The next frontier for video games could be internal organs. Players of the Guts Game must fight off a virtual parasite by causing changes to their gut, as measured by an ingested sensor.
Small sensors such as those used in FitBits have already gamified exercise, so Zhuying Li and Floyd Mueller at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia wanted to explore what type of games might be possible with ingestible sensors.聽 These pills can capture video, or detect chemicals, temperature, pH or pressure.
The Guts Game is for two players. Once the pill is swallowed, the players must change their gut temperature at certain times over the next 24 to 36 hours to kill a virtual parasite. The players do this聽by consuming hot or cold drinks and meals, spicy meals that make them sweat, and exercising hard, while the sensor beams temperature data to a Gut Game app on their smartphones. The winner is the person who gets closest to a target temperature at the right times most often.
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Unlike some games, there鈥檚 no dispute over the timing of the final whistle: 鈥淭he game ends when one of the players excretes the sensor,鈥� says Li.
Seven pairs of players tried the guts game and reactions were mixed. Some felt trepidation at swallowing the device. Others thought they learned about their bodies, particularly how food and drink could easily change the temperature of the sensor when it is in the stomach, but after it entered the intestine it was mainly exercise that could affect it.
The team presented the game at a and say there was no risk to players as the temperature changes are small.
In addition to creating a new form of gaming, Mueller hopes聽that by gamifying pill taking they could learn tactics that help people better adhere to their medical prescriptions 鈥� as around half of patients do not stick to them.
