I. INTRODUCTION
The world of mobile technologies is in a constant and
growing popularity, becoming more ubiquitous everyday [5].
Mobile devices have increasingly demonstrated their usefulness
and applicability in a daily basis, to assist users in their
work, to be used in a familiar environment or to support forms
of entertainment.
The world of smartphones and tablets opens up new
interaction opportunities and with the evolution of the technology
there are emerging devices with high computational
capabilities. These devices are equipped with high-resolution
cameras and other resources such as GPS and accelerometer.
As a result, the interest in implementing augmented reality
applications [20] on mobile systems has increased significantly.
These systems, which integrate reality with virtual elements,
provide the user with an easy and safe interaction, without
prior knowledge of this technology. That happens because
the movements produced are natural, easy to learn and could
be as simple as moving a body part or an object. Even
so, there are still some limitations involving lighting issues,
interaction modalities, accurate alignment between real and
virtual components and the correct tracking of interesting
features in the real world.
Augmented reality can be useful in any application that
needs to display information not available or not directly
detectable by the human senses. Therefore, by becoming
visible, it is possible to increase the sense of realism and
immersion of this technology. It is also common to see people
using their tablets to take pictures and to play games, in various
situations, on the street, on the bus and at home. Therefore,
we propose a game where real elements of the scenario can be
used as a form of entertainment. A game where the presence
of other people in the neighborhood have a relevant role.
Accordingly to these principles, the proposed solution aims
to study and develop mobile augmented reality applications,
specifically for tablets. Considering that augmented reality
also has the ability to improve user gaming experience, the
intention is to explore interaction possibilities of augmented
reality applications by developing a game for tablet devices.
This game incorporates a detection and facial recognition
system, which will enhance the user experience by improving
the interaction of players with the real world. Integrating the
augmented reality technology and real-time face recognition
methods, opens up new possibilities for interaction not only
for entertainment purposes but also in other areas, such as
learning, simulation and planning. The game presented in this
paper is not restricted to the usage of markers or head mounted
displays, like the Oculus Rift [1] . Our work uses the personal
device of the users, does not have environmental restrictions
and can be explored in other areas of augmented reality.
This paper is organized as follows. The next section
summarizes the related work. After that, it is explained the
game concept, the main design issues and the relevant challenges
addressed during the development of the game. The
following section presents the results obtained with several
tests conducted to evaluate the system and the usability of
the ARZombie game. Finally, the conclusions are presented,
followed by guidelines for future improvements.