Sofia Reis

• PhD in Computer Science
• Universidade NOVA de Lisboa

Therapies based on serious games are gaining a lot of interest by the healthcare community. The efficiency of this approach is demonstrated by several studies and many projects. This paper presents the project Super-Fon, which is focused on a serious game developed as a mobile application to support speech therapeutic intervention in the phonologic...

In this paper we present proposals for including real world elements in games taking into account the profile of casual players. Several real world elements can be utilized so that the fictional game world merges with reality. We focused on sound, video, physiological data, accelerometer data, weather and the player’s location. From our experience...

The mobile application Super-Fon is a serious game developed to support speech therapeutic intervention with children between three and eight years old, in the phonological development area. The game comprises a range of activities, divided by levels which represent different phases of a therapeutic intervention based on the Metaphon methodology. T...

Typically, in digital entertainment, the screen is the center of the player's attention. If the real world was part of the gameplay, the player would also pay attention to what is happening around her. That is the case of pervasive games. Our objective is to find ways of making pervasive play available for a large casual audience, but in a way that...

Recently, the use of mobile search among co-located groups to satisfy casual, shared information needs has grown in popularity. In this paper we describe a proof-of-concept research prototype, which is designed to enhance such social experiences by providing an easy means of interacting with and sharing mobile Web content among co-located groups. W...

This position paper presents our ongoing work for stimulating co-located social engagement among players with a game that resorts to face recognition and another game where players are accompanied in their daily lives by virtual projected imaginary friends. We suggest interaction between imaginary friends of different players that will work as a br...

In this paper the contribution of real time weather data to player enjoyment was tested and evaluated. To gauge the contribution of weather to player engagement an adaptronic, multiplayer, location based game, where real time weather data is key to the gameplay, was created. In this game the player assumes the role of a wizard and confronts other p...

The mobile search space has witnessed phenomenal growth in recent years. As a result there has been a growing body of research aimed at understanding why and how mobile users search the Web via their handsets and how their mobile search experiences could be improved. However, much of this work has focused on addressing the many challenges of the mo...

In this paper a strategy is presented for the dissemination of traditional stories via an interaction between the real world and the virtual world. In our game the player will not be isolated in front of the monitor and will have to call upon others to be successful. The game is a stimulus for players to discover a country’s history having legends...

Typically, in digital entertainment, the screen is the center of the player's attention. If the real world was part of the gameplay, the player would also pay attention to what is happening around her. That is the case of pervasive games. Our objective is to find ways of making pervasive play available for a large casual audience, but in a way that...

In this paper we present a metaphor of an Imaginary Friend that walks along with the user. Due to a special bond with the user, the Imaginary Friend can see the emotions that the human companion is feeling glowing around her. As the user moves around she leaves behind emotion cookies that the Imaginary Friend will collect and treasure. In order to...

In this paper we describe a game to assess if the quantitative and graphical perception of sound by students can influence how they behave in the classroom. The game captures sound and shows the sound wave or the frequency spectrum, integrated with an animated character, to students in real time. The quieter the students are the higher the score. A...

This article presents Weather Wizards, a game that uses real-time weather data as a way to engage players in the gameplay. As the game is influenced by the current weather the player’s attention will not only be focused on a screen but also on the environment around her. By just looking out the window and by feeling the temperature outside the play...

Casual and pervasive games are difficult to merge. It would be interesting to bring the advantages of pervasive play to the mass market to which casual games are designed for. In this article, a merge of pervasive and casual is proposed through the influence of real weather in the games. A framework that integrates a Weather Module, which retrieves...

This article presents a game that rewards children when they are quiet in the classroom. The game’s virtual character is only happy when the classroom is silent and rewards children by increasing their score in the game. Sound is captured through a microphone and the character can be shown to all the class using an interactive whiteboard or a vide...

Neste artigo apresenta-se um novo método que permite melhorar o caminho percorrido por um utilizador num modelo de volumetria, reduzindo ou eliminando os desvios desnecessários. Pretende-se que o resultado da aplicação deste método, mais concretamente numa visita guiada gerada automaticamente, torne a deslocação mais agradável. O caminho que const...

This thesis studies algorithms that allow the user to make a guided tour inside a volumetric model. During the guided tour, the user observes all the relevant parts of the model. The positions that allow the user to observe the relevant parts are automatically selected. It will be demonstrated, how to select these positions. After the positions hav...