Computer Game for Small Pets and Humans

Interactive media not only should enhance human-to-human communication, but also human-to-animal communication. We promote a new type of media interaction allowing human users to interact and play with their small pets (like hamsters) remotely via Internet through a mixed-reality-based game system "Metazoa Ludens". To examine the systems effectiveness: Firstly, the positive effects to the hamsters are established using Body Condition Score study. Secondly, the method of Duncan is used to assess the strength of preference of the hamsters towards Metazoa Ludens. Lastly, the effectiveness of this remote interaction, with respect to the human users as an interactive gaming system with their pet hamsters, is examined based on Csikszentmihalyi's Flow theory [1]. Results of these studies have shown positive remote interaction between human user and their pet friends. This paper provides specific experimental results on the implemented research system, and a framework for human-to-animal interactive media.