(A) proposal of gesture-based input method for VR rhythm game

Abstract

Unlike non-VR rhythm games, activation of input was determined by spatial condition in most of existing virtual reality (VR) based rhythm games. This study suggests a new input method that separates spatial condition and activation of input which can be performed individually, like as moving mouse cursor and input activation (click) can be performed individually in personal computer, to compare it with spatial collision based input. To do so, this study proposes an input method which considers gesture of strike-and-bounce-back as ‘click’. The purpose of this study is to find out difference between spatial collision based input method that movement toward the target and click is integrated and gesture-based input method that movement toward the target and click is separated in terms of perceived usability, user experience, and performance as rhythm game. For the experiment, we designed and developed a VR based rhythm game prototype. 28 participants (5 female, 22 male, 1 prefer not to say, M = 22.79, SD = 2.60) participated this experiment. As result of experiment, it was found out that input method with spatial condition and activation integrated that has existed before was superior than that of separated, newly proposed, in terms of perceived usability and rhythm experience. However, except a specific speed condition, there was no significant difference between rhythm game performance. This emphasizes that perceived usability can be differed regardless of player performance.