Horror Game with Heart : a VR Game That Uses Heart Rate for Dynamic Adjustment

Ng, Kah Kang (2025) Horror Game with Heart : a VR Game That Uses Heart Rate for Dynamic Adjustment. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology.

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Abstract

The purpose of this project is to make use of human heart rate (HR) in video games to revolutionize the video game industry. This project aims to create a VR horror video game “Heart Haunt (HH)” that makes dynamic difficulty adjustment (DDA) algorithm API based on the player’s HR, creating a personalized gameplay for each player. HH retrieves the HR data from the Polar H10 HR monitor device, then feeds the data to fuzzy logic to determine the appropriate difficulty adjustments. To evaluate this project, 5 students were invited to participate as game testers. The participants wore the VR headset and Polar H10 to ensure they experienced the full functionality of the game. Upon completing the game, SUS questionnaire, Game Experience Questionnaire (GEQ), and some self designed questionnaire to understand how they feel about their HR used in the game. From the SUS result, it was found that participants felt the system was easy to use and functions were well integrated. However, they also felt they needed technical person support to use the system. On the GEQ result, all the 6 out of 7 components achieved a good score, especially the Positive Affect component. From the custom questionnaire, participants expressed that the Polar H10 was comfortable to use for the game and the HR displayed in the game UI significantly enhanced their gaming experience. To further improve HH, a new scene should be added to allow user to connect the game to the Polar H10 device without needing to do it in the game script. The HR should also be used to affect more game elements such as game environment to make the game more personalized. Hopefully this project will be able to initiate new video games to make use of player’s HR to create unique and balanced game experience.