HeiAge

Start

HeiAgeVR: Risky Mobility Choices in Virtual Reality

Table of Contents

About

HeiAgeVR is an academic virtual reality game that focuses on mobility-related decisions in urban and nature contexts. It models everyday navigating as a sequence of binary risky choices. The game can be used by any research team to investigate risk behavior in the context of mobility. Costs and risk as well as starting ressources of the player can be freely adapted by any researcher. HeiAgeVR has been designed to work with the HTC Vive Pro VR-system.

Game dynamics

In the game, the player navigates four scenarios (two of them in an urban virtual environment, two of them in a natural virtual environment) within a given amount of time and energy ressources. Each scenario consists of a series of binary risky choices between a left and a right path. Both paths are characterized by the time and energy they would consume as well as by a risk parameter that increases required time and energy with a given probability (for example due to the risk of falling or having to wait for a green light). If the player does not manage to complete all choices without exceeding either time or energy ressources, they are "Game over" and continue with the next scenario. Time and energy ressources are restored at the beginning of each scenario. Both energy and time ressources as well as the individual path parameters as they are defined when first unpacking the zip-file are designed so that it becomes increasingly difficult to complete a scenario, requiring more and more successful risky choices to finish one's way without running out of time or energy.

Installation

To install the program, simply extract the provided zip-file. Before running the game, make sure that SteamVR (version >= 1.25.8) and Vive Super Reality SDK (version >= 1.3.6.11) are installed on your machine and that your HTC Vive Pro VR-system is set up and connected. To run the game, simply run HeiAge2.4.1.exe. Latest binaries can be obtained from our download page.

Usage

Start settings

After starting the application, you can start a run by clicking on 'Start' in the menu. The following settings will be available when starting a run:

  • starting choice in the urban environment (affects scenarios 1 and 2; allows the researcher to skip earlier choices)
  • starting choice in the nature environment (affects scenarios 3 and 4; allows the researcher to skip earlier choices)
  • you will be asked to enter a subject id, the participant's age, and their gender (if no data is recorded, these fields can remain empty; if data is recorded, at least a subject id must be provided)
  • 'Skip intro' allows you to skip the tutorial level that preceeds scenario 1
  • 'Record' allows you to choose whether choices will be recorded (if 'Record' is selected, data will be saved after the end of each scenario in the VR_Master subfolder)

Game controls

The game requires one HTC Vive controller. The trigger can be used for confirmations during the game. The left and right side of the track pad are used to select the left or right path. A first click preselects a path that can then be confirmed by reclicking the respective side of the track pad.

Customization

Overall game parameters

These are the parameters you can adapt within the 'Settings' menu in the game:

  • Lautstärke Instruktionen (volume of auditory descriptions)
  • Lautstärke Umgebung (volume of surrounding noise)
  • Verkehrsdichte (density of traffic) (CAUTION: for this setting to have an effect on the game dynamics, adjust the probabilies of failure in the path parameters accordingly, for example by increasing the probability of having to wait for traffic in the respective choices)
  • Mini HUD (enables the minimal version of the head-up display)
  • No Risk (hides risk in the Mini HUD)
  • No Risk Icon (hides the risk icon in the Mini HUD)
  • Show Map (shows a small window with a bird's eye perspective on the current choice)
  • Energy/Zeit Balken (shows remaining energy and time levels)
  • NoAudioDescriptions (disables audio descriptions)
  • Use Eyetracking (enables recording of eyetracking data; still experimental and only works with Mini HUD)
  • Entscheidungszeit (display current decision time)
  • HideHUD (fully hides the HUD)
  • Show Areas Of Interest (displays areas of interest for eyetracking feature; still experimental and only wirks with Mini HUD)
  • RGB values can be defined for the color that is shown during the movement
  • Audio Vorschau gives a preview of the audio files for scenario start and ending messages
  • Startwerte allows to define how many energy (voltage sign) and time (clock sign) are available for each scenario

Configurations are saved automatically. Via 'Load Config', a new file with paths to the audio files for scenario start and ending messages can be loaded. This is only necessary if you wish to use own audio descriptions (see also section on Audio descriptions).

Path parameters

Parameters for the different decisions including their auditory descriptions can be freely adapted in the csv-file '~./CSV/SzenarienFull_Version.csv'. Time, Energy, and Risk parameters for each path can also be adapted using the 'Scenarios' menu in the game. The 'Scenarios' menu also gives an overview of each binary choice which can be useful for determining suitable parameter sets. The parameters specified in the csv-file are the following:

  • Identifikator (trial id; should not be changed)
  • LeftText (brief description of the left path that is shown in the HUD if not using the Mini HUD)
  • LeftProbRisk (probability of negative event in the left path as a percentage)
  • LeftEnergy (energy consumption in left path if negative event does not occur)
  • LRiskEnergy (energy consumption in left path if negative event occurs)
  • LeftTime (time consumption in left path if negative event does not occur)
  • LRiskTime (time consumption in left path if negative event occurs)
  • LeftRiskText (text that is shown if negative event occurs)
  • LeftTTS (relative path to auditory description of the left path)

... [same parameters can be specified for the right path]

Audio descriptions

Auditory start and ending messages for each scenario can be changed by replacing the respective files in '~./CSV/audio' and/or by adapting the paths to the audio files in the csv-file '~./CSV/Config.csv'. Similarly, auditory descriptions for each path in the game can be changed by replacing the respective files in '~./CSV/audio' and/or by adapting the paths to the audio files in the csv-file '~./CSV/SzenarienFull_Version.csv'.

Team

Conceptualization: Maximilian Theisen, Alica Mertens, Joachim Funke, Alexander Schubert, Klaus Hauer Programming: Dominik Buchhalter

HeiAgeVR was developed as part of the Carl-Zeiss founded project "Assistenzsysteme und digitale Technologien zur Verbesserung der Mobilität im Alter" at Heidelberg University.