From interactive surfaces to interactive game pieces in hybrid board games

Recent advances in interactive surfaces and Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) have created new opportunities for hybrid board games that aim at mixing the social affordances of traditional board games with the interactivity of video games. Within this area of research, we propose an approach centered on the concepts of tokens, constraints, spatial expressions, and interaction events. Rather than using interactive surfaces as the primary interaction medium, our approach relies on physical manipulation of interactive, computer-augmented game pieces on conventional surfaces. The design of our approach has been informed by a literature review that took into account 27 hybrid board games from both academia and industry. This review allowed us to identify technology strands used to implement interactive board games and discuss the pros and cons of the different alternatives in the design space. After describing our approach, we report how it was applied to the design and development of a game for training emergency workers. Building on feedback from user evaluations and our experience with the development, we outline design opportunities and challenges of the approach.