Peta Wyeth, Daniel Johnson and Jenny Ziviani

Abstract:
The research described in this paper examines the extent to which very young children were able to use the Stomp platform (a floorbased gaming system designed to provide new, active participatory experiences) to engage in game play. We are interested in how children’s engagement in different activities within the game world influences their motivation to play games. We map activity to motivational needs of competence, autonomy and relatedness. A detailed examination of two Stomp experiences demonstrates how this type of analysis is useful in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the games for this audience.