A strong wave of change has been affecting our daily lives, transforming habits for living and working. Our Active Game concept went through the same rapid transitional pivot. Out of the blue, we decided to build a version for any remote worker, mover, or learner to enjoy fun physical activities at home. We chose to develop something unknown by combining the expertise we had gathered in first pilots with an active game totem version in new children´s hospital, a care home, and GE Healthcare Finland. Our goal remained in developing new physical movements for computer vision AI-powered, endless runner Unity game with an additional feature of an unknown path to bring the game playable to laptops.
On the last meters of an unusual, intense 2-month development sprint, when an early release was already on the horizon, we were told that the game won´t run in a cloud. Feedback from major cloud companies was that the live camera feed needed for computer vision technology enabling a human to be a controller for the game, cannot be streamed up to the cloud. Luckily, we have very bright and talented developers in-house and in the extended team, and they for sure did not take NO as an answer. They got their heads together and hacked the game into the cloud, and then all phases of the beta were ready to roll out.
βῆτα, Beta, is the second letter of the Greek alphabet numerals with a value of 2. In technology development, it´s a phase to gain feedback from users, execute technical usability testing, and typically is the first time that the software is available outside of the organization. First, we did an internal challenge week to get ourselves going with an active #powerbreak here and there. Everyone in the team was playing at the home offices, making our daily exercises fun, empowering, and measurable. When the internal Rehaboo! challenge was almost over, on late Sunday our Katju hit the highest score winning that category with few precious points! Peter was awarded as the most active player and Noa won the lucky draw. This is the setup for our Challenge concept: in a defined time period, the highest score, a most active player, and lucky draw wins a price among all registered players. A little competition brings additional excitement and motivation into the active game experience.
Then it was time for the real beta, part 1; We invited 10 friends and colleagues from the gaming industry to test and play the early beta release with their fast GPU gaming laptops. Once we got the cloud GPU to do the calculations for the game, part 2 rolled out. About 50 beta testers from various backgrounds were invited to play the game on their own, standard laptops, using the integrated camera and AI calculations for motion sensing. And they played! Hundreds of active games were played during the Rehaboo! Beta Challenges. Overall 101,108 steps were taken and 25,731 stars were collected by running, squatting, surfing, jumping, and climbing as the gamified moves from the Physiotools movement bank. Last week, Active beta testing ended. All the winners will be announced on our Facebook page and the beta group. Thank you, all Active players!
Marjut Töyli, Lecturer in Vamia vocational studies institute was most active player in open beta. “The game is fun and captivating. Movement brings sweat to the skin quickly. I could have played for hours but ran out of fitness. So game is very good in raising fitness. Child as well as elderly can play the game easily. From view of physiotherapist, body got versatile movement improving motion control. Game exercises lower limbs, balancing, coordination and reaction capabilities. Best part is that heart and circulatory system is put to work. Easy, fun and efficient trainer!”
The key learning of beta testing was definitely the community and community management. It is important to activate the members, not only to test but to give constructive feedback. We have been getting a lot of applauds before, but now we really needed the pure honest feedback on the gaming experience. The canvas of game development is a form of digital art with a social interactive aspect so adjusting a tangible real-life feature takes a while. Though we are a small yet efficient team, sometimes seeing the issues within the game, i.e. gameplay, set up and look & feel becomes difficult. The only way forward is to listen to future recommendations and wishes, then deploy them to be tested again for further feedback.
Now, it´s time to start planning for the soft launch, which means the game is out for the play, for real! One step outside is on June 26th, when Rehaboo! Active launches as one of DISCOVER games in the INDIGO games business and showcase online event organized by Dutch Game Garden. The game will become playable in UTOMIK which is a monthly subscription platform like Netflix but for games. Also, the game can be purchased and downloaded from our brand new website rehaboo.com as #GaaS (Game as a Service)! Welcome to get your Active game 14 days free trial to you and your organization with a maximum of 50 installations. For, larger teams of players and collaboration, please contact us!
With active regards,
Kirsi, Peter, and team Rehaboo!
