Embodying non-human characters and exercising abdominal muscles are both underexplored in exergames. We address this by describing the design and evaluation of a novel human quadruped locomotion exergame. In the game, the player lies supine on the ground and moves their arms and legs to control a quadrupedal character (a tiger), similar to common bodyweight abdominal muscle exercises such as the Bicycle Crunch. The motion tracking is computer vision-based, utilizing a Kinect sensor placed above the player, which makes our approach suitable for commercial premises such as indoor activity parks where a system needs to run unattended and without any wearable components. Our system extends embodied interaction beyond traditional bipedal or controller-based systems, demonstrating how natural limb movements can generate responsive and immersive quadrupedal motion within virtual environments. We conducted a user study (N=15) to evaluate the system's intuitiveness, control, and overall player experience. The findings demonstrate the usability and potential of our system, highlighting its intense physical nature. Participants reported that gameplay immersion masked physical exertion, allowing them to perceive rigorous core training primarily as play.

翻译：在体感游戏中，对非人类角色的具身体验与腹部肌肉锻炼均属尚未充分探索的领域。为此，我们设计并评估了一款新颖的人类四足运动体感游戏。游戏中，玩家仰卧于地面，通过移动四肢来控制四足角色（老虎），其动作模式类似于自行车式卷腹等常见的自重腹肌训练。系统采用基于计算机视觉的动作捕捉技术，利用置于玩家上方的Kinect传感器实现追踪，这使得我们的方案适用于室内运动公园等商业场所——此类场景需要系统能够无人值守运行且无需任何可穿戴组件。我们的系统将具身交互的范畴拓展至传统双足或控制器驱动系统之外，展示了如何通过自然的肢体运动在虚拟环境中生成响应灵敏且沉浸感强的四足运动。我们开展了用户研究（N=15）以评估系统的直观性、操控性及整体玩家体验。研究结果证实了系统的可用性与潜力，并凸显了其高强度的身体活动特性。参与者反馈称游戏沉浸感有效掩盖了身体疲劳，使他们能够将高强度的核心训练主要感知为娱乐活动。