Exergames and Serious Games Development: Theory and Practice

SENZA Riconoscimento ECM

Quando

Lunedì 14/09/26 (orario: 10:00/12:00)

Martedì 15/09/26 (orario: 10:00/12:00)

Mercoledì 16/09/26 (orario: 10:00/12:00)

Giovedì 17/09/26 (orario: 10:00/12:00)

Venerdì 18/09/26 (orario: 10:00/12:00)

Docente

Manuela Chessa

Università degli Studi di Genova

Manuela Chessa

È laureata in Bioingegneria presso l'Università di Genova, dove ha conseguito anche il dottorato di ricerca in Bioingegneria nel 2009. Dopo un periodo di ricerca come post-doc presso il Dipartimento di Informatica, Bioingegneria, Robotica e Ingegneria dei Sistemi (DIBRIS), è entrata nel ruolo accademico dello stesso ateneo, dove è attualmente Professoressa Associata di Informatica. Coordina le attività di ricerca del Perception & Interaction Lab (PILab), occupandosi dello studio dei sistemi di visione biologica e artificiale, delle interfacce uomo-macchina naturali e delle tecnologie di realtà virtuale, aumentata ed estesa. La sua attività scientifica si concentra sugli aspetti percettivi e cognitivi dell'interazione in ambienti immersivi, sull'impiego di sensori e dispositivi di visualizzazione avanzati e sullo sviluppo di modelli bioispirati per l'interazione uomo-tecnologia. È autrice di oltre 100 pubblicazioni scientifiche su riviste e conferenze internazionali e ha partecipato a numerosi progetti di ricerca nazionali e internazionali. Svolge attività di coordinamento nelle principali conferenze internazionali di Realtà Virtuale ed Estesa, con particolare attenzione all'applicazione di tali tecnologie in ambito healthcare. Svolge inoltre attività didattica in corsi di Informatica, Interazione uomo-macchina e Realtà aumentata presso l'Università di Genova.

Abstract

This course introduces the design and development of exergames and serious games for healthcare applications, with a focus on cognitive and physical rehabilitation. Students will explore both the theoretical foundations and the practical tools needed to build interactive experiences using immersive and non-immersive Extended Reality (XR) technologies. The course begins with a survey of the current landscape of XR, VR, and AR solutions in healthcare, examining different visualization modalities, from fully immersive head-mounted displays to non-immersive screen-based systems, and interaction paradigms, from wearable motion capture to markerless body tracking. A core focus is placed on the perceptual and cognitive aspects of XR interaction, equipping students with the knowledge to design experiences that are both effective and comfortable for diverse user populations, including patients and elderly users. Students will learn to define and formalize requirements specific to serious games and exergames, balancing therapeutic goals with engagement and usability. The course then covers the hardware and software ecosystem underpinning modern XR development, including real-time rendering engines, user tracking systems, and the integration of robotic platforms with XR environments. Special attention is given to practical software development techniques, with hands-on sessions guiding students through the full pipeline of building a functional serious game or exergame prototype.

A chi è rivolto il corso?

Corso a livello dottorale (si prevede test di valutazione finale); corso di alta formazione (post laurea, professionalizzante).

Durata

10 ore

Lingua

Inglese

Numero minimo e massimo di partecipanti

Info costi e programma

Costo: 100 euro

Scarica qui il programma.

Foundations of XR for Healthcare (2h) -Monday 14^th Sept. 10-12
Objective: situate exergames/serious games in the XR landscape and understand how different visualization techniques and perceptual aspects affect user experience (and implications for patients and caregivers)

Course intro, motivation, and the role of serious games & exergames in cognitive/physical rehabilitation

The Reality–Virtuality Continuum (Milgram & Kishino): AR, AV, MR, VR, XR

Immersive vs non-immersive systems: HMDs, CAVE, projection, screen-based setups: trade-offs for clinical use

How HMDs work: optics, displays, FoV, refresh rate, DoF tracking

Perceptual & cognitive factors: presence, cybersickness, vergence–accommodation conflict

Exergames, Requirements & Interaction (2h) - Tuesday 15^th Sept. 10-12
Objective: understand what makes exergames distinct and how to formalize requirements that balance therapy with engagement, analysis of standard and personalized interaction techniques

Specificity of exergames vs entertainment games: flow, difficulty adaptation, motivation

Defining and formalizing requirements: functional/non-functional, clinical constraints, target populations

Interaction modalities: controllers, hand/gesture tracking, voice, haptics, wearables for interaction and sensing (IMUs, EMG, sensorized devices)

Integration with robotics

Short design exercise / discussion /examples

User Tracking and Representation (Avatars) (2h) - Wednesday 16^th Sept. 10-12
Objective: capture human movement and represent the user's body in the virtual scene.

Overview of human-subject tracking approaches: camera-based and markerless tracking, RGB-D, 2D/3D pose estimation, wearable/inertial mocap and marker-based systems

Inverse kinematics: reconstructing full-body pose from sparse inputs

Avatars: embodiment, realism, and the uncanny valley

Rigging, skinning, animation, and retargeting; avatar pipelines/SDKs

Examples

Game Engines and Application Architecture (2h) - Thursday 17^th Sept. 10-12
Objective: understand the engine ecosystem and how a data-logging exergame is structured.

XR hardware/software ecosystem; real-time engines (Unity, Unreal, Godot, WebXR/PlayCanvas)

Anatomy of a game: game loop, scene graph, entity–component model, assets

Scripting & event handling; state machines

Data logging for rehabilitation: metrics, telemetry, session data, outcome measures, privacy

Bridge to the practical: PlayCanvas project setup

Hands-on: Building an Exergame Prototype in PlayCanvas (2h) - Friday 18^th Sept. 10-12
Objective: build a functional prototype end-to-end.

Editor tour: entities, components, assets, hierarchy

Building the scene: environment and interactive/target objects

Scripting interaction: input, movement, collision, scoring

Adding an exergame mechanic (e.g., a reach/aim task) with difficulty adaptation

Logging performance data and exporting results