Signal-Driven Pervasive Game Design: The LifeSync-Games Framework as a Player Experience Integration Layer

Abstract

Pervasive games extend the magic circle across spatial, temporal, and social dimensions, yet treat the player's physiological and cognitive state as a passive receptor rather than an active signal. This paper presents LifeSync-Games (LSG), a framework that (unlike proposals treating player signals as an additional dimension), operationalizes them as a Player Experience Integration Layer (PEIL) acting transversally across the three existing pervasive dimensions through verified real-world signals: physical activity, sleep quality, memory, and decision speed. The framework introduces a gamified integration artifact (the LSG portal) that mediates the real <-> virtual exchange through redeemable points, real-world missions, and structural gamification. Five HCI design principles grounded in Self-Determination Theory and Flow Theory are proposed, instantiated across six commercial video games, together with a study protocol (n = 70-80 participants, quasi-experimental design). This paper reports the design stage of LSG: rule thresholds and portal parameters are design decisions pending empirical calibration; no data collection has yet been conducted. The main contribution is a theoretically grounded framework and validation protocol positioning player-sensitive integration as the mechanism enabling pervasive games to respond to the player's actual biological and cognitive state.