UKKO: Enriching persuasive location based games with environmental sensor data

Abstract

The number of children walking to school is at an all-time low and car use on the rise. The walk to school is seen as an opportunity to promote exercise and tackle the effects of an increasingly sedentary lifestyle amongst young people. At the same time we have a growing understanding of the harmful effects of air pollution on our health. Walking to school would not only make for healthier kids, it would reduce traffic and create a healthier, safer environment but we still drive our kids to school. This paper describes the initial design and development of UKKO, a novel persuasive game to encourage walking to school and engagement with local data. UKKO uses real time environmental data captured by the player to create a virtual environment for a digital pet. The more the student walks and avoids areas of high pollution the more healthy their pet.