Exploring the Usability of Video Game Heuristics for Pervasive Game Development in Smart Home Environments

Over the last years, a variety of pervasive games was developed. Although some of these applications were quite successful in bringing digital games back to the real world, very little is known about their successful integration into smart environments. When developing video games, developers can make use of a broad variety of heuristics. Using these heuristics to guide the development process of applications for intelligent environments could significantly increase their functional quality. This paper addresses the question, whether existing heuristics can be used by pervasive game developers, or if specific design guidelines for smart home environments are required. In order to give an answer, the transferability of video game heuristics was evaluated in a two-step process. In a first step, a set of validated heuristics was analyzed to identify platform-dependent elements. In a second step, the transferability of those elements was assessed in a focus group study.