Frutopia: A Hybrid Tangible Serious Game for Multisensory Interaction and Tactile Exploration

Abstract

Serious games have demonstrated significant potential for supporting learning, cognitive stimulation, and skill development. However, most existing solutions rely predominantly on visual and auditory interaction, while the integration of real tactile experiences remains limited despite their potential to support richer multisensory interaction. Frutopia is a hybrid tangible serious game designed to integrate physical interaction with digital gameplay in order to support tangible interaction and tactile exploration. The game was developed following a structured process that combines the iPlus methodology for educational game design with the Scrum agile framework, enabling the systematic definition, implementation, and refinement of gameplay mechanics, tangible interaction, and usability-oriented features. The resulting system incorporates tangible user interaction through conductive physical objects with different textures connected via a Makey Makey interface, enabling players to control in-game actions through real tactile exploration. The game features progressive maze-based challenges inspired by Ecuadorian cultural environments and representative fruits from Ecuadorian regions, integrating multisensory feedback, gamification techniques, and embodied interaction principles to foster engagement and sensory exploration. The system was implemented using the Godot Engine and evaluated through functionality and usability assessments. Functional validation achieved a success rate of 94.74% across the defined test cases, demonstrating the technical stability of the proposed solution. Additionally, a usability evaluation involving 50 participants was conducted using the Serious Games Usability Evaluation Instrument (SGUEI). The assessment produced a final rating of 90.37%, reflecting favorable perceptions of the interaction quality and overall user experience. The results demonstrate the feasibility of integrating tangible interaction and multisensory feedback within serious game environments and suggest that hybrid tangible interfaces can enrich user engagement and interaction quality. This work contributes to the design and development of hybrid tangible serious games by presenting a structured development workflow and providing preliminary evidence of the technical feasibility and usability of tangible interaction in serious game environments. The proposed system establishes a foundation for future studies involving the intended target population and the evaluation of educational and cognitive outcomes.