The Quest for the Perfect ExerGame

The taxi driver who took me to the airport this morning was remarking about how my neighborhood had changed since he grew up there as a kid. He began to reminisce about how he was inseparable from his bicycle and how he and his mates rode all over the country side in one big rolling adventure.

Such freedom and apparent invincibility from perils (or simply the ability to pick yourself up and brush yourself down) where a feature of my childhood in the north of Scotland. Interestingly, the taxi driver remarked that he was aware at the time (several decades ago), that when mixing with boys from the city they had a markedly lower level of fitness and all round physical ability.

The conversation continued and we found much common ground on the question as to why children these days have a greater need to be entertained rather than create their own playful amusement. Perhaps there always have been dangers, it is just that now as a whole society is more aware of them?

It got me thinking as to what where the key elements at play and I began to focus on a sense of adventure and of having confidence in one’s abilities. I then began to think about how exploration and the development of ones skills and abilities is very much a feature of many video games. Perhaps there is a way that ExerGames could be developed that would make this form of exploration, adventure and skill development more transferable to real life?