Is Any Room Really OK? The Effect of Room Size and Furniture on Presence, Narrative Engagement, and Usability During a Space-Adaptive Augmented Reality Game

One of the main challenges in creating narrative-driven Augmented Reality (AR) content for Head Mounted Displays (HMDs) is to make them equally accessible and enjoyable in different types of indoor environments. However, little has been studied in regards to whether such content can indeed provide similar, if not the same, levels of experience across different spaces. To gain more understanding towards this issue, we examine the effect of room size and furniture on the player experience of Fragments, a space-adaptive, indoor AR crime-solving game created for the Microsoft HoloLens. The study compares factors of player experience in four types of spatial conditions: (1) Large Room - Fully Furnished; (2) Large Room - Scarcely Furnished; (3) Small Room - Fully Furnished; and (4) Small Room - Scarcely Furnished. Our results show that while large spaces facilitate a higher sense of presence and narrative engagement, fully-furnished rooms raise perceived workload. Based on our findings, we propose design suggestions that can support narrative-driven, space-adaptive indoor HMD-based AR content in delivering optimal experiences for various types of rooms.