like campus model....

Most location based mobile games use some form of automated locationing, GPS or A-GPS. Some classic pervasive location based games explored the possibilities of self-reported locationing, but this approach has been somewhat abandoned. In this paper, we present a game concept and a prototype based on the idea of allowing the players fake, multiply a...

Abstract: Pervasive games take advantage of ubiquitous infrastructure of our urban environment. Their architecture can be complex. We have begun to develop a platform that makes it possible to create pervasive games from a simple location based mobile game to a complex pervasive live action role playing game. In this paper, we present the concept a...

Most location based mobile games use some form of automated locationing, GPS or A-GPS. Some classic pervasive location based games explored the possibilities of self-reported locationing, but this approach has been somewhat abandoned. In this paper, we present a game concept and a prototype based on the idea of allowing the players fake, multiply a...

Pervasive games take advantage of ubiquitous infrastructure of our urban environment. Their architecture can be complex. We have begun to develop a platform that makes it possible to create pervasive games from a simple location based mobile game to a complex pervasive live action role playing game. In this paper, we present the concept and current...

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies are quickly making their way into people's everyday lives. Typically, these technologies are used separately to create either plain VR or AR applications rather than harnessing the possibilities of combining the two. In this position paper, we introduce a novel concept of hybrid avatar th...

In this paper, we describe the creation of a photorealistic digital 3D representation of a real world city and its subsequent publication as an open and collaborative 3D virtual world on the web using an open source software platform. We present the guidelines and conventions used in the collaborative development process of the model. We report the...

In this paper we explore how a situated public display can be employed as a window into pseudo-immersive virtual game world. Our experimental construct is Campus Knights, a location based mixed reality game that is played by teams, using mobile phones inside several indoor arenas that have both physical and virtual representations. Each game round...

In this paper we introduce a game design that utilizes the synchronization and flow of the movement in contrast to the pace of movement (speed) utilized in many exertion games. We present Air Tandem, a bodily game that explorers synchronized limb movements to move a shared avatar from a start to a finish line on a projected route. The game is desig...

This paper introduces Props, a 3D-game-like system for mediating collaborative and improvisational storytelling. Props combines a virtual 3D stage and the surrounding physical world into a hybrid space for storytelling. Prop master sets the stage for a story that is narrated by a narrator by speaking or acting. The iterative and collaborative proce...

In recent years storytelling has gone through various attempts of renaissance, thanks to a recreational storytelling revivalist movement, which has not been largely successful. Pervasive gaming is an all-encompassing branch in gaming and has the potential to reach a large amount of people. Moreover, it provides a way to mix modern society with age-...

Lysyl hydroxylases (LH), which catalyze the post-translational modifications of lysines in collagen and collagen-like proteins, function as dimers. However, the amino acids responsible for dimerization and the role of dimer formation in the enzymatic activities of LH have not yet been identified. We have localized the region responsible for the dim...